I got a call from the school's occupational therapist today, to set up an appointment. After talking, she asked me if I was working on getting the letter that E needed for the school (his Early Intervention teacher.) I told her that yes, I was working on it. Thing is, I don't think I should NEED to get the letter. This is the deal--in September the school did their 3 year assessment testing. The results indicated that Gavin qualifies for special education services (from the school) for the next 3 years. Up until the age of 3, services are provided in the home. After 3 years old, they are provided in school. EXCEPT, that I wasn't planning on putting him in school at this time. Yes, we did attend Early Childhood classes this fall, but the school said for him to receive services through them, he needs to attend preschool when he turns 3 in a few weeks (UNLESS we have a letter from his doctor specifying that he is not to attend school at this time.)
I wasn't going to put him in preschool at this time, for several reasons. One of which is his health--no way in hell was I going to start him going to school in the middle of the winter, when he got sick last fall, and it laid him up for 3 months straight. Every time he gets sick (cold/flu, whatever), it's really rough on him. It scars the lungs every time, and considering he already has scarring of his lungs, it makes it even harder for him to recover. So the thing you do with kids with lung disease, is avoid them getting sick for as long as possible, to allow their lungs to develop enough so that the illness doesn't really do them in, and make their lungs worse.
So anyway, I wasn't going to put him in preschool at this time, and only one of the reasons is his health. Another, is that I just don't think he's ready for school at this time. And what I'm ticked off at right now, is that the school will not provide services if I choose not to enroll Gavin in preschool in the spring semester. And yet, I shouldn't HAVE to. So we're pretty much being forced into putting him in preschool when we don't want to. Well, if we want him to get services through the school anyway. We're being backed into a corner--not get services that the school thinks he needs, or risk him getting sick and all that entails. So far, he hasn't been hospitalized when he got sick, but that's because we already have all the stuff like oxygen, nebulizer and sat monitor at home anyway. Next time, we may not be so lucky.

It just feels like I'm always having to justify what we're doing with OUR child. So why aren't we allowed to just do what we think is right for our son?

My little parrot

I'm feeling irritated today. It was a dreary, cold day, which then also gave me a migraine. So it wasn't great. Although, I did get rid of my migraine with medicine, so things were better. But then Gavin really was doing a lot of "parroting" today. I asked him "do you have to pee? Yes or no." So he said "have to pee." So I thought, Good, then go ahead (since I had him on the toilet already.) But then he added "yes or no" instead of answering the question (So he repeated "have to pee, yes or no." I thought maybe he was just tired or stressed or something. Although the speech therapist (L) said he did a good job there today.
Tonight, he was in the laundry room and knocked over our bowl of coins (that we take from the laundry.) He tried several times to pick them up and put the bowl back up on the dryer, but kept spilling the bowl when he'd try to put the bowl back. So Terry went in to check on him. He said Gavin was sitting on the floor saying "Problem. Problem. If you have a problem, tell me." Great, I've got my own little Rainman. (That phrase is one I say to him OFTEN, since he doesn't tell me what's the matter most of the time. I tell him if there's a problem, or if something is wrong, to tell me. He does sometimes now tell me when he wants a bottle, or if he has an ouchie. So we've made progress, but not apparently as much as I thought. He tends to repeat what we tell him when he doesn't understand what we're asking of him (not the only times that he parrots, but that's a common trigger for him.) So I'm guessing he doesn't really get what I mean, when I ask if something is wrong, or if he has a problem. I thought I had broken it down enough for him to understand what I meant, but I guess we need to work on that idea/concept some more.

If you haven't had to deal with the parroting yourself, you have no idea how frustrating it is. Just remember that repeating game you played as kids, where you repeat every word that someone says "WHAT DID YOU SAY?" (and they respond) "what did you say?" "ARE YOU REPEATING ME?"- (they respond) "are you repeating me?" "STOP THAT"- "Stop that" "NO REALLY, I MEAN IT."- "No really, I mean it." (and so forth)

AAAAARRRRRGGGGGHHHHH! That game gets old, really quick. Except with Gavin, it's not a game. He's just trying to figure out how to talk, and figure out what people are saying to him, etc. But it's INCREDIBLY frustrating and mentally taxing/exhausting!

Gavin and autism testing

Gavin WAS diagnosed with autism when we did the evaluation a couple of weeks ago. Shhhh...it's a secret though. Really, we're not telling people. A FEW select people know, and not even all of our family knows, and that's the way we want it.
We don't completely agree with the diagnosis (for more than one reason, one of which is the fact that they diagnosed him on the basis of assuming he was language delayed, when 3 other speech evaluators had told us within a month of the diagnosis that he wasn't delayed for expressive language now. I figure, if they're wrong even on that, I certainly don't believe anything else that they decide. Second, they expected him to do things as far as a 24 month old would do, forgetting about the fact that we've taught him to SAY things instead of just looking at people to convey his requests. For example, they wanted him to look at them to request continuing a fun activity. They didn't know that we've taught him to say "more" or "again, please", and he's said this for months now. BUT, according to the developmental age they evaluated him at (24 months for expressive language, i.e., what he actually says vs what he understands), they expect 24 month old kids to look at a person to continue a fun activity. SO, I have a real problem with them evaluating him at a younger age, when 3 other people had told us within the last month before he went for his autism evaluation that he was caught up as far as expressive language. Like I said, if they got that wrong (I got with majority rules--3 against 1? The 3 wins.), I don't believe other stuff they decide. When their language score affects what they expect him to do, I think that affected the diagnosis. Plus, they said he was language delayed, but I think they forget about the fact that preemies don't tend to be completely caught up by age 2, which also affected some of their diagnosis.
So, I think we're going to wait 1-2 years, then get him tested again. And it WON'T be at that place again. Terry mentioned that he thought they were quite condescending there. I have to agree, but it's unusual for Terry to say things like that, so I figure it wasn't just me that had a problem with them!
Anyway, remember, we're not telling people about the diagnosis. First, because we don't know if it will "stick" when we get him re-tested. Second, we don't want people treating him differently because of the diagnosis, and some people will. Even some family members will. So please, don't tell people.

Gavin DOES pay attention to other kids!

We went to the school's reading night last Friday evening in the school library. We saw a girl from one of Gavins classes (he's in 2 classes, each one has about 6 kids in it.) She immediately recognized Gavin and came right over, kept telling her mom "there's Gavin", etc, and wanting to play with him. They've never played together in class, but that's ok. He didn't even seem to know she was there (he didn't care about the stories they were reading either, surprising to me since he loves reading at home.) So I just figured maybe he really did just play with toys at this time, and not WITH the other kids.
Today, we went to the other class. They went outside to play on the playground since it was nice weather. We got to the door (to go outside) before the other kids, so waited for everyone there. This other little boy, Henry, took off running down the hall (his mom followed right away.) Gavin started to run after them, and I told him no. He looked at me and said "Henry is running."
I thought that was great! First because speech therapists have been telling me he doesn't know his verbs (even though he does when I talk to him. He doesn't necessarily know them in pictures, but does in real life.) Second, it shows he does pay attention to the other kids- not only did he notice the kid running, but he remembered the other boy's name. I've only told Gavin the boy's name once I think ( a few weeks ago), but they do sing the "looking through the window, who do I see, I see Gavin (or other name) looking at me" song every time they have class.

I was just so happy to see that he really does pay attention to other kids. They supposedly don't start playing WITH other kids so much until they reach about 3 years old, so that's not a problem at this time, but it's hard to tell how much he is really noticing what the other kids are doing for play, etc. Although, I have noticed he has been doing considerably better about sitting at the table with the other kids during snack-time in their classes. he still doesn't eat that much, but he can see that the other kids do eat their snacks, and I see him taking it all in, looking around at everyone watching them while he's eating his snacks. What a great decision to put him in 2 classes this fall! He's getting so much interaction and socialization out of them! (I'm sure his feeding therapy with the other little boy is helping too.)

Wow, I'm late updating!

