Most of us take for granted all that our brains enable us to do. Take walking, for example. To walk with ease (continuously putting one foot in front of the other and swinging our arms in rhythm with our feet) takes a lot of coordination. Add to that, paying attention to our path to make sure we’re not going to trip over uneven sidewalk, having a conversation with someone walking with us, and perhaps even holding a cup of coffee at the same time. You can start to see that something that we do every day takes a lot of coordinated effort that most of us don’t even think about. One can now appreciate how much coordination it takes to ride a bike or drive a car. These things most of us do without “thinking” about it.
That’s why when Taylor performs something new, no matter how inconsequential it may seem to the rest of us, we celebrate. We celebrate because it gets her that much closer to independent living. She has many small goals (like learning how to swim, ride a bike, eat with chopsticks again), but her big goal still is to go back to school. Recently, some things that Taylor has accomplished include riding on an escalator (with assistance) and being able to hold a spoon and spoon food out of a bowl and to her mouth. She continues to make little gains, and even though they are small, they continue to be steps in the right direction.