This morning he woke up & immediately starting talking. He's been babbling for months, but today he was saying "ba ba ba" first thing in the morning. It was music to my ears because I have been repeating myself like a broken record "ba ba ba" to him. Letting him see my exaggerated mouth movements as I said it. I have been repeating various consonant sounds to him, but "ba ba ba" stuck out. That's the sound the speech therapist has been repeating to him as well.
The physical therapist came this morning and Sean immediately started to "ba ba ba" at her too. She was very excited! It makes me so happy to know that his therapist is one of his biggest fans. As we got down to the nitty gritty or Sean's physical therapy exercises, Sean started to show off his new skills. I'm so happy other people are getting to hear him "talk" and don't think I'm just some crazy exaggerating mom. My mother in law was over as well and even heard Sean say "da da da".
As we got ourselves settled into our therapy session, Sean rolled over from his back to his belly using his left side. YAY!! He's been going from belly to back for a couple of weeks consistently, but yesterday was the first time he got all the way over from his back. He's using his arms a lot more and is already trying to crawl. Who is this kid? It's pretty funny to watch him scoot. He gets his legs under his belly, sticks his butt up in the air & then swims with his arms. To bad the little guy doesn't pick his head up off the floor while he's doing it. So he's scooting on his face. One day he'll get it. Erin says that if he keeps going the way he's going, he'll be crawling in 2 months. We'll see. Even little Miss. Overachiever (Meredith) didn't crawl until she was 10 months old. So we'll see whether Sean crawls soon or not.
As Erin & I continued working with Sean during his session, I started to really relax. I can honestly say that I because I now know how to work with Sean and can see progress, real progress, I can kind of go with the flow. I do feel guilty though when I am away from home and unable to really do his exercises. I feel like that one time he's missing is going to set him back. Obviously that's not my rational brain talking.
Then it was off to the dr. My mother in law & I brought the kids in to the pedi because Meredith complained about her ear hurting. Because Sean was congested too I figured "why the hell not? get him checked too." Well it turns out that what I thought was just your run of the mill cold for Sean is bronchiolitis and Meredith is just peachy. We do have to watch out for THE PLAGUE (stomach virus). The dr said it often starts with the kid complaining about joint aches & earaches and then BAM! intense vomiting. Joy. He said to pump her full of fluids to hopefully lessen the dehydration and general nastiness, IF she does get it. So far so good. She's eating, drinking and seems pretty good.
Sean however, is on a nebulizier 4x a day, amoxicillin 2x a day and extra snuggles. But that boy is quite the fighter. He's still eating great, still in good spirits and even kept up last night as everyone held him & loved him for Christmas Eve. We go back next Thursday for a recheck & to see how he's doing. I'm sure it'll still be there because I'm not great about the nebulizer. I figure he needs his sleep more than he needs to be woken up for it. I know that's probably not the best thing to do, but we have salt water in his humidifier and a vicks waterless vaporizer in his room. It's like a bad 80's music video in there when you open the door to his bedroom with all the mist.
Then it was time for feeding/speech therapy in the afternoon. We love Rosie. She's very easy to talk to. I feel so much better now that I know where our therapy should be going. Sean reached the ultimate IFSP goal of feeding in under 20 minutes. So I felt kind of funny when I felt like we weren't benefitting from the sessions like we had been when she started. I finally decided to talk to her about it a couple of weeks ago. I asked her what we were going to work on as we moved forward. She said that since Sean isn't "speaking" yet, we're really in a holding pattern of repetition. Really just doing everything over & over until Sean is a master. So we're going to do lots of oral motor exercises, feeding with more textures, repeating consonant sounds over & over and Erin has shown her some exercises that we can do while Rosie is here as well. It's so nice that they both work so well together.
It felt good to really know what to expect in terms of his therapy so I'm not sitting with my thumb up my butt waiting for something or resenting that nothing is happening.
So when Rosie came the other day Sean made her Christmas. He started to repeat all the consonant sounds we've been working on. She was so excited I thought she was going to burst.
I fully credit both therapists for Sean's progress. Yes yes.... I had a hand in it, but without their expertise and ability to show me how to work with Sean, we couldn't have made it so far.
I give thanks every single day for them & the exercises they have shown me & Sean. And I give thanks everyday that they are so patient with us & include Meredith. If Sean is having a particularly crabby, rotten day, we actually do exercises on Meredith. It allows me to see how the muscles are supposed to react when manipulated, makes Meredith feel included and allows the therapists to show me new things without pissing off mini pest.
So to anyone who wonders whether the exercises & intervention are actually helping..... yes they do. 100%! If you you question whether you have time, just remember the exercises don't have to be done all at once. You can space them out throughout the day. They work, but only if they're actually done.
No comments:
Post a Comment