Oops. I kept meaning to update this blog, and kept running out of time. To sum up the last 2 months:
Gavin had his 3 year testing (at 2 year, 9 months according to their protocol) through the school. He tested below average on the social part of speech, like answering questions and responding to cues. He tested pretty much average on the expressive part of speech that included vocabulary, but lower on receptive. He tested highest on the gross/fine motor stuff. All it means is that we need to work on asking him questions (and not just "what is that?" More like "what do you use to do blank?" or verb questions, since verbs were not his strong point.) Speech therapy is going to start coming out more often, and the early education teacher (Emily) will continue to come out once a week.
We took Gavin to the new pulmonologist, and she was completely in agreement about Gavin not starting preschool at this time. She wants him to not use oxygen for a whole winter before she allows him to start school (he used it more than once last winter, including in March of this year.) She thinks he is having trouble with reflux which is exacerbating his lung problem, so we're supposed to start on Prevacid again (I still haven't gotten it filled. Too busy!)
We had a great trip to VT in late Sept. Too short of a visit, and we had colds for the first week, and didn't get to see everyone we wanted to, but at least we got back for a while. He only got to see his cousins for one day, but they made up for lost time in those few hours they were together. The house was like a zoo! Gavin had a great time!
We had a speech therapy assessment at the same place he does feeding therapy. The therapist there (Lonnie) said his expressive language was ok,but receptive was a bit low, and she wanted him to work on question words. Same stuff as the school found. So she is going to be doing therapy once a week with him. (We had our first appt yesterday, and she said he's already doing better. Probably because I've been working with him on that. i.e. "Who pulls the mail?" "Who hates getting stuck in the rain?" I used his Thomas trains as questions, since I know he's familiar with them. He didn't get what I was asking, at first, but got better with it. He wasn't always right when he answered, but at least seemed to get the idea. I've also been getting him to answer yes/no questions. That was the same thing, he didn't get it at first, but is doing better with it.

That's enough of an update for now. Maybe I'll get around to posting more about the VT trip later.

Independence for all!

My little man has become SO independent recently. I thought he was before. No- that was nothing compared to the last week or so! (Now, I think some of it is because this last week was so hectic for him, maybe he wanted SOMETHING HE could control. But no matter why...)
First of all, we have a laundry chute in the bathroom. I never let him throw clothes down there because I'm worried he might start throwing other stuff down the chute, or fall down in (he's small enough so he fits right in the opening), and almost never let him see ME throw clothes down there either. But the other day when I was waiting for him to finish on the toilet, I threw a few clothes from the floor down into the chute. He burst out crying. I didn't realize why at the time, so just helped him get off the toilet, pull his pants up and go to the other room. It finally dawned on me what the problem was, so I asked him if HE wanted to throw clothes down the chute. He didn't answer, but got quieter, so I picked up a pair of socks and a towel from his floor and brought them into the bathroom and let him climb up on the step (cover to a kids potty chair) to throw the clothes down. He was much happier.
I don't remember if it was the same night, or the next night, but he knew it was bedtime, was playing in his room for a few minutes, then I turned off his overhead light (we have a low-level light on for him at night) and went to gather him up for reading his bedtime story. He burst out crying. I told him that he KNEW it was bedtime, and had been good about it before, so I didn't know what the problem was. He still continued to cry. Finally I asked him, "Did YOU want to turn off the light?" He slowed down his crying. So I carried him over to the light switch, let him turn the light on, then off again. No more tears. He was so much happier and went to bed like normal.
A few days ago, Terry changed Gavin's diaper (and for months now, he has asked Gavin to throw away the wet diaper afterwards--it's kind of Gavin's job), but either Terry or I carried the diaper out and threw it away. Gavin was so distraught, he started crying, then ran out to the trash can, opened the cover, and tried to reach in and get the diaper (so HE could throw it away.) But the diaper was too far down, and Gavin leaned in too far, and got stuck! (I TRIED to get a picture, but wasn't fast enough!) Anyway, we took the diaper out and gave it to him so he could throw it away. All was right with the world then. He had completed HIS job.
What a big boy he's becoming! That he actually gets upset when he doesn't get to do HIS "chores" (nothing formal yet) or take part in running the household. Like I said, I think it's actually because he had such a stressful week, but whatever the reason, he feels very strongly about helping out with some things. So of course we're going to let him. I think it's important that kids help out with the household if they can, it makes them feel important.
We all went for a walk (including Jasmine) last weekend, and we let Gavin hold the dogs leash. He was so thrilled! He ran with her, stopped when she stopped, and only had to drop the leash once, when she was sniffing around mailboxes for a long time. He was so proud of himself! So I've started realizing he really is ready to take part more in helping run the household.
2 nights ago, I realized I needed to run to the store for more drinks for him (before bed), so Terry was going to read him his books, give him his bottle, then put him to bed. Gavin looked at Daddy in his chair in his room, and said "Daddy, GET UP!", while still crying and holding onto me. SO, I took my customary place to read to him. Now, he's sometimes allowed Daddy to start the bedtime process, but not this night! I think he was just still wanting his Mommy, because he didn't let go of me for the longest time. Too much stress for him this week (between feeding therapy, starting one class, and doing age testing for preschool services), and he needed comforting. Which, of course, I feel sorry for him, but I also know it's typical development for his age! Poor little man. It's a rough transition for him, but at least I'll be there for him every step of the way!

Walking the dog

It was raining this morning when we took Gavin to his first "group" feeding therapy session, so we didn't stop at the park afterward. I didn't think anything of it, until this evening when we were eating dinner, Gavin said he wanted to go outside. I realized that except for walking to the car, he hadn't gone out at all today. So I said I'd take him for a short walk. But since I wasn't planning on going far, I thought we should try taking Jasmine too. So Terry came along to help out with Jasmine and Gavin. He handed Gavin the retractable leash for Jasmine, and off we went. Jasmine stopped a lot to pee, each time, with Gavin indicating "Jasmine go pee", (except he can't say "J" so it sounded more like "Davin go pee.") He held the leash the whole time, even breaking into a run sometimes when he felt like it, or when he needed to catch up to Jasmine. He had such a great time! The last time I gave him the leash to hold was several months ago, and he dropped it after just a couple of minutes. Watching him tonight, I was struck by how fast he's growing up, and how he can do so many things that I don't realize! For that matter, he understands a lot more than I realize, and remembers things that we don't think he would.

I know we need to give him things to do so that he feels like he's an important part of the family too, and that's what I learned tonight, is that I can ask him to do things I wouldn't normally think of, like hold Jasmine's leash so we can take her for a walk at the same time we go. I never used to take them out together, because it's just too much work for me to try to keep track of them both at the same time. But he did so well, I think we're going to start taking Jasmine with us more often. It just seemed to me like Gavin was such a big boy while walking the dog tonight. Guess he's growing up faster all the time!

County Fair 2010

We went to Isanti County Fair today (and Friday also.) Gavin could only handle it for 2 hours this time, compared to the 4 he did the other day, but that's certainly plenty! I took him on the Spinning Strawberries ride (like Teacups, but moved just a little slower probably), and then stood by him while he rode a horse on the Merry Go Round. I TRIED to take him on the Ferris Wheel, but apparently he had to be 36 inches (even if I went with him), which he isn't. My boy's too short to ride with a parent on the Ferris Wheel? Really? I guess there's probably a reason, like he could slide through and fall out or something. Guess we'll have to try for next year.
He seemed to enjoy the 2 rides I did take him on though. Plus, he had fun dancing in front of the H3 that the Army had there. Daddy would crank up the music and Gavin would dance on the ground in front of the speakers.

farm in IA

We went to Terry's friends house in Iowa over 4th of July weekend. We left after he got out of work on Thursday, arriving there about 10:30 pm that night. His friend had an RV they let us use for the weekend so we had some privacy. A bonus was that it confined Gavin to a small area, and we didn't need to use a baby gate to keep him out of anything!
He had to sleep between his Mommy and Daddy, so nobody got quite enough sleep, but did pretty well. He especially liked their black Labs, and the chickens that ran around the yard all day. Gavin chased them somewhat, but not into a frenzy. He did quite well with them, and even talked back to them a few times. The rooster would crow, or a hen would cluck, and he'd "talk" to them. He had a great time seeing the chickens.
Saturday night, we got to ride one of the horses. Not for a long time, but it was still nice. Gavin went around on the horse with me first, then since he wanted to go again, Terry switched places with me and took Gavin around a couple more times. He still didn't want to get off the horse, so Gavin got to ride the horse by himself, while Daddy walked beside the horse, and Josh led the horse around. Gavin had a great time, until it was time to get off the horse so it could be put away for the night! He wanted to keep going!
The next day it rained the majority of the day, so we stayed inside a lot. Fireworks were postponed till the next night, but we had to leave during the day on Monday so missed them. We never did get back on the horses there, but Gavin found another source of amusement. He climbed in the front seat of the RV and pretended to drive (he even informed me that "I drive!")
It constantly amazes me how much stuff he knows, when he says something like that to me.
We gave him a bath the first day we were there, and he asked me about bubbles (as in, why weren't there any?) I told him we didn't have bubbles there, but we would for his next bath at home. He turned to Terry and said he wanted bubbles, so Terry told him that no, he didn't need bubbles right then. Gavin turned to me and said "Tell Daddy I need bubbles." It was so clear that we both started laughing. Of course, we were both pretty impressed at his being able to verbalize like that, plus, it was such a normal kid thing to say!
The next night while Terry was taking a shower, Gavin spilled his juice box on the table and himself, so I said "geez, you should just go take a shower with Daddy." I got some napkins to clean up the table, then heard Terry asking from the bathroom, if I let Gavin in there. Gavin had understood what I said, and thought I was telling him to take a shower (even though we've never given him one before), so he headed in to join Daddy. He had a pretty good time playing with the water falling from above!
It was a pretty good trip. Gavin got a little overwhelmed a few times, but the experience was great for him. We might even try to go back again sometime.

