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.