Well Granny and Grandaddy are home! And Nate has revelled in seeing them, and showing off all his new work-in-progress tricks!
And in the last week or so he has made some really big improvements with his gross motor - in fact, after many many weeks (easily 10w plus) of walking 4-5 steps solo, his walking has now really taken off - he can now manage at least 20steps or so on his own, and launches off the sofa towards the table or hallway quite intentionally! So he is not quite up to walking to the letterbox to get us the morning paper, but then not too far off that either :-). Pulling up on counters, sofas, fridges, walls, legs, or anything really, is second nature now. He can also crawl up and down our stairs no problem, and if anything he does this a little too quickly and confidently, so there might be a tumble here to come I think...
Plus his fine motor control is also doing well- with swiping iPads and iPhones, picking up little specks of paper or ricies, and turning beads on his abacus. We are also working on cognitive skills such as building towers, putting toys into boxes, and shape sorting - he has only recently become a little more interested in this - before now it was about destroying towers, and emptying boxes! We are continuing with his physio sessions, weekly conductive education sessions, a developmental playgroup, and now also a jumping beans class with 'typical' kids, where he can 'play' with these emerging skills. Physically his confidence is growing for sure, although his tone, balance and coordination still needs a little work to keep up with those around him :-)
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| Showing Grandaddy how to use Duplo :-) |
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| Checking Grandaddy's nose & glasses! |
We also had a recent visit with our Speech Therapist from CDT, and realised that Nate's feeding and oral skills are somewhat delayed (he's not really into chewing), as is his actual speech. So we are really working on both, as much as we can, to try to catch up. Feeding wise, we are encouraging him with soft finger foods to aid his chewing, increasing textures, and decreasing his formula quantity over time. We are a week in to that now, and he is making really pleasing progress...
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| Out with the folks, & eating chippies for lunch! |
Speech wise, we are using our makaton signs and focusing on single words....nappy, eat, drink, bottle, more, finish, ball, cat, walk, car etc. So far, he can only say 'mon mon' for the cat, 'mum mum' for his mum mum biscuit, 'um um' for his dum dum (dummy), and also his version of the words 'round and round' when you sing 'the wheels on the bus' to him. However he can point to his head when you ask, and occasionally to his ears and nose (if he can be bothered, or you can hold his attention long enough!), so we definitely think he understands more than he is able to actually communicate. We are working on saying animal sounds linked to animal names, body parts, and concepts such as in, out, on, open, close etc.
We have been told that by 18months, about ten words is 'normal', so that isn't looking too likely with Nate now 17months :-(. Although, a delay in speech seems to be usual for our T9M kiddos. Of course we would love to be bucking that trend, so we are continuing to take as many speech classes as we can finance, and have also recently added a singalong class with the Child Development team, in an effort to try to help him along further. Plus he is a HUGE fan of The Wiggles, so with any luck he'll be repeating their songs in time too :-)
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| Couch wrestling with Daddy |
Unfortunately the sleep study results are in, and we didn't pass :-(. So we are now back on an Airvo machine, slightly different to Cpap in that there is no mask, but nasal prongs. We should be on Cpap ideally but Nate struggles with the mask (translation, we struggle with the mask, no-one gets much sleep). So this machine is the second best option for treatment, but better than nothing. Without it Nate will wake repeatedly and not get enough oxygen or sleep - not great for learning basically. Nate is still considered 'severe' as he has ten waking episodes an hour where he desats, versus the thirty he used to have. So progress, but not perfection. So back on a machine we go.....I'll be honest, it was a bit of a downer day.
Anyway on the up note, we are off to Timaru this weekend, for the launch of the SUPER POWER BABY BOOK! Exciting! Coincides with Nate's 17month 'birthday' weekend, and Granny, Grandaddy, Daddy, Nate and I are off to the official book launch to see the wee man in print! :-)
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