I'm not sure if it is Christmas magic, if time with all of his grandparents have worked it's mojo, or if Henry is finally shaking the surgery funk (probably all three:) but he is doing wonderful! We spent the Christmas week with family on both sides and Henry could not get enough of everyone! I can't say he was much into Santa and the whole present thing this year, but he did enjoy being in the company of many who love him. He is always sharing good lessons with us, that boy:) The Sunday after Christmas he was absolutely bored with me at about 10:00am... and begging to go to "GG's house", "GoGo's house, "Papap's house" and "Nic's house". Thank goodness for the new toys and arts and crafts to play with!
We've moved back to one nap a day in the afternoon nap, which has been on average two hours, and have a pretty normal schedule for him again. I feel like this has also benefited his nighttime sleeping as well as he has responded great to our bedtime routine and has been sleeping through the night pretty routinely again. He is actually requesting food both at mealtimes and in between- something we've never experienced from him! Henry is trying some new foods, but still mainly enjoys pastas, veggies and fruits with some sweets on the side. Several times he's woken up saying "Mmmmm ice cream!" with a similar statement including cookies and crackers. We laugh as it's quite hard to say no to this boy with all the difficulty we've had in keeping pounds on him! But, we haven't broken down and given 8:00am ice cream... yet:)
Henry is talking up a storm! I know I've said that before, but I had no idea what he was capable of. He's experimenting with a much broader range of words, is naming a handful of letters and some numbers independently, is stringing two and three words together and is repeating what we say much more often. We've run into difficulty in determining what he's trying to tell us (and noted a little frustration with us on his part too:), but we work through it. An example- the other day I swear he was saying "bordough" and I couldn't for the life of me figure out what he wanted. No foods that sound like this, no toy that he was requesting sounded like this... I was stumped. After a lot of guessing, we started to move around the house and finally determined "playdough" was what he wanted. Practice makes perfect for all three of us and we're enjoying the process and are of course "all ears"!
Henry started walking comfortably again at around his second birthday and has gotten more and more agile ever since. As his energy level increases (and with all these good naps it sure has!), he's even more and more on the move. So, we've taken trips to the park, lot of inside shopping trips with the colder temperatures and try to find any and all means of exercising with this guy! He's always up for playing and self monitors when he needs breaks (or maybe he's just kindly letting us catch up!). It's a ton of fun! Check out our first snow day in Kansas City below- sledding was a big hit!!
Henry's IFSP meeting with all of his First Steps providers was last week and it went great. It is always a reflective time for us as we started services when Henry was barely two months old and had such a poor prognosis. Over the years these individuals have become much closer to our family than just "providers", and we will have a difficult time letting them go in a year. We planned for the ending of our eligibility with First Steps (at age 3) and it was wonderful to think about Henry's "next steps". The school system will complete evaluations with him starting six months from now and will determine his level of need. These needs are in relation to Henry's current services such as Occupational Therapy, Physical Therapy, Speech Therapy and Nutritional/Dietitian counseling and expected future needs regarding learning and development. They will make recommendations and determine schools in our district that will be able to provide needed services and we will plan accordingly. I love that we're planning so far in advance as this will be a huge step for Henry. We've been talking about starting Henry in school part-time this spring (hopefully post cold and flu season) as we think he's ready for the transition. We'll take is slow and steady and make adjustments as he needs, but overall we're all just excited about where he's at and where he's headed! In the meantime we're just enjoying each other and embracing the new year. We wish you and all your families a happy and healthy new year in 2011!
Much love,
Kate, Julie and Henry
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