He's growing up so quickly

Or at least it seems so. Tonight, I was reading one of his favorite books to him before bed. The book is "Biscuit goes to the farm." Biscuit is a puppy, and is the main character of a series of these books. He loves Biscuit books, even though we only have like 3 of them so far. So I was reading it to him, and on one page, it showed a piglet along with Biscuit. So after I read the words on the page, I pointed to the pig first and said "here's the piglet, and there's the puppy." He pulled the bottle of pediasure out of his mouth (I've found recently that he's drinking better if I read to him while he drinks), pointed to the puppy and said "that's Biscuit." Like he was just making sure I knew that was the puppys name. I just thought it was cute, but also realized at that time how much he seems to have grown up recently.

2 months ago he was barely saying any words, now he interrupts his bottle to make sure I'm reading the book correctly. He also takes the bottle out of his mouth just to read a specific page in the book (well, he doesn't READ it, he remembers what it says after we've read it to him so many times.) It's "Woof woof, Oink oink, Honk" since it's the puppy speaking, then the piglet, the the geese. Pretty easy for him to remember those words since he knows what sounds the animals make. Anyway, he does it EVERY time I get to that page. He loves "reading" the book to me. It's like he's so impressed with himself that he can do it too!

Let's see. What else. Oh, he can count to 11 on his own now. He could only count to 8, then to 10, now it's 11. We keep telling him 11, 12, but so far he's just gotten the 11 part. Not a problem. He doesn't even turn 2 1/2 for a few more days, and he says those on his own while running around or whatever. He can say most of the alphabet on his own, but tends to forget a few letters. What he DOES say, though, is in order. It's cute. He used to love pointing out the letter "E", but when he says the alphabet, it's A,B,C,D,F,G, etc. And "F" is pronounced "Epp", unless it's in a word, like "flag." Kind of like, he can pronounce the letter "M" in the alphabet, but when he refers to me, I'm "Bobby", like what it might sound like if he had a cold, except that he doesn't. I don't mind, except I do wonder how I went from "Momma" to "Bobby." Not a big problem at this time though.

Terry's company had a picnic yesterday at the Veterans Rest Home right outside of Forest Lake. Gavin had a pretty good time. Not so much in the beginning, but he liked it better as time went by. He tried to play soccer with the bigger boys, and had a great time dancing to the music playing on the car stereo. Then he laid down on our blanket and played with his cars a lot. There was a little girl there that kept trying to play with him, that he didn't care anything about, but when we brought him over to the beach (his first time!), he played a lot with the little girl over there. She had a ball that they threw back and forth (kind of anyway!) in the water. He seemed to like her, and I think she wasn't much different age than the other girl, but whatever. Maybe it was because the first girl didn't speak at all, and the 2nd one did. I don't know, but everyone is like that. We like some people, and don't care as much for others.
He liked walking in the sand, both dry and wet (I figured he'd object to it because of his sensory issues), and loved watching the waves come up and splash over his legs. It was kind of chilly, so he didn't get the upper part of his body wet, but we are definitely going to have to take him to the beach more often, now that we know where one is. Of course, I'm hoping there's one closer than that to us!

Do books need food?

Gavin has started (occasionally, while sitting on our laps), trying to feed his bottles to the characters in his books. Today, it was Lightning McQueen from the "Cars" book. A lot of times we start reading to him before he drinks his bottle, to calm him down so he doesn't get stressed over it. But I'm not sure what is the deal with feeding the cars his bottle. It's cute though. So what if he doesn't pretend to feed stuffed animals? He pretends to feed his book characters. Isn't that pretty much the same?

Princeton parade

I brought Gavin to the parade in Princeton (MN) the other night. Daddy was going to be driving the H3 (Hummer), and I didn't want Gavin to miss it. We sat on the ground next to a couple who lived right in back of where they were sitting. They had 2 kids, one of them a 3-4ish year old boy, the other was a baby, maybe 8 months old. We watched the floats, Gavin liked the honking of the fire trucks and such (he loves saying "Beep" right now). His favorite thing though was the music. He loved the bands. Even when the other musicians weren't playing, he loved listening to the drums, and danced freely on the sidewalk and on the side of the road by where we were sitting. He was (as my father would say) "A big hit!" He danced and made sure to clap when the music was done. People watched him dance and I could tell they were smiling while watching him.l A kid he was sitting next to, started whispering to him something about "time to dance", so I guess that kid got a kick out of watching Gavin also. The kid was maybe 7 years old, or so.

Every time one of the parade entrants would go by and throw candy, Gavin TRIED to run out and get some. He wasn't really fast enough though, so I tried to help him as best as I could by jumping out and grabbing a few pieces of candy, like lollipops. He likes those, and we'll let him have them, whereas we don't let him have the hard pieces of candy. Anyway, one of the kids right near us jumped in front of everyone else to get to all of the candy when it was thrown. Because Gavin wasn't able to get to the candy before the other kids got it, the little boy we were next to walked over to Gavin and handed him a lollipop. I thanked him wholeheartedly (because it was such a nice thing for him to do, NOT because Gavin needed any more candy!), and his mother praised him for doing so well. He came over later on and gave Gavin another piece of candy. I thanked him again.
An hour or so went by, and we continued watching the parade, and I tried to show Gavin how to run out and get the candy with me, but it was usually gone by the time we got there. No problem. He didn't seem upset, and I didn't think he needed more candy since he already had a lollipop in his mouth. A little girl (from the other side of us) came over and handed Gavin a piece of candy, asking me "would he like a piece of candy?" I replied that "I'm sure he would love it. Thank you so much." I was just so impressed that in a situation when most kids are all about running for the candy and eating it before they get home, 2 kids came over to give Gavin some of the candy they had collected. Their moms should be proud that they have raised good empathetic kids.
One of Terry's coworkers was walking beside their vehicle handing out flags. Gavin loves flags so he was pretty excited to receive it. So excited, that even though Terry was only about 10 feet away and yelled to Gavin, Gavin didn't even seem to notice him. So, I picked Gavin up and carried him over to the H3 to show him his Daddy. (His face lit up then when his saw his Daddy then!)
Anyway, Gavin had a good time at the parade. I can't wait to take him to another one!

Is there such a thing as "too" smart?

My mother-in-law says there's no such thing as too smart. I tend to agree. Here's the deal. Yesterday, the Early Intervention teacher, Emily did her bi-weekly visit (which is going to start being weekly to socialize Gavin more.) She said he did well, and she was impressed that he could make a few animal sounds, and was able to do her shape puzzle quite quickly. When she had him stack blocks (she was happy that he could stack 7 before they fell), he recognized the letter "P" on one of them, and said the letter. So I found a letter on another block (I think it was Q) and asked him what that one was. Emily asked me if he could identify the whole alphabet. I said yes, pretty much. I did forget to tell her that he gets a couple letters confused sometimes, like calling "N" as "Z", but still. I figure that's common. So I picked up another block with a number on it, and asked him what that number was. I told Emily that he could MOSTLY count to 8, with help, but got stuck on that number since it seems to be his favorite! I thought she'd be happy that he's catching up to his actual age, since they stopped adjusting for his prematurity a few months ago. (Btw, his speaking skills have just skyrocketed in the last month, since he really started talking! I still can't understand a lot of what he says, but he says very definite phrases to tell me what he's done, and sometimes what he wants.)

