Hannah received her adaptive stroller yesterday! We're so grateful for this piece of equipment, which will make things easier for all of us. We've been using a small stroller when we go to her medical appointments, and she's quickly outgrowing it. Plus, it never really suited her as she could never sit comfortably in it. And getting her in and out was a pain. We will still utilize our double stroller when traveling with both girls. But this will be a big help on so many occasions.

Hannah is small enough that we've been able to get by with keeping her in things meant for babies and toddlers: stroller, crib, pack and play, car seat (which is still rear-facing), etc. But we're getting closer to the point where these things will not work. This new stroller is a good first step, and we also have a bed coming (which can also be used for travel) in a few weeks.

A lot of people think that the baby stage is the hardest. The diapers, the lack of independence, the inability to communicate effectively, the carrying them around, the bottle feeding, etc. Most of these things get easier pretty quickly with typical children. And before you know it, they're proficient and independent at all of them. But with a disabled child, the truth is that all of these things just get harder because they still cannot do them, but now they're bigger. For example, did you know that there are very few public places that have an adult-sized changing table? In our whole five-county area, the only places are Akron Children's Hospital (which you're not going to stop at while you're out shopping, so that's really only useful while you're at the hospital) and two (I assume now three because a new one just opened last week) Meijer locations. All of these places are 40-55 minutes away from where we live. This means that while out and about we usually have to do diaper changes in the back of our minivan, which doesn't work great in the pouring rain or freezing cold or when the van is full of stuff (which it often is, especially when traveling long distances. I'm thankful for a website that puts all public places with adult-sized changing tables on a map, but sometimes you need one kind of urgently, and they are still few and far between.) These may be little things - minor annoyances - but it's the little things that add up for parents of disabled kids (and for disabled individuals themselves, of course). Accessibility is so much better than it once was, but it still has a long way to go. I'm ashamed to say that I never thought about most of these things much before. But I do now!

For now, we're grateful for one more piece of equipment that makes life a little easier and a little more enjoyable!