Update on Crew

Crew continues to make wonderful progress in all areas of development. He climbs the stairs a thousand times a day. He is pulling himself up to the side of the couch on occasion. He LOVES to have someone read books with him. He fights with light sabers, plays with toys, and is really into copying. He is a shameless tease. He has four animal sounds: cow, kitty, pig, and bear. They aren't real clear, but they are there. He now slaps his knees and hides his face at the appropriate times when we sing "Leo the Lion" and has started making the motions to "Popcorn Popping". He yells "Ma-maaaaaaa!" frequently. He is trying to imitate words. He twists his mouth around while he stares at my face. I have never seen anything cuter. He eats better than he did before, though he has regressed some in recent weeks. And we think he's losing weight, which stinks.

I had a really long conversation with PT Julie recently. Crew has a lot of flexibility in his feet and ankles. Too much, in fact. Way too much. He rolls his weak little feet in when he climbs and stands, stretching out those muscles looser than we want for future stability. So... foot braces, here we come. We don't expect he will need them forever, but we need to stabilize him while he strengthens his foot and ankle muscles so that he doesn't continue the habit of compensating by walking on the insides of his feet.

Today I pulled the Tough Love card on him. He has been playing Games of Manipulation with mealtime lately and I have grown weary of it. It's been an interesting day. Do you realize that Crew has never once held his own bottle or sippy cup? At this point he is capable, but unwilling. We have made a tiny bit of progress today, but he's super mad about it. He did manage to stick a fork into his mouth with pasta on it, and he fed himself a grand total of 3 bites of omelette with his fingers. We're in for a messy transition, but we are long overdue for mealtime independence.

We're very grateful for everything he has overcome and our longterm prognosis is so promising. Sometimes progress feels really slow and it gets overwhelming to have to fight so hard for every single milestone. Sometimes I just wish something would come easily for him. Cuteness doesn't count.

We have two therapists now. PT Julie comes twice per month and Cognitive Therapist Kathleen comes twice per month. He dearly loves them both, little grandmas that they are. It is hysterical to watch him show off his new skills when they arrive. He likes to let them know that he has been working hard in their absence. At one point, Julie had been away for a few weeks and hadn't yet seen him crawl independently. As soon as she arrived, Crew pranced circles around the livingroom repeatedly, smiling proudly at her, smacking her and yelling when she wasn't watching him closely enough. He knew exactly what she wanted to see and he performed with great flair.

Next year he will be enrolled in Special Ed preschool a few hours per week. I don't have much information on that yet. I'm not even sure whether it will start in September or November.

So that's the update on our little guy. He's doing well and we love him.