So Emily seemed impressed that he basically knew the alphabet (he can recognize the letters, and can say some of them without repeating them after us.) When she went to leave, she said "I know we've talked about this before, but have you thought any more about having him tested for autism?" I said that no, I had asked a doctor about it a month ago and mentioned her concerns, and they said that no, even though Gavin did do something she had mentioned as a red flag for autism (it was something to do with jumping or dancing or something), they didn't see any indication that he had it. Now, Emily has probably been here for 10 visits or so. NICU follow-up has only seen him 3 times, but each visit is a couple of hours long, so I think he's seem them for about as many hours as Emily has, and they didn't think there was anything to worry about. So she continued "It's not typical, not unheard of, but not typical, for a 2 year old to identify the alphabet and numbers." So we talked for a couple more minutes, then she left.
SO, before, they thought he might have autism because he didn't socialize with us as much sometimes, and wasn't at all interested in imitating us (I suppose there were other reasons too, but those are all I know.) NOW, all he wants to do is talk up a storm, and imitate every sound we make sometimes, and she thinks he may have autism because of that! Yes, he knows the letters, and is quite good at recognizing most of them. But first of all, he's not really 2. If you stop adjusting for prematurity, he'll be 2 1/2 next month. I bet a lot of 2 1/2 year old kids can recognize SOME of the alphabet. He stays home with me, every day. EVERY day. He doesn't go play with other kids (I was hoping to put him in an ECFE class this summer but apparently they don't have the money to do a summer program. I was really disappointed, because I figured I could socialize him that way, since we don't really know people with kids here!) Anyway, what else do we have to do while we're home? He plays, we read, he learns letters. At this age, they're just more shapes. There might be other things that he doesn't know that other kids his age do. I figure it's just more of him focusing on one area of development. He has plenty of time each day to work on letters, so he does, at least a couple of times a day. He's interested in it, so I'm going to teach him.
The alphabet has helped him be interested in talking, so of course I'm going to keep up teaching it to him and working on it with him. Plus, recognizing letters has opened up a WHOLE NEW WORLD to Gavin apparently. He LOVES going to the store and being able to recognize "X" in the exit signs. So it keeps him interested in talking, we really praise him for it, and I figure you can't learn to read until you recognize the letters. He's having fun. Does that make him autistic?
So, can you be too smart for your age? If you're ahead of your peers in something like that, does that automatically make you autistic? Or does it just means he has a parent that spends a lot of time with him working on things, trying desperately to make sure he doesn't fall behind. Apparently my best efforts are not rewarded, if they get people thinking he has autism, instead of just "catching up!"
Maybe he's just a smart boy. He DOES come from quite intelligent families, so why is it hard to believe he could just be learning the alphabet because he gets a lot of praise for it, and it is kind of interesting to him, and maybe he's just smart.
Anyway. Enough of a rant. That's the deal. I mentioned it to Terry, who insisted he didn't think Gavin had autism either, but if his teacher thinks so, I don't know if that's enough to warrant testing him or not, since NOBODY else thinks he does.

phone calls

About a week ago, Gavin had his first real conversation on the phone. WITH someone on the other line! I was talking to my mother and went to say "Bye", when Gavin started to say "Bye" (he can hear me winding down the conversation and knows when I'm about to hang up by the change in my voice apparently.) So instead of hanging up, I put the phone up to his ear and said to say "Hi." My mother spoke to him and he responded "hi" and then said a couple short sentences, none of which I understood. But he clearly was talking to her. What he used to do, is grab the phone and have "conversations" when the phone wasn't on, but wouldn't speak or anything when anyone was on the other line. But apparently that has changed. Maybe he felt left out that I was talking on the phone, and he wanted to see what the big deal was!
I repeated the experiment the next day with my mother-in-law, and got him to say "hi" and "bye" to her a couple of times, so now he has spoken to each of his grandmas on the phone. YAY!

May= Verbal Month (started in late April, but close enough to May!)

Hmmm...where to start? Let's see, I forgot to mention that we haven't been using Gavin's pulse oximeter nightly like we were. We haven't put it on him for over a month, and he seems to be doing fine at night without it. Probably because he comes into our room every night anyway! After Gavin learned that he could climb out of his crib on his own, he started coming into our room to sleep when he'd wake up. We finally switched him to a toddler bed to make it safer at least, when he climbs out. But he's been waking up and coming in with us every night for the last few weeks. Always around the same time of the night (2:30-4:30 am), so I'm not sure what wakes him up at that time each night, but I sure wish he'd sleep in his own room all night at least sometimes!

Ok, now to the fun stuff. Gavin has finally decided he wants to talk. A lot. Which is awesome! But it's taking me a while to catch up to his talking, so I don't understand a fair amount of what he says at this time. But it's coming. His speech is getting more clear, and I'm able to figure out some of it anyway! He decided that he liked the alphabet letters, so wanted to work on those. And street signs (like Stop signs.) I'm not sure which thing started him, but the alphabet interested him enough, so he started saying the letters. He can now say almost all of the letters, although not in order yet. But he just loves singing along to the alphabet song. He can also count to 6, on his own (in order), sometimes says 7, but sometimes just jumps to 8, which is apparently his favorite number. In any case, to quote his Early Intervention teacher, "his speech has just exploded in the last few weeks." He is talking SO MUCH! And he literally didn't say anything before that. Every now and then, a "Mama" or "Dada", but nothing else. By the way, "Dada" has turned into "Daddee", and "Mama" into "Bahbee" for some reason. And he calls himself "Gabee" right now. Guess he's just learning how to say that sound on the end of words. I don't really care--it's cute! Plus, one of these days, "Bahbee" will turn into "Mommy", hopefully!
He started coming up to us and saying "Hey". We both think it's cute, but Terry especially likes it, especially when he did it in the middle of the night (as he was walking up to our bed, trying to climb in it.) He has said "Hey baby" to me a couple of times, which I also think is cute. Some of the stuff he's saying, he is imitating what he's heard us say (like "hey baby"), but other stuff he is making up himself, like he should be at this age. (Stuff like when he said today "I try to read", and when he can use adjectives in conjunction with the noun, like saying "red" in addition to "car", to get "red car".) We're just so pleased with desire to communicate now, and he's doing really pretty well with it!
He had the Baylee test at the NICU follow-up last month, and he came up with being right about where he should be with all of the sections, except for expressive language (talking). That is what he has gotten so much better at in the last few weeks. Besides, his expressive language gets grouped into receptive language (what he understands), and that pulled his score up, so he was only a few months behind on his language skills from where they wanted him to be.
Early Intervention was here last week, and they will be working on that with him this summer, along with sensory stuff with him to see if we can get him farther ahead, and be more tolerant of different sensory experiences (touching different things.) They discussed about whether or not we would be able to pay for preschool in the fall. Really? The kid is only 2! He's not old enough for preschool! Well, I mean, technically he would be, but really? They're trying to take my little boy from me already? Can't they wait until he's 3 1/2-4 at least??? I know we don't HAVE to put him in preschool this fall, so I'm actually not intending to. I figure maybe we can do a couple of ECFE classes like we did last fall, and see if that gets him socialized a little more. Poor kid never gets to play with other kids his age otherwise! (On the other hand, he stays a lot more healthy when he doesn't hang around other kids!)
Anyway, that's enough update for now.

