For the last six weeks, Ellie has been on strike during her weekly physical therapy appointments. Oh sure, she would seem agreeable enough with her big smiles and blowing raspberries. But rolling over? Which she is perfectly capable of doing? No thanks. Grabbing toys? No interest. Nada.
It got to the point that going to the appointments was almost embarrassing. “I swear, she really does roll over at home. She does… you know… touch things from time to time instead of weirdly recoiling her hand when you try to give her something.”
We had really been spoiled. For the first four or five months of PT, there was noticeable improvement virtually every single week. Either she’d be doing something altogether new, or would be steadier and stronger at a previous skill. Halloween came along, and Ellie decided it was time to take a little break.
She wasn’t going backwards, exactly. In reality, it was clearly just a plateau. Normal. To be expected, even, after making so much progress. But with a baby who is already delayed, it’s frustrating when you stop seeing progress you’ve gotten used to. It’s hard not to get anxious over it.
Thankfully, in the last week, Ellie seems to be picking up the developmental pace once again. Sitting up even steadier than before, and finally starting to use her hands to grab a toy or stuffed animal, instead of just using them to prop herself upright. In fact, not only will she pick up the rings from the floor in front of her, but she’ll transfer them to the other hand, AND put them in her mouth! Fine motor, cognition, and oral de-sensitizing, all in one easy toy!
The fine motor stuff was starting to worry me, but I’m happy to say there’s been a noticeable improvement recently. Lots more grabbing and reaching, and suddenly in love with one of those four-key piano toys from my mother-in-law. She was even kind enough to show off for both the physical therapist AND the early intervention therapist this week. Everyone is thrilled to have her back with the program.
Even the feeding therapy stuff has been going a little better. She likes to explore those teething biscuit cookies, and lets me poke around her mouth with this textured brush we use to try to tone down her gag reflex. They’re small steps, but good ones for us.
Though I knew on a logical level that a plateau in her progress was totally normal and shouldn’t be worrisome, waiting for new skills to show up was really stressful and had me feeling quite discouraged. On an average day, I am only just holding the worry at bay, so it doesn’t take much to push me over the edge. Seeing her master new tricks again? Suddenly all feels right in the world.
He did particularly well on imitating unfamiliar sounds (zoop! zip!), finding a hidden toy in several different variations, and grouping similar objects together. He showed good understanding of basic shape puzzles, even if he couldn’t quite get the triangle to fit properly, and did a great job labeling familiar objects with the correct word. I’m so proud.
The yodeling is clearly for his own entertainment, he loves to make his voice do funny things. When he’s climbing the stairs or otherwise moving and concentrating, he often does this funny, growling “word” that would probably be “Gof” if I tried to spell it. But it almost sounds like he’s chewing something. It makes me laugh almost every time. Another “word” of his is “dob”. As in “dob a-dob a-dob.” No idea what it means, if anything, but it’s friggin adorable. I also think that, at least 50% of the time that it seems like he’s waving, he’s actually making the sign for “light!” One last thing: he apparently is part-dog. He just loves carrying things around in his mouth when he crawls or climbs.
has become quite a little bookworm. It has happened a number of times, but I’d say yesterday she sat for a solid 25 minutes, carefully turning the pages of one book or another. This morning it was Pat the Bunny, and she took that little pointer finger, turned the page, and patted that darn bunny. So small and perfect. She also now makes funny faces just for the sake of being silly. She kind of juts out her chin and puckers her lips, making kind of a funny “oooh” sound. Silly girl. And god help you if she decides she wants you to help her walk and you don’t get up fast enough. Ooh, 12-month-old temper tantrum!
Wahoo! I know some kids do this earlier, and I think I sort of discouraged it a few months ago. But now, it’s awesome. So awesome, in fact, that it enabled my mom and me to go to Ikea today (which is not at all nearby), and when the kiddos got hungry, we just reclined the seats and handed them their bottles! A few minutes later, they’d both nearly polished their 7-oz bottles. Hip hip, hooray! More on mom’s visit, the Ikea trip, and more… later. Having my mom around was nice, but it kind of took away my usual quiet time, so I’m exhausted!
