So without further adieu, here's a post of whats been happening around here these last few months. Gavin's going to be turning one tomorrow, and we're leaving for Disney World in just a few hours! So before he turns one and I fall even further behind with his monthly photos, here's months 10 and 11.
As far as his "Stats" go, he's doing great! He has 5 teeth now, is crawling EVERYWHERE, wants to get to the dog bowls every time he makes a break for it, eats whatever we eat, is cautiously cruising around furniture, but not sturdy enough to stand without holding onto something. I have to say though, my super easy-going baby isn't so super-easy anymore :( Up until he learned to crawl, he was really content with wherever you put him. He hardly ever fussed. Mainly just loved watching his big brother and puppy move about the room. That all changed once he learned to crawl. He follows me everywhere now. He's constantly pulling up on my leg to pick him up. It's gotten to the point where I just can't leave the room without a nuclear meltdown. I wasn't able to get anything done at home. Seriously, nothing. We had one of those long superyard gates that we used to block off the family room, but it doesn't anchor into the wall, so when he'd pull up on it, it would fall over on him. Then I found at a yard sale a long adjustable gate that stretches to 9 feet long, and has a little gate to open to walk through instead of having to jump over (I almost died once when my toe caught the edge of a gate and I fell headfirst into the granite counter top. Well, maybe not died, but it would have been really bad if I was holding one of the kids). So this new gate is awesome. But now the problem is since he's standing everywhere but not quite solid and stable, he's not ready to be left unattended for any amount of time. Even though its mainly carpet and soft sofa in the family room, the tv stand has many corners and the fireplace is brick (Elias keeps pulling off the padding I stick on these things to protect Gavin, so I've just given up and am hoping he doesn't have to learn the hard way. SO to resolve this problem, we ordered a giant old-school playpen. I needed something to put him in that would be totally safe if I have to leave the room for whatever reason. He of course hates it, but that's just how it has to be because this mama is going crazy not being able to get anything done around here! I'm so far behind on laundry I could cry! I should add that he's still so very happy and sweet. Its just that nothing seems to satisfy him 100% at this time. Maybe once he walks that'll change....but chances are, he'll run after me instead of crawling! At least my kids like me, right? Ha!
Gavin's Yearly Evaluation
Gavin had his yearly evaluation last week that determines eligibility for Early Intervention services. However, since he has a diagnosis, he automatically qualifies no matter what his scores are. If he didn't have a diagnosis, he would need a score with at least a 25% delay (so a score at 8 months would qualify him). Gavin is 11 months old and here were his scores:
Cognitive: 11 months
Expressive Language: 10 months
Reception Language: 12 months
Gross Motor: 10 months
Fine Motor: 8 months
Social: 13 months
Adaptive: 13 months
With his clingyness and short attention span as of lately, I really didn't know how he would do for the people evaluating him. But he's always surprising me, and he did much better than I anticipated! As most of you know, he's been getting OT and PT for fine and gross motor development. His gross motor was a month behind because he crawled a little late and isn't wanting to take many steps holding your hands. And for fine motor, that score was a few months behind because his fingers are still a little tight and its hard for him to wrap them around things using a precise grasp. He still rakes food to pick it up instead of using a pincer grasp. Regardless, the tightness in his fingers has decreased greatly since he's started crawling. Now that he has his hands down with his weight pressing on them, they've stretched out much more than what we could ever do in therapy or with splints. So we're very pleased with the progress we see in his hands. We will return to the doctor at Shriner's sometime this summer to have his hands checked again to see if he wants to operate at all.
Gavin had his yearly evaluation last week that determines eligibility for Early Intervention services. However, since he has a diagnosis, he automatically qualifies no matter what his scores are. If he didn't have a diagnosis, he would need a score with at least a 25% delay (so a score at 8 months would qualify him). Gavin is 11 months old and here were his scores:
Cognitive: 11 months
Expressive Language: 10 months
Reception Language: 12 months
Gross Motor: 10 months
Fine Motor: 8 months
Social: 13 months
Adaptive: 13 months
With his clingyness and short attention span as of lately, I really didn't know how he would do for the people evaluating him. But he's always surprising me, and he did much better than I anticipated! As most of you know, he's been getting OT and PT for fine and gross motor development. His gross motor was a month behind because he crawled a little late and isn't wanting to take many steps holding your hands. And for fine motor, that score was a few months behind because his fingers are still a little tight and its hard for him to wrap them around things using a precise grasp. He still rakes food to pick it up instead of using a pincer grasp. Regardless, the tightness in his fingers has decreased greatly since he's started crawling. Now that he has his hands down with his weight pressing on them, they've stretched out much more than what we could ever do in therapy or with splints. So we're very pleased with the progress we see in his hands. We will return to the doctor at Shriner's sometime this summer to have his hands checked again to see if he wants to operate at all.