April was a busy month

April started out ok as far as Gavin went, because due to the Miralax he was taking, he started drinking amazingly well. Plus, both he and I were mostly over our nasty colds. THEN, his daddy ended up in the hospital with a burst appendix. Gavin did visit Terry in the hospital a couple of times, but then Terry said it was making him too tired and taking too much out of him to have Gavin visit, SO Gavin stayed home. Which was better for both of them. Terry got more rest, and we didn't have to plan our day and Gavin eating around when we were taking him to the hospital. (It's rough to feed a bottle-fed kid in the hospital with really no place to go sit and feed him!)
Gavin's eating/drinking dropped off. Of course, that could be because after Terry went in the hospital, it was ME making the bottles up for Gavin, and I wasn't giving him extra doses of Miralax that Terry inadvertently had been doing! (We all misunderstood the doctor's directions on dosing until I called to clarify the dose. Turns out, we had been giving Gavin 3-4 times his prescribed daily dose! Hey- it's not our fault that the doctor wrote "1 tsp in 4 oz fluid", and didn't specify that it was only ONCE PER DAY! Barbara, Terry and I ALL thought that it meant in every bottle we gave him. No wonder the kid was drinking so well. He was COMPLETELY cleaned out!)
Anyway, it wasn't easy with Terry being in the hospital, but Gavin did get to spend more time with his Grandma P. She watched him for several hours at a time while I would go to the hospital alone. (Yes, I drove myself, with my broken foot. Didn't have much choice if I wanted to see my husband! The doctor had said I could start putting weight on it a bit at a time, and work my way up to 50% of my weight, so I figured driving must be acceptable too. After checking with the doctor afterwards, he said that yes, that was fine.)
So it has been a lot of work to get Gavin to go back to drinking and eating well. It hasn't really happened yet, but we're trying.
We found a tick on him one morning about a week ago, and brought him and the tick to the doctor to be checked out. The doctor assured us that it looked like a wood tick, which doesn't carry diseases. So I hope she's right. We think the tick got on him from his LONG walk with Grandma P the day before. She had the stroller so she could push Gavin part of the way, and they ended up down by the river, 1 1/2 miles from here. They were gone over 3 hours, and had a good time exploring the river area.
When we were at the doctors appointment, they weighed him and it turned out he had gained about 12 ounces in the last month! YAY! Of course, most of that was in that first week of taking Miralax, and his weight gain has slowed down since then, but still, that's a great amount for him!
On the 27th, we brought Gavin for his 2-year adjusted appointment with the NICU follow-up clinic. I'll try to remember to post actual numbers later, but the long and the short of it is, that he is pretty much caught up with his age in most areas. He is at least between his adjusted and his actual age in everything, EXCEPT expressive language. However, just about a week before the appointment, Gavin started saying a flurry of words, starting with, the alphabet! He absolutely loves saying the letters, and coupled with the few sign language signs we have taught him, he decided he was really interested in talking. Finally. He finally figured out what this talking thing is all about, and that it can get him what he wants. Like when he'll sign and say "Help" (does them together), we help him. Voila! Like magic, he figured out that it was a good thing if he could make his needs known, and now he's picking up new words every day! So even though his expressive language ability only scored as high as a 17 month old kid, he'll be catching up soon I think. Speaking of the alphabet, there are only a few of the letters he can't seem to say yet. He can recognize all but one or two (point to them when asked), and can say all but 8 or so of them. Pretty good considering he just started saying them a week or two ago. No, he doesn't say them in order yet, but he's working on it. And he gets "3" confused with "E", and such, but I'm sure that's normal and will get clear on this eventually. He likes learning the numbers too, and really seems to be happy to tell us when he sees the number "8." Not sure why he focused on that one as being able to tell us first, but he likes it.
Ok, that's a really long post so far. So, I'm done, except to say, that last night, Terry put together Gavin's toddler bed. He did sleep in it for a while (he fell asleep being held on the couch, and then was transferred to the bed), and then climbed out of bed and came in with us, same as he's been doing most nights for the last month. (Think I had forgotten to post that also, that he now regularly climbs out of his crib at night. You can tell that he's pretty impressed that he can do it by himself! Now, with the toddler bed, it's easier, so I don't know if he'll like doing it as well, but it definitely will be safer than climbing over that high rail like he did!)
That's it for now.

Sensory Week

Last week apparently was Sensory Week for Gavin. He's had a really bad cold and wasn't drinking his formula all that well, but once he started feeling better, he couldn't get enough! Terry and his mother brought Gavin to Walmart Thursday evening, and bought him a couple Lunchables, which Gavin sampled in the store and on the way home apparently. That by itself, was huge! He normally would eat sandwich meat and sometimes cheese anyway, but he actually tasted the cream from his cookie! AND didn't throw it up! Then Terry made blueberry muffins this weekend (and we make mini muffins for Gavin), and Gavin actually ate 1/2 of one of his mini muffins! I couldn't believe he even tasted it, say nothing about eating that much of one! That soft texture is something he usually can't get past, enough to try the food. But once he decides he likes something, sometimes it's easier for him to try it again, which was the case this weekend.

On Wednesday or Thursday, he was mouthing my eyebrows before nap (something he hasn't done for a long time), so maybe that's what started his desire for sensory exploration last week. I don't know how he was able to push past his fear of soft carbs, but I'm so proud of him for doing it! Come to think of it, he did touch a piece of my bread last Wed or Thurs also. He didn't get it to his mouth, but I guess he figured out it wasn't going to hurt him, so then he was willing to try it in muffin form.

We had started giving him Miralax per doctors order (more to follow on that GI doc appt) earlier in the week, and it does seem to be helping him clear out his system so he can drink more Pediasure/formula mix, etc. Plus, adding in the muffin that he ate (ok, half a muffin, but still!), that's helping him push the food out of his system so there's more room for him to eat and drink more. That happened to him when he got diarrhea from the antibiotic in early summer also, but unfortunately, he just got constipated again and stopped drinking as much after a while. I sure wish a doctor had prescribed Miralax for Gavin a year or so ago! Think of how much more food he could have gotten into him if he had taken that before!

I've been slacking off...

Ok, not intentionally. I was carrying Gavin downstairs one night, missed the last step and fell hard on the bottom stair twisting my ankle really hard. Went to the ER, thought it was just a torn tendon. A few days later had it checked again, and I actually broke a bone in my ankle. SO. I'm on crutches for 6 weeks, can't walk on that foot, etc. So my Mother-in-law stayed for a bit longer to help out with watching Gavin.
Early Intervention came yesterday to check-up on Gavin. A Speech Pathologist was with them this time. Of course, Gavin didn't speak one word, or even so much as make a sound for the whole hour they were here. But the Speech lady asked me if he was talking to himself, and I said "As a matter of fact, he is. He seems like he's talking more to himself than he is trying to communicate with us." She actually said that was good, that was what we wanted him to be doing. Really? You'd rather have him talking to himself than anyone else? No idea why, but I'm assuming that means it's a good developmental milestone or something. So I was thrilled that they actually said that he was doing something they wanted him to be doing!
He has been trying to see how much time he can spend outside recently. Kind of hard, since I can't really take him out. But Grandma is usually willing to go out with him. If, however, she dares step foot outside without him, even to let Jasmine out, he whines, and starts crying. He REALLY wants to be outside recently!
We saw the pediatrician a couple of weeks ago. All she focused on the whole visit, was his size. Therefore, she wanted him to get a G-tube to feed him. I refused. She's been bringing this up to me for the last 15-18 months, and I'm sick of hearing it, and it stresses me out, which stresses Gavin out, all of which affect his desire to eat. I told her that I thought he had finally outgrown his reflux and she said that was nice, but we still needed to worry about his eating. I thought it was great that he wasn't really having reflux recently, as I KNOW that affected how much he ate sometimes, but she didn't want to hear that I guess. She told me we could go see a surgeon to discuss a g-tube, or a gastro doctor to see if he had any suggestions, so I told her we could go see the gastro doctor. I actually don't mind seeing one, I just refused to go back to the one we saw for him last year. He was one of those doctors that think he's always right, and we had nothing valuable to contribute apparently.
When the OT from Early Intervention was here yesterday, she asked who was monitoring Gavin's food intake, besides us. I said "nobody is. Just us." She was surprised, which, after I started thinking about it, so was I. The pediatrician monitors his height and weight, but she knows we're not seeing a gastro doc, so why isn't she interested in HOW MUCH he takes in. It just seems like she should have been asking us occasionally how many ounces of Pediasure/formula he was taking in, or how much solid food, or something. OR, made sure we went back to a Gastro doc to discuss it. Like I said, she's been bringing up a G-tube to me for the last 15+ months, (except that 2 weeks ago she said "If Gavin wasn't doing so well with his development and his milestones, we would have had this conversation a long time ago.") WHAT??? We DID have this conversation a long time ago. She started mentioning it at least last January. The ONLY time she didn't bring up a g-tube to me, was the month we started feeding therapy for Gavin. And we haven't been in for monthly check-ups since October (I think) because of all the germs during the winter. But every visit, she mentions it, and she seems to have forgotten that. How many months did I worry, every single day, about her bringing up a g-tube again? I started dreading to go to the appointments because I didn't want to hear it AGAIN. IF I could see that he was falling behind on his development, that would be different. But in any case, I just got way to stressed out about her bringing it up EVERY visit. So then I pressured Gavin into eating even if he didn't want to, and that was because his doctor was stressing me out. Bad cycle. Ok, enough of that.
Gavin recently learned to jump. He LOVES it!!! Also, Terry did a magic show for Gavin one night, where he had a big smiley face made out of that pop-up material (like pop-up tents), where you fold it up, and then with a flick of your hand, it opens. Gavin thought it was great. 2 or 3 nights after that, Gavin performed the same routine (tried to anyway) for Grandma and me. I thought it was outstanding! He even tried to repeat the abra-cadabra type words that Terry said a few days before, and said "Bam!" a couple of times, which is what Terry said when the face would open up. Coupled with that, Gavin was counting down. Granted, he starts with "two" instead of "one", and unless you know that's what he's doing, you wouldn't understand the words, but he definitely is doing his version of counting. It was adorable!
Ok. That's a long enough post for now.

no more crib?

