We were really happy with how the piece was put together. It was a really positive story about Ashlea and there was some great footage of the girls - they all looked GORGEOUS (no bias of course). It would have been very easy to do a 'pity piece' that focused on all the difficulties Ashlea faces, but instead it focused on all her achievements in the last 3 years. We have had lots of positive feedback about it which is nice. We even got recognised by a few strangers - 5th graders mainly - at school orientation yesterday!
Life returned to normal today with a visit to the physio. We tried out standing frames and have decided to apply for funding to get one - we are getting a fairly basic one (much cheaper) that forces Ashlea to do more of the work herself rather than a fancy one that does a lot of the work for her. While discussing the standing frame I got rather excited about the idea of also getting an adjustable table for her to use at home. I then thought it would also be nice to get an adjustable chair as well. If we had a table that was the right height for her equipment then she could either stand or sit at the table with the other children. At the moment Emma and Audrey sit at their IKEA table all the time but Ashlea doesn't have an appropriate chair - she uses a little wooden chair that is too low for the table. I like the idea of them all being at the one table.
The standing frame is called the Dynamic Standing Frame - it is quite affordable (as far as equipment goes) at around $800ish.
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As you can see it is pretty basic - but the whole point is to make Ashlea do more work when standing up. Also it isn't huge - I am sick of huge pieces of equipment taking over my house. The good news is that the preschool may be prepared to buy one for themselves so Ashlea can use it while there - and so that I don't have to lug this to preschool - along with the walker and the wheelchair.
In the same catalogue I saw these adjustable tables.
We're still thinking about what sort of chair would work best. The chair we are getting for preschool (CAP Adjustable Chair) would be good although it may not be high enough. Hopefully with a bit of padding we could build it up so we wouldn't need to adjust the table height every time we changed from walker to stander.
If anyone has a better idea for a chair and table let me know. It needs to be able to be used with the stander as well - the table will become the children's main play table and Ashlea will be able to access it easily - I am really excited about this and hopefully we will be able to get funding through Variety club for all 3 pieces of equipment.
