Ada: Age 6

I don't have any journal entries from Ada's 7th year that pertain to her Beals Syndrome, but I can tell you that over the past year Ada has continued to develop her gross motor skills.  She can now make it about halfway across the monkey bars at the playground (about 3, maybe 4 rungs) which is new for her.  She still isn't as coordinated as her peers, but she can participate in any activity.

In the spring I took her to a gymnastics place as part of a field trip and she got to participate in all sorts of activities, including some tae kwon do.  She wasn't able to leap into a jump from a run, but rather had to stop, collect herself and then jump.  She struggled a bit with a forward roll, but did manage to do it.  She had an absolute blast though!  She learned how to pump a swing all by herself and swings as high as the swingset can go now.  She still hasn't learned how to ride her bike without training wheels, but she's very motivated to learn so we're hoping maybe later this summer she will.

Her fine motor skills are doing well.  She can tie her own shoes and writes with beautiful handwriting (even in cursive).  She loves to draw and draws sketches nearly every single day of all sorts of things.  We think she's quite good for her age.

She's in great health.  She weighs about 41 pounds and is about 49.5" tall.  Finding shoes to fit her feet is one of our greatest challenges.  Well, at least sandals and dress shoes.  She fits a Nike tennis shoe very well since they tend to run a bit narrow and Ada has incredibly narrow feet. Her feet are very long though.  She has flat feet and tiny, thin ankles.  But, despite that, her feet doesn't cause her any pain and she runs quite fast.  She does get callouses on the tops of her toes though because she still curls her toes a bit inside her shoes.