Short little post, because I haven't put anything on here for a while. Gavin learned how to climb out of his crib. He got up Sunday morning, climbed right out before Terry could get in there. He looked at Terry, like "Don't worry, Dad...I got this!" What a big boy he thinks he is!
And, I have to love that the other day before Gavin's bath, even though he didn't apparently have to pee on his toilet, when he got in the bath and had to pee, he grabbed a cup to (try to) pee into!
He's growing up right before my eyes, I guess!

Gavin's trying to be a typical toddler

This morning I was trying to get Gavin dressed to go outside, and we had gotten his snow pants and boots on. All of a sudden, he took off and ran down the hall to his room. I was curious but didn't say anything. He ran back out with his hat in his hand--he had been playing with it earlier and apparently left it in his room. I hadn't said anything about where his hat was, because I assumed it was with his coat in the dining room. Good thing he remembered leaving it in his room! I was just pleased that he remembered to go get it without me saying anything to him!

In feeding news, Gavin is starting to just act like a typical kid. We've been working on getting him to eat more carbs, like pasta, and Terry bought some wagon wheels pasta thinking Gavin MIGHT like those. Turns out, he does. He likes the shape, and doesn't mind the texture as long as he gets to play with it first. So he plays with it, and sometimes even decides to eat a couple pieces. He still doesn't eat much of it though, but we keep trying.
Yesterday, he indicated that he was done with his lunch, so I took a pretzel stick and put it through the center of a piece of wagon wheel pasta that he had on his plate. He decided he wasn't REALLY done then, because he grabbed the pretzel stick, and used it to put the pasta in his mouth, then stabbed another piece of pasta to eat. He did the same with raspberries this morning. He said he was done, until I put a raspberry on the end of a potato stick. So I guess we're going to be putting food on sticks (pretzels or potato sticks.) It convinces him to eat just a little more. Just like a typical kid, he doesn't want to eat unless it's fun!
YAY for Gavin acting like a normal kid! I'm so proud of him for trying non-preferred textures (like pasta) all on his own!

Who's on the phone?

We've seen Gavin picking up random objects (calculator, Ipod, remote, computer hard drive) to use as a phone to "talk" for a while now (as well as using the real phone.) However, he will not talk to someone when there is actually someone on the line with him. I figure that will come with more experience. Here's the funniest part--he never actually says "Hello" or "Hi" or anything resembling that when he picks up a "phone" to use. However, after listening to him a few times recently, we figured out what he DOES say to start the conversation--he says "Terry." That's right, he says Terry, as in, his Daddy's name. To confirm this, we asked him tonight where Daddy was, and he pointed to Terry and gave him a hug. I asked him where Terry was, and he pointed to Terry. So even though he won't actually call Terry "Dada" (even though he's able to say the word, since he has said it before), he's apparently talking to Terry on the phone when he has his conversations with no one!
I just think it's really funny that he has whole conversations with Terry, whether Terry is actually a part of them or not!

fears?

Gavin has been having trouble going to sleep recently, no matter if we start in his room or downstairs. So even though he was sleeping better with the light off in his room, I wondered if he was becoming scared of the dark, so we've left his light on again some nights. I still don't know if he's scared of the dark, but he does seem to like the light being on.
He has a sound machine in his room that you can set different sounds, and Terry started it on the sound of ocean waves, which Gavin has gone to sleep really well to in the past, but tonight, as soon as we put him in his crib, he burst out crying. I thought it was just because he wanted to continue being held. But, since Gavin has been falling asleep to a different sound recently, I mentioned to Terry that he could change the sound machine to the "rainforest mode" which is the sound of birds of the rainforest, since Gavin has been sleeping well with that on recently. He settled right down, so I'm thinking for some reason maybe the ocean sound was scaring him. That's what it seemed like. I hear from other moms of 2 year olds that they develop fears around this age, and maybe that's part of the problems we have with him sometimes. I guess we won't know until he gets to talking better so he can tell us.

Oh, let's see. It's been a week since I posted, so let's see what to update today.
The other night, Gavin ran around with a kleenex in his hand blowing his nose. He really was blowing it, but no mucous came out, so he wasn't doing it hard enough. However, I'm really impressed that he figured out how to blow from just his nose.
Daddy has been playing "got your nose" with Gavin, so the other night when Gavin was sitting with me, he grabbed MY nose to play. Guess he really did get the hang of what the game is about.
Yesterday, he put his pants on mostly by himself. I just needed to help him pull them up. Funny, considering he started pulling his pants down a good 6 months ago, but now since we've been doing it for him, he doesn't seem to remember to pull them up or down by himself. (We started pulling his pants up instead of waiting for him to do it, when he decided he didn't want to wear pants and would have happily gone all day without them. While I don't object to that idea, it's the middle of winter, and it's far too cold to go without pants. For that matter, now he doesn't mind wearing pants, but he really objects on a daily basis, to putting a shirt on. Again, it's too cold to go without a shirt! Especially considering the tough time we've been having with getting him to gain weight. Gavin can now put both socks on himself, although it is MUCH easier for him to put the left one on, and he has to spend a lot of effort and time to get the right one on. But he CAN do it if he doesn't mind sitting there and working on it. Sometimes it's just too much to sit there that long though, apparently, so he'll run around the house with one sock on (which is actually better since he doesn't slip as much on the wood floor with just that one sock.)
Gavin has discovered a problem when it comes to his clothing. It's in drawers that are a little bit too high for him to reach on his own. He can't even reach his sock drawer, which is the one he wanted to play with yesterday (although, since those darn little socks get lost so easily, I guess I don't mind that he can't just get into the sock drawer and play with them whenever he wants!) However, when I asked him if he wanted me to move the socks to the drawer under the bed that he could reach, he shook his head no. He wants them to remain where they are, just the problem is that he can't reach them. What to do, what to do? If he was a bit taller, he could probably reach them better, but he's not, so I guess he'll just either have to let me move them for him, or go without playing with them on his own!
We had Mahi-Mahi (fish) for dinner last night, and after watching me eat some (he has tried it before, but it was months ago and I was sure he didn't remember), he did take several big pieces off my plate to eat. Both Terry and I are really impressed when he does that.
Terry gave me flowers for Valentine's Day, and Gavin really liked them. He sme
lled the roses when I showed him how to, but he really likes the small lillies, and the little purple (filler) flowers, so I gave them one of each that he rubbed against his mouth and face for some amount of time that first day. Then at lunch yesterday, he asked for another flower. He seems to really like them!
I think there was something else to update, but I can't remember it right now, so maybe I can come up with it and post it later.

Everyone snacks when they shop!

We went to Walmart the other night to get groceries. I always give Gavin a cup of water to have with him through the store, and I had a bowl of snacks for him (Cheerios, Kix, potato sticks, whatever.) Apparently, it wasn't good enough. As soon as we got a cucumber for our salad, he turned around in the seat of the shopping cart, grabbed the cucumber, and started to try to take a bite out of it. We took it from him and continued shopping. Next was fruit for him, so we found raspberries. Sure enough, he turned around and grabbed the box of raspberries, got them open and started eating them. Normally I would wash them before giving them to him, but they just looked too good to pass up apparently.
Terry and I never snack while we're shopping, but Terry said it's because I always give Gavin a snack bowl while we shop that he thought he should start eating the foods before we buy them!
At least he was going for the healthy foods!

In other news, we had eggs and toast this morning. Normally getting Gavin to eat toast is hit or miss, but I put raspberry jam on toast the other day and got him to try just a bit of the jam. He recognized it when I put the jam on our toast this morning, and he took his fork and swiped it across my piece of toast, taking most of the jam from MY toast! He then put his fork in his mouth and ate the jam off of it. At least he was getting a good taste of it!
He decided he could manage to have some toast, since it had jam on it. He wouldn't touch it with his hands, but did spear it with his fork to eat several pieces of toast this morning. YAY! If all it takes is raspberry jam to get him to eat bread/toast, I'll put it on for him every day!

A new Gavin?

