Ride 'em, Horse Girl!

On Saturday, Lea napped in the car with me while Hallie went off with Sharon to ride Sir G (whose real name is Sir Gawain; he's a Gypsy horse and, apparently, he doesn't really like any of his other riders but adores Hallie). Part way through Hallie's session, Lea woke up. I took her out of her carseat and let her run around in front of ARCH. Anders, pictured above, who is a very sturdy Fjord, was enjoying his lunch. Lea, of course, noticed him and screeched, "HORSIE!". I brought her over to see him and Jen, the volunteer who was hanging out with him, said that Lea could pet him. Lea pet him, and kissed him, and pet him some more. Then Jen let me put Lea on his back, which thrilled her to pieces. I ran and got Sharon and had her hold Lea while I took a few pictures.

So, even though Lea is too young to ride in ARCH's sibling program (she has to be seven to do this), she at least got to sit astride someone other than me or poor Zen.

On a related note, Lea's language is really exploding. She says five or ten new words a day and is asking for things by their name when she knows it/when she's not too frustrated to do something other than scream/whine. And she's beginning to put two words together, too. On Friday she said to me "Bubbles! My turn!" when I was blowing bubbles for her (which, as it was for Hallie, is a favorite pastime of Lea's). And on Saturday, when we were headed off to ARCH for Hallie's session, she said to Grammy (at whose place we were staying in order to avoid Saturday morning shore traffic), "Bye Bye Grammy!" How cute! It is really fascinating to me to watch a typically-developing child's language develop.

Sisterly Love!

Saturday, on the way down to ARCH for therapeutic riding, Hallie grabbed hold of Lea's hand and held it. And kept holding it.

I hope that Hallie remembers how much she loves Lea the next time Lea grabs her stuff or gets in her way!

On a related note, apparently the horse whom Hallie rides weekly (Sir G.) has a special relationship with Hallie. He is extra gentle and responsive with her (and she is with him...apparently she has a very good 'body sense' of when to shift her weight, when to lift her body to signal him that it's time to trot, etc). Here are a few recent pictures from hippotherapy:






And while Hallie was riding, Lea was playing "nosey" with the horsies:

I Ride REAL Horsie!

After we returned home last weekend from our fun-filled Saturday, Hallie announced to Sharon, "I ride REAL Horsie!" Clearly she was distinguishing this experience at the Ocean City carousel from her experience, earlier that day, of riding Cocoa at Atlantic Riding Center for the Handicapped.

We were finally able to get some decent shots of Hallie astride Cocoa, thanks to her cousin Megan, who volunteers at ARCH and who was around on a day when she was not needed as a sidewalker or leader. In this shot, Hallie is doing some occupational therapy moves on her pony. This involves reaching for objects and placing them onto cones so that she crosses midline and better integrates both sides of her body; adjusting her center of gravity and turning so that she improves core strength and balance; and using her voice to issue commands or communicate with her therapist.

In the next couple of shots, Hallie is riding backwards on Cocoa and having a blast.

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Hallie especially enjoys trotting on Cocoa since she has a fondness for speed. Sadly, it's hard to get still shots of this but we'll try to take a video of Hallie trotting at some point in the future.

Anyway, while riding Cocoa seems like (and is) fun for Hallie, it's also pretty serious work that is paying off in very tangible ways. At the beginning of the summer, Hallie could not climb up and down stairs without resorting to crawling or creeping. Now she needs only a little bit of support from us when doing this, as long as there is a banister or railing upon which she can grasp. Just a couple of months ago, Hallie found it very tiring to climb up playground structures and tended to shy away from doing this too often; on Friday, when I took her and Lea to a local playground after preschool, Hallie climbed up a smaller slide on her own (I used to have to help her a lot when she wanted to do this); ascended the ladder to the large slide entirely on her own at least fifteen times; and even dared to climb up one of those corkscrew like structures to the big slide. She did not need my assistance at all and, for once, I felt like I might no longer have to hover over or near her for fear that she would not be able to accomplish a physical task or, worse yet, lose her footing and tumble to the ground.

Riding Cocoa has also increased her self-confidence and her vocal quality. She is issuing commands to him and interacting with her therapists using her 'big girl voice' more frequently and she is always proud of what she is accomplishing.

In a word, this was one of the best things we ever did for Hallie. Some people we've spoken with about this think that hippotherapy merely amounts to glorified riding lessons for a somewhat spoiled child. This couldn't be further from the truth. We are so grateful that the many volunteers who work at and donors who contribute to ARCH have made this possible.

Parents only pay a small part of the costs needed for the upkeep of ARCH's horses and stables. I think there are a total of four paid staff members who work there (Megan can probably correct me if I am wrong on this number). The cost of providing hippotherapy to one rider each month amounts to $270 dollars and parents only contribute $135 dollars of this fee. ARCH is committed to trying to keep these costs down because the people who run it know that parents of special needs children already spend a lot of money on the various therapies and treatments and devices that their children need. Insurance doesn't cover the cost of hippotherapy at ARCH and, charging parents full price would put it out of the reach of many.

