Growing up so fast

It's hard to believe Jordan turns five at the end of December! It's also hard to believe the number of incredible experiences she got to enjoy this year. We found many chances to meet our limb different friends. Meetups included trips to the pool in Illinois, a park in St. Louis and even a birthday party. That doesn't even include another great time at Camp No Limits.

Jordan is in her final year of preschool! She's reading some words by sight! She loves to listen to books and draw picures. But she really loves spending time with her friends. To call Jordan a social butterfly is an understatement. She is SO interested in talking and being in charge. Kindergarten will be very interesting when she starts next year in the Fall. Jordan's teacher says they are spending time working on listening skills because Jordan is so good at talking.

Jordan started playing soccer this year and will move from the skills class and into a competitive team in January 2011. She is in her third year of dance. This is her first year with a combination of ballet and tap. Jordan also had a chance to take part in two different equestrian therapy sessions. She loves riding her favorite horse, Thunder. This year, she started trying all of her activities with her different helper arms. It's really cool to watch Jordan use the reigns with two "hands" when she rides a horse. These new abilities were all due to the fact that Jordan was able to get a grant to help us fund a new helper arm.

This summer, Jordan brought her mom and brother to Chicago to work with her favorite Mr. David (also known as David Rotter at Scheck and Siress) to come up with ways to meet her prosthetic needs. They built her first with a bendable elbow and it gives her SO many more things she can do. She also get a new activity arm that helps her with sports, hanging on the monkey bars and swimming. We tell people that she has three arms (she still uses last year's arm to ride her bike) and five different hands (her open and close hook hand, a hook for monkey bars, a swimming paddle, a flexible little hand that helps hold onto soccer balls and a bike hand). You can see Jordan explain how her new elbow arm works below. It was shot just as we wrapped up the building process:

We continue to tell stories about Jordan's growth and connect with limb difference communities around the world on Jordan's blog, Born Just Right. You can also visit the blog's Facebook page.