Today for lunch, I gave Gavin pretzel sticks, yogurt melts, juice and apple slices. For my snack, I took out a blueberry muffin that Terry had bought me a few days ago (pack of 4.) I put a little bit next to Gavin's plate, and poked a pretzel stick through the tiny bite of muffin. Gavin saw it, and put it in his mouth to taste. He then picked up a couple more bites of muffin to eat. WOW! Gavin NEVER eats anything as soft as a muffin! He started dipping his pretzel sticks into his juice too...reminds me of someone dipping a doughnut into their coffee or something. After he got up, he still had a pretzel stick, so was running around carrying that, and got out one of his favorite toys--the bag of multiflavor (and multicolor) mini marshmallows. Normally he just likes carrying them around and squishing them occasionally, but this time he did spear one with his pretzel stick and ate a bite. Not sure he liked it so much, but he did try it willingly, and it didn't kill him! Like I said before, Gavin never eats anything soft like that. Maybe he's getting over his texture problem all on his own?
Last night he found some french fries downstairs (from a few days ago), and started eating those. Again, normally he never likes french fries because even though they're crunchy outside, they're soft inside. But of course, if these were a few days old, they were probably hard all the way through. However, now that he's tried them and decided they were good, MAYBE, just maybe, we can get him to try them again when they're fresh. Maybe I can give him sweet potato fries, and he and Daddy can have french fries together. (Normally I don't make fries for us to eat, since they're something that I can't really have. So, Terry usually goes without them at home, if he wants some, he has them during the day at work.)
The other day, I made some wagon wheels pasta for Gavin, and he actually picked a couple up and took bites out of them. Not big bites, but that's a huge step for someone who normally won't touch pasta because he doesn't like how it feels! Terry had bought them to try with Gavin, since Gavin is obsessed with wheels, and I guess it works. It's the first piece of pasta he's tried willingly! And not once, not twice, but 3 times! (Granted, he wouldn't try any the next day, but maybe we're getting somewhere occasionally.)
Anyway, my little boy is experimenting with "non-preferred" foods this week at least. YAY Gavin! I can tell from watching him that it takes a lot of courage for him to try those soft foods, so he's being really brave trying them all on his own. I'm extremely proud of him!

Climbing Mount Everest

Ok. Not really , it's just that Gavin has the same focus trying to climb in and out of his crib recently as people have when trying to climb a mountain! He is REALLY determined. He was so determined with it yesterday evening, that we ended up eating our dinner in his room watching him try to climb into his crib. He's actually more focused on climbing INTO the crib, than out! It seems that his crib has become one of his favorite places to play recently, after realizing that cribs can be more than just for sleeping! A week or two ago, all of a sudden, he learned how to fall asleep on his own in his crib. AFTER playing in it for a while though. But still, that's fine. The point being is that he can sometimes fall asleep on his own without being held! But it seemed that the more we did that (put him in his crib to fall asleep on his own), the more he realized how much fun it was to play in the crib BEFORE falling asleep. And because he's got quite a bit of energy, now he's really having a great time jumping up and down in the crib holding onto the rail. He did it for about half an hour straight today. Actually, that was after his nap, but still, lots of fun for him apparently. It's good exercise and good for leg strength I suppose. I guess that's probably one of the reasons he's trying to climb INTO the crib, because he can jump up and down for a lot longer than I'll hold his hands and let him jump on the couch!

Luckily, his legs are just a bit short to climb into and out of the crib. I'm still kind of surprised he can't quite do it though, since he learned a week or two ago that he can climb in and out of the playpen (Pack and play type) downstairs. He learned to climb IN first, then figured out a safe way to climb out. I thought they were the same height as the crib, but apparently not. His legs are just an inch or two too short to get out of the crib, so if he was a normal height for his age, he'd have no problems. We keep thinking he'll make it, then he doesn't, so we have to help him. But I'm figuring within a week or so, he'll figure out a way to do it, even with his short legs! But for now,we'll just know that every day we'll probably have "crib-time", a regular scheduled activity for physical fitness! I'm glad he's found something he likes to do until it gets warm enough outside to go out again!

Typical Only Child

Well, let's see what's been happening this month. First, (in reverse order) Gavin had 2 pieces of popcorn last night. We had been TRYING not to let him have any yet so he wouldn't choke on it, but he grabbed it before we could get it from him. He did fine with it, no choking or anything. Still, I think we're going to wait before letting him have any more.
The occupational therapist (Cindy) that works through Early Intervention came out last week to do feeding therapy with Gavin. This was her first time working with Gavin, so she was just watching to see how he did with eating. Wouldn't you know, he ate better while she was here than he's been doing for a while? I'm really glad for that, actually. I just need some help getting him to eat. I think it would have been easier to get him to eat some things, if I could eat them myself! My food allergies make it kind of difficult to get Gavin to eat certain foods, and I find it difficult to feed him sometimes. I think it would be so much easier to feed him (and get him to eat), if we were closer to family, so he would have other people besides me/us to eat with. So let's hope we get really close to home during this next move! (Which will be this summer) Anyway, she mentioned the same thing as the other feeding therapist said this summer, that he seemed to not be chewing effectively with his teeth, but I think he normally does better than he did that day, since he's getting his back molars in, and he hasn't been chewing as much as he was.

The Early Education educator (Emily) came to see Gavin since their Bayley test last month showed that he should get regular visits. She mentioned that Gavin was talking more than the last time she saw him which she was happy for. When he didn't seem to be able to do what she asked, he went up to her and gave her a hug. Apparently, hugs solve everything! He was hoping that by giving her a hug, she'd forget what she had asked him to do. (She didn't.)
She had a shape sorter with her, to have Gavin use, so she could see if he could match up the same shapes. He's been doing that for a while, so he did well with it, except she mentioned that she was hoping he would pull all the shapes out of the box at a time, and he tended to pull just one out at a time, then push it through the appropriate slot, then pull another shape out and repeat. I told her that based on how much he was seeming to enjoy putting his toys in his toybox recently, I think he likes having things in their place, but that sometimes he will dump all of the shapes out of his own shape sorter instead of doing them one at a time. I'm not sure of the significance of just doing one shape at a time vs taking all of them out. It may be a red flag about the autism spectrum, since she brought that subject up at the visit. She said that even though Gavin has good eye contact, he still could be on the autism spectrum, and she's worried that he might be, based upon some red flags which she sees. These include things like not talking much, making repetitive movements (which I tried to tell her was him dancing but she didn't really believe it), and I can't remember what else. But in any case, she thought I should bring it up to his doctor. Since I'm not concerned about it at this time, I'm not going to talk to his doctor about it, even though the educator was relatively concerned about the possibility.
My mother put it this way--she thinks Gavin is a typical only child whose mom stays home with him and anticipates his needs. Now, if it were anyone else, I might have been offended, but my mother is right (like she is a lot of the time!) I've been told all through my life, that I didn't speak until I was 2 years old, because I didn't NEED to. I had 3 older brothers who knew what I wanted/needed, so I didn't have to learn to talk. Basically, she was saying that Gavin is in the same situation--because I have gotten pretty good at figuring out what he wants/needs, he doesn't HAVE to learn to speak with recognizable words. He does chatter and jabber away a fair amount, but most of the time, they're not recognizable as English words. He is getting better at it though. I really think he just needs more socializing time with people besides Terry and I. Every time the Early Intervention people are here, even if it's just to watch him and not actually work with him, he starts speaking more after they leave. I think he just needs to hear people besides us actually use talking as a form of communication. I also think, that even though the "gold standard" of preemie developmental catch-up says that preemies should be caught up by the age of 2, I don't think he's quite there. I think that when he reaches his 2 year adjusted age, some of these "red flags" for autism, like him not speaking many recognizable words yet and not using words to communicate what he wants, will be gone by then. I think some of the problems are just a matter of him not being quite caught up yet.
The idea that preemies would be caught up by 2 years old stemmed from an earlier time when preemies before 32ish weeks, didn't survive anyway, so that maybe they did catch up by their 2nd birthday. Now that we have earlier preemies, as early as 24 weeks, it's foolish to think that they would catch up in the same time-frame as older preemies. I think the developmental catch-up time-frame should be evaluated and changed to reflect the gestational age of the child when he/she was born. Which isn't going to happen anytime soon, but in any case, I feel that Gavin will catch up soon, and if he catches up by his 2 year adjusted age, I figure he'll be fine.

That's it for the Early Education stuff. Now, on to food.
We made doughnuts today. Gavin wouldn't try one, but did take a doughnut hole and fed it to me. At least he touched it! Terry made homemade ravioli yesterday--Gavin WASN'T willing to touch that! He just apparently can't stand the texture of pasta. If the kid didn't like dark chocolate, I'd swear he was someone else's kid! I mean, he doesn't eat bread, pasta, any of the typical child foods! At least the stuff he eats is pretty healthy stuff, fruits and vegetables. Which means he can't be Terry's kid! Just kidding! Some day we'll be complaining about how he wants to only eat mac and cheese, and pizza and we'll forget all about the time when he wouldn't touch either of those with a 10 foot pole!

I've got a 2 year old!