Elias' Yearly Evaluation
Elias had his yearly evaluation with Early Intervention earlier this month and we were pretty pleased with his results! He was 31 months at the time of the eval, and his scores came out at:
Cognitive: 34 months
Expressive Communication 34 months
Receptive Communication - 29 months
Social/Emotional: 32 months
Gross Motor: 29 months
Fine Motor: 20 months
Adaptive: 31 months
The receptive language was a little lower than I expected. But the things that bumped him down a big were asking him questions like "Elias, which is not the orange bunny". Or "is the doll yours or mine?" We don't interact with him like that, so I didn't expect him to know how to understand those types of questions. So that just means we need to bump up our vocab a bit and be a little more challenging in what we ask of him. No biggie though. It wasn't THAT far behind, anyway.
His gross motor was a little below, but that was expected. Gross motor includes things like jumping, running, walking down steps, walking backwards, throwing, etc. It actually came in higher than I thought it would, so that was a nice surprise!
His fine motor on the other hand came in way low. I was also expecting this score to be low, but I wasn't quite sure where it would land. Primarily, his tight thumb is what holding him back from being able to do on level things, like holding/using utensils correctly, cutting with scissors, having more control over coloring, etc. You might say "well why doesn't he just switch hands". But its not the easy for Elias. Because of his torticollis, he positions everything off to his left. EVERYTHING. So even though he actually has better control and a better grasp in his right, its harder for him to do it because he naturally wants to look and have things on the left.
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| We met Mover Scott! |
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| Cousin hugs! |
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| Zions a good big cousin! |
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| Dr Elias |
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| Elias is now in his "big boy" bed. (Just took the front off and put the rail on) |
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| Undies over his PJs. He insisted he wear them on our walk. |
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| His attempt at thumbs up |
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| Helping Daddy at the car wash |
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| Elias' new friend, Puppy Dog (he's so creative, eh?) |
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| Lunch with the cuz! |
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| Can you tell who is currently his favorite mover>
Poor Callie-girl. For almost a year she's had this chronic itch that has been so bad at times that she's rubbed her neck raw and her belly till its beat red. She's such a sweet girl, and all she wants to do is be next to you. We took a obedience class a few months ago to get some tips for getting her to walk loosely on a leash (she pulled like a 100lb dog, no joke. She would uproot a lead that was attached to a stake, stuck down in the ground, that was supposed to withstand a 100lb dog). We also wanted some help to break her of her bad habit of jumping on everyone that comes through the door (except our kids...she doesn't dare do anything like that to them...which is why I love her so much). But anyway, this class was great and we learned some great strategies for getting her to walk loosely on a leash, and they really worked for her! The jumping part, however, didn't do much at all.
Back to her itching...we took her to a new vet a few weeks ago looking for some suggestions to help with her scratching. The vets not sure whats causing the itch, so we're trying a few things to start eliminating the possibilities. He said allergies are rare in pups this young. So we put her on a steroid to stop the itch and something for the infection on her neck. We're also trying a new dog food. Within 24 hours of starting the meds, its like we have a new dog! She's no longer scratching her neck or belly, and she's hardly jumping up at guests now. Its like she literally was itching out of her skin! She was doing anything she could to get you to put your hands on her and scratch her. She's pretty satisfied with 2 walks a day now, where as before she had to have 3 or she was going crazy! The food has helped her coat big time too, as she doesn't have such dry skin anymore. Last weekend when at my parents, we ran out of her food and she had some of Noelle's food. A few hours later she was scratching again, so we're thinking as rare as it is at this age, we might be dealing with a food allergy. Either way, the meds are working, and we now have a much calmer, sweet, gentle English Springer Spaniel. Oh, and much fatter. She has gained some weight with these steroids :)
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*I apologize for any misspellings or things that don't make sense. I've been writing this post for over a week now and its been deleted twice when the computer decides on its own it wants a nap. So I'm posting this before it disappears again :)
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