We purchased our first pair of squeaky shoes for our daughter Avery when she was 3 years old with the hope that they would motivate her to walk. Avery was diagnosed in utero with hydrocephalus due to Dandy Walker Syndrome variant. She also has spastic diplegic cerebral palsy, along with a host of other diagnoses. She has faced all these challenges head on and is one of the happiest and sweetest little girls I've ever known!
Soon after buying squeaky shoes for Avery, we also bought some for our 18 month old son, because he was always trying to wear Avery's! We discovered that in addition to being an excellent motivational tool for Avery, they were also a very handy tracking device for our very active son, who tends to run away when we're out in public! These shoes make it much easier for us to keeps tabs on him at all times, and he still ADORES them now that he is 2.5 years old!!
Avery started physical therapy when she was one month old, and has been working hard ever since. In addition to PT, she has also participated in spring and fall hippotherapy for 3 years and occupational therapy, as well as in-school PT and OT. We have been blessed by the hard work and dedication of the wonderful physical therapists, occupational therapists and teachers who have worked with Avery through Early Intervention, Roanoke City's REACH preschool program, and Carilion pediatric therapies. However, last year we started looking into alternative therapies because Avery didn't really seem to be making much progress with the traditional therapies anymore. We felt that it was in her best interest to try something new. After a lot of research, we decided to try a therapy called Anat Baniel Method therapy. Within a couple of months of starting, Avery had made some HUGE leaps in development, and we felt that it was extremely important for us to continue.
There were really three motivating factors in our decision to start selling these super cute shoes:
- For quite some time we had wanted to be more involved in raising awareness of Avery's medical conditions, and in funding research, etc.
- Health insurance is much more stingy when it comes to alternative therapies.... And with Avery's new therapist being 250 miles away, we knew that we needed to find a way to at least partially fund the new expenses.
- Every SINGLE time we went out in public with one or both of our little ones wearing their squeaky shoes, at least 3 or 4 people would comment on them and want to know where we got them!
Our hope is to spread the word, with your help, so that whenever people are looking for that perfect gift for their little ones, they will choose these adorable squeaky shoes! That way, they will not only get a gift that the child will LOVE (seriously!!), but they will help us pay for the therapy and equipment that Avery needs, as well as help provide funding for an important cause.
THANK YOU for your support!