I have a 2 year old on my hands. He's stubborn, independent, stubborn, and obstinate. Oh wait, you say, those are the same things? Well, I guess that's because he's SUPER stubborn!
The other day he refused to let me put his striped overalls on. He didn't so much object to the pants part, but wouldn't let go of playing with the straps so once I got his legs in and tried to pull the straps to the back to fasten them, he got really upset, fussing and "yelling" at me I guess. He just WOULD NOT let me do it. I finally just figured it was easier to put another pair of pants on him. He wasn't happy with that arrangement either, but I distracted him by letting him turn the light switch on as soon as I got his pants on, then he seemed to forget about the issue. A couple of weeks ago he started doing this. He absolutely refused to let me put a clean diaper on him for a few days, at the same time, he refused to let me put pants on him. Now, I know what it was, is that HE wants to do it himself. Although, I'm not sure about the diaper thing. He might want to wear something that he can pull up and down himself. I don't know. And I'm not even sure they make pull-ups small enough to fit him yet! But the pants thing isn't going to get better apparently. He spent a good 10 minutes this morning, JUST putting his own pants on, because he wouldn't let me do it. I thought he was going to go pants-less today, but he did eventually let me help him finish the job. The other day, he completely refused to let me put a plaid shirt on him. No idea why, as he's worn it before, it's not scratchy or anything, and it's warm. Guess he's just asserting his ability to make choices.
He started a few weeks ago with refusing to let me put his socks and shoes on when we had a doctor's appointment. We ended up leaving late, in fact, because he refused so much. He started screaming if I tried to do it, because he's been really into trying to ge this own shoes on right now. Independence at its best.
And he's been throwing more tantrums than he did before. More extended than they were, and for seemingly less reasons. Not that his reasons aren't important (to him), but they don't seem like very big deals usually, BUT he's a toddler, so of course, he's going to throw tantrums when any little thing doesn't go his way. The biggest problem one is when he objects to Terry taking care of him instead of me. He's really in a bad separation anxiety phase right now. It even extends to when I go back upstairs to get something, he starts fussing and crying sometimes because I'm not in the room right then. We've been working on that one, but I have to figure it hasn't worked as well as we wanted yet. Terry and I met up at the store the other night, and Gavin of course, went with me. On the way out, Terry carried Gavin to the truck first to turn it on, then carried him back to the car to put him in the carseat for me. Gavin cried his little head off, like he was being abducted, until Terry left and went to the truck to drive home. Once Terry was gone, Gavin was fine. I mean, he's got this separation anxiety (from me), REALLY BAD!

Gavin picked his nose the other day then wiped the booger on my hand. Guess he thought I would know what to do with it. Only wish I had a kleenex or something with me right then!
And the other morning, I woke to a cold house. In his obsession with light switches, Gavin flicked the furnace switch off while playing in that area the night before.
Which, speaking of light switches, as Gavin goes around the house flipping on light switches (if I turn them off, he notices and goes right back over to the switches to turn them on!), I'm reminded of the song "Every Light in the House is On", even in the middle of the day. He just loves having the lights on. I thought it was just that he liked turning them on himself, but like I said, if I turn them off, he goes back to turn them on, so apparently it's the brightness he likes.

The other night, Erinne's spirit showed itself through Gavin. I went to throw away his diaper after we changed him before bed, and lo and behold, the trash can was knocked over, with trash strewn around it. It reminded me so much of Erinne that I think Gavin must be channeling her spirit sometimes! After all, she passed on before he was born, so it's possible...
On that note, we happen to both love it when we change Gavin, and he gets up afterwards, picks up his diaper and takes it out to the trash to throw away. He's been really good with throwing things away for several months, but just in the last couple of weeks, he has decided to start taking things OUT of the trash sometimes, if it's something that looks interesting to him, which is apparently why the trash can was knocked over.

Another thing I happen to really love right now, is that Gavin started letting me know when he wants to read. He gets up onto the couch and pats the couch to let me know he wants me to sit down with him and read. One time, he was in front of me (I was already sitting on the couch), when he reached forward and patted my leg to indicate that he should get up there and read. I think it's really cute!

Just had to share some of the things he's doing. Typical toddler. But what happened to my sweet baby? Where did he go?

Early Intervention/Bayley test

So Early Intervention came out last month to administer a test called the Bayley test (well, it has a longer name, but that's the main part of it.) The test has 5 components: Cognitive, Language (which includes Receptive AND Expressive), Motor (Fine AND Gross), Social Emotional, and Adaptive Behavior. The Adaptive Behavior and Social Emotional apparently were mostly based on a questionnaire I filled out while they were at the house that day. Now, apparently we stop adjusting for Gavin's age when he turns 2 years old. This test was done 3 weeks before that, but the Early Intervention team felt he was close enough. (I don't agree, now that I have seen all the progress he made with some things in those 3 weeks!) Anyway, they scored him on how close he was to his adjusted age, and his actual age. I'm not sure who came up with this scoring technique, but 85-115 is normal range for each component. 77-85 is below average. 77 or below is the cutoff for when Early Intervention considers that the child should begin having specialized services.
I will list his score for Adjusted Age first, then Actual age.
Cognitive: 100 (Adjusted), 85 (Actual)
Language: 83 (Adjusted), 77 (Actual)
Motor: 94 (Adjusted), 82 (Actual)
Social Emotional: 80 (Adjusted), 80 (Actual)
Adaptive Behavior: 99 (Adjusted), 81 (Actual)

What this means is he's fine on his cognitive skills, everything else he's a bit below average, but not horrible. However, they think he's behind enough on language for them to start providing language therapy for him.

Now, they also told me how they scored Language and Motor skills, since each is a combination of 2 sections. Motor skills is broken up in Fine Motor, and Gross Motor skills. A score of 8-12 is average. Anything lower than that is below average. Again, they score on Adjusted age and Actual age.
Fine motor: 10 (Adjusted age), 8 (Actual age)
Gross Motor: 8 (Adjusted age), 6 (Actual age)

Receptive Language: 9 (Adjusted age), 8 (Actual age)
Expressive Language: 5 (Adjusted age), 4 (Actual age)

What this means, is that Gavins' fine motor skills are completely up to par for his age. The Gross Motor skills COMPLETELY surprised me. I asked them "Have you SEEN my son? He's ALL about gross motor skills!" They said although he could do some of the stuff they asked him to do, some of it had to do with the quality of his movements. (He has been walking and running on his tiptoes recently for some reason.) Some of the other things were walking up and down stairs without holding onto anything but the wall, taking side steps instead of walking straight forward or backward, things like that. Things I'm completely not worried about. Just in the last 3 weeks, Gavin has gotten so he can take a step up without holding onto anything, quite a feat considering his small stature and the length of those little legs! But in any case, because they add fine and gross motor together, he still came out just about average on the motor skills.
He came out fine on his receptive language (what he understands). But he rarely says recognizable words (although, again, he has gotten better at it in the last few weeks.)

Since Gavin has gotten better with talking in the last few weeks, I think he's just slow to talk, and he'll get it soon. However, they think he needs a speech therapist to come out once a month so I told them I was ok with them starting with that, but I didn't think he was going to need therapy that often, but they could START with that schedule, and then I can change my mind later if I think he doesn't need the services then.

But, I'm SUPER excited to find out that his cognitive (thinking) skills are caught up to his actual age! I KNEW he was a smart little cookie!

What helped me the most when listening to the Early Intervention people giving me the results was that the day they administered the test, I watched the stuff they were judging him on, and I thought "WOW- that's the stuff they want him to do? He can do almost all of that!" (I didn't say that he actually DID all of it, but I knew that he COULD and did on most other days.) So I had already figured that I was going to take whatever they said the results were, with a grain of salt. So I wasn't stressed out while they were telling me how they scored Gavin. The big problem I had with them that day, was that they kept looking at me funny while they were giving me the results. The "I'm giving someone bad news and I'm going to watch them to see how they respond" look. And that really bothered me, because I didn't consider it bad news, I just thought some of it was a function of the way they tested him, and some of it I knew he had progressed more on some things by that time than he did when they administered the test.

So. I took it with a grain of salt, and even if I don't think Gavin needs the extra therapy, it will mean that someone else will be interacting with Gavin, which he needs, since we are very isolated here, and the only people Gavin ever really sees, are Terry and I, and doctors/nurses when we go to appointments. That's it. So much for him learning to socialize with other people! So at least he'll get to deal with a couple more people, for a while anyway.

magic

Gavin performs magic every day at our house. Or so he thinks. He is absolutely in love with turning light switches on and off. And then he turns around to see the light turn on, when he flicks the switch on, and his whole face lights up. Reminds me of a kid at Christmas! Then he turns the light switch off, he turns around to see that it's off, then turns it back on again, and starts smiling again. It's like magic to him, every time.