That's part of why I am writing this post. ARCH is having a gala fundraising event at the end of September and, hopefully (if we can find childcare), Sharon and I will be attending. We'd love it if others in the area might consider coming along with us, but even if you can't (or you live way too far away), please consider supporting ARCH. Even small amounts of money will go a long way to helping kids like Hallie make the kind of strides she is making. Just click on this link and following the prompts to find out how you can help.

"I Riding Horsie...Neigh...Neigh!!"

It was perhaps a fortuitous coincidence, but this spring, Megan, one of Hallie and Lea's two older cousins, decided to volunteer at the Atlantic Riding Center for the Handicapped (ARCH), which is located not far from Aunt Laura and Uncle Bryan's house in Northfield, NJ. She is in love with the place and has logged tons of volunteer hours there and has gotten to know the horses, trainers, and therapists really well.

About the same time, we decided that it would be a good idea to start Hallie in Hippotherapy. We've read great things about how much it helps children (and grown ups) with all sorts of physical, cognitive and neurological challenges. Learning to ride, and performing therapy while riding, not only assists in core strength and balance, but also in executive motor planning (you learn to guide your horse and command him or her to go, stop, etc), communication (you must use language and/or gesture/body language to communicate messages to the horse and in the process, you learn that language isn't just for labeling but for getting a message across to someone or something), empathy (caring for your horse teaches you this), sensory integration (you need to use all of your senses, work on bilateral use of limbs and cross the midline a lot), and the like. For more on some of the benefits, see this brief description of hippotherapy. And, while it might sound as if it's an exercise in riding hippopotami, indeed, it's all about riding horses, as "hippos" is the Greek word for horse.

Part of the reason the idea was oh-so-appealing is that Sharon loves horses to such an extent that, when she was in high school, she bought one for herself. She had asked her parents to buy her one, and like most sensible parents in most places and times, they responded with a big, fat "no." So Sharon worked extra hours, saved money, and bought a friend's horse when it turned out that her friend could no longer keep her. Sharon loved Candy, her horse, and worked in the barn at fairly menial tasks before and after school to earn its board and would lug (with the help of her dad) food and hay and such to Candy's stall. She even slept alongside Candy in her stall more than once. While she never took riding lessons, teaching our kids to ride has always been a priority for her (and consequently for me, even though I am from Brooklyn where we had very few horses and approximately zero horse farms). So, even though we never imagined that we'd be seeking out precisely this experience for one of our kids, we decided to ride with it, so to speak.

Two weeks ago, Hallie went down to ARCH for her evaluation. We were lucky to secure a much-coveted Saturday spot at a decent hour (12:15) that will allow us to get Hallie fed (no mean feat, as anyone who reads this blog knows by now) and off to the ring. During the summertime, at the very least, we'll try to go down on Friday nights each week so that Hallie and Lea can spend time with their cousins, aunt and uncle, and Grammy. This is also a pretty convenient way of avoiding shore traffic.

Hallie took to riding Cocoa, the pony upon whom they started her, like a pro.

While she spoke very little and her voice was even quieter than usual (this tends to be the case whenever she is in public and outside of her comfort zone), she nevertheless learned quite fast how to use the basic commands ("walk on" for "go" and "ho!" for "stop") and held her reins really nicely. She also named the colors of her reins, called out the letters on the cones which held posts from and to which she was asked to transfer rings, and the like. Her posture was great and she especially loved it when she got to trot Cocoa. She also really enjoyed nuzzling Cocoa at the end of the assessment and leaning in to give him a hug. To the extent that she talks (which is not much), she talked about the experience for the next week ("I riding horsie") and called her pony by name and was clearly thrilled to see Cocoa last Saturday when we returned for her first real session.

Her therapist, Betty, thought that Hallie did so well that she upgraded the reins to more challenging ones. Megan says that Betty thinks that Hallie is already quite a bit better than many of the children who have been riding for a while and it makes us happy to hear this (not that we are competitive; it's more that she seems to have a certain degree of natural athletic ability and certainly athletic drive, which makes us happy). Riding Cocoa (and the horses to whom she will graduate as she gets bigger) will be really good for Hallie's self esteem. For a kid who is socially anxious and aware of her differences from other children already, this is a good thing.

The few pictures we have of the assessment and session are pretty crappy because the light was awkward (she used the indoor ring but it was open to the outside and hence we had the worst of all possible filming conditions). On top of this, we were pretty far away from her and our camera isn't equipped with a telephoto lens. But we'll try to give Megan a camera to take some shots next time so that the blogosphere can see how good Hallie looks astride a horse.