I realize that it's pretty unlikely that I will actually catch up from the first year posts of pictures that I finally finished, so I'm thinking that maybe it's better to just have a fresh start for the school year and try to post more often. It's honestly sort of daunting trying to catch up all the pictures and highlights being 9 months behind where we actually are in life on the blog, as a friend of ours would say, "sorry 'bout that."
Here are some awesome highlights, milestones and updates to catch you up.
We started multiple therapies for Zachary for his developmental and physical delays due to his small stature, including physical, occupational, and speech/self-feeding therapy in January. Starting every week with OT/ST for the first few months, we saw Zachary learn how to feed himself anything that stuck out of his fisted hand by March. We then transitioned to every-other week and continued to see increased strength in his body, skills, and right eye (it was kind of wandering, especially when he looked in a certain direction). We also contacted the Help Me Grow MN program (http://www.helpmegrowmn.org) and had Zachary assessed to see if we were eligible for some in-home services through the school district and we were. I think that started at the end of March and there are PT/OT and a Special Needs Teacher who does cognitive play therapy who have come to our home about once a month each. All of Zachary's therapists are near to our hearts and have been instrumental in helping us help Zach make progress towards milestones and developing the skills he previously lacked.
We just had our 6 month assessment with the school district, and while there are some new goals we added, and a few that we'll continue to work on, he gained many of the skills that we hoped he would in the first 6 months. He's now pulling himself up, and crawling forward fully relying on all four limbs as of August or so (in January, he scooted backwards only, then in May, he started crawling forward only using one leg and dragging the other most of the time). He was recently assessed regarding his progress with his sensory challenges, and has seemingly overcome all of them. He no longer retracts his hand from the rice bowl and will readily engage and play in new textures and try eating new textures without gagging, these are huge gains!
We have a happy boy who is babbling with new sounds all the time and he's doing a lot more non-verbal communication like intentionally looking at something that he wants until we see it and he started pointing in the last week or so, although not always to communicate, this is still super exciting for us.
One cute story from this week and then I'll call it a post... He has really been enjoying playing with his letter magnets at the fridge over the last few weeks, and this week he started taking them off, throwing them and then chasing after them (to repeat again). I was washing the dishes the other night and turned around and Zachary was no where to be found. I followed the trail of magnet letters and found him at his other latest facination: the running front-load clothing washer, in the dark. Hilarious. At least he left a trail for me to follow! It's so fun to watch him adventuring with his new strength and mobility gained through countless hours of therapy and practice at home and daycare too, we're so proud!
