Ora Crawls/Walks, David Melts Away, Frum Kids and Therapy

It's amazing. Just a month ago Ora was barely crawling, now she's crawling all over the place. I don't think it will be long before she's walking. She's always loved to be put into a standing position--she would stiffen up and not let us sit her down--and she is starting to pull herself up. Just two days ago I was doing homework with David at the table--talk about pulling teeth (usually Kineret takes care of this)--and when I looked down, there she was standing and hanging onto the leg of my chair for dear life.

Ora is also still babbling a ton and whistles a bit. Kineret said she shakes her head no, but I haven't seen this. She also looks up at the light when asked in Russian, "where is the lamp?"

Although she looks so big and grown up to me now, she is actually at the very bottom of the weight chart. But on the other hand she is tall. (David, in contrast, was in the 90th+ percentile for weight and height.) We were a little concerned, but her pediatrician said it is ok and anyway she'll be tall and thin like a model. Considering the stereotypical anorexic model, he wasn't very comforting. I also wonder if there is some sexism involved, whereby he is more willing to overlook underweight girls.

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The most difficult adjustment by far--for all of us--in terms of David's public school has been the schedule. He has a lot of homework as well as Talmud Torah two evenings a week and Sunday mornings. We've had to pull him from judo and cancel his physical therapy. I really hope he is getting enough exercise because he can still use a lot help in terms of coordination, proprioception, muscle tone, etc.

Kineret believes that some of his problems are because he didn't get enough "tummy time" and because he was a late crawler. So while everyone is commenting that Ora will soon be walking, I wouldn't mind if she keeps on crawling for a while and builds up her upper body strength.

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We know a lot of frum kids who get physical and/or occupational therapy. I sometimes wonder if many of our kids really have underlying problems that necessitate such therapy or if their problems simply stem from a lack of exercise and activity owing to the busy yeshivah schedule, frum disdain for sports, etc. It also doesn't help that these frum kids live in heavily built-up urban areas and I also wonder if in general there is a difference in therapy rates between urban and rural kids. (With suburban kids somewhere in the middle?) Of course a confounding factor in such a study would be the drastic difference between urban and rural areas in terms of access to such services.

Have a good shabbos.