We'll start with Occupational Therapy. In OT Alexi has been working on a little bit of gross motor, but mainly eating and playing. She is the most gracious sharer I have ever seen! All I have to do is ask for what she is playing with and she will usually hand it to me before I even get my hand out! Not sure how long this will last but it makes her seem like such a sweetheart! (Not saying she isn't a sweetheart, just acknowledging I know this can't possibly last forever!) Sharing is awesome, but she's been sharing with Tank a little too much. Again, she looks so sweet doing it, but all he has to do is sit next to her while she eats and BOOM she sticks food in his mouth. He's pretty well trained not to beg or take food from her, but when she puts it in his face, he just can't resist.
Aside from "over-sharing" eating has continued to be her "best sport." One thing we haven't mentioned in a while is the oral motor progression. While fighting through 2 colds and pneumonia this winter, she has amazed us in her oral motor control and keeping her tongue tucked in her mouth so well. Doing it while eating while sick is a good sign because it's much harder for someone with a smaller oral cavity to breath through their mouth and the tongue tends to protrude. When we see her "tongue in cheek," (haha literally, which is kinda funny because...well nvm...im a nerd) we hang on to the hope that she will eventually have an easier time articulating in her speech. Only time will tell, but we keep plugging away at the oral exercises to give her the best shot we can. After all, we can already tell she has lots to say, so we might as well help make her as understandable as we can!
Another fun new trick at the table is taking her own bites. Now this girl is a shoveler in the first few bites, but after that she has been using the pincer grasp so perfectly eating one bite at a time...for a few bites, then back to shoveling. We're working on it, but she's making progress! By taking her own bites, though, I really meant she is holding on to a larger food item, and taking a bite out of it, rather than forcing the whole thing in her mouth. I'm glad to see she is starting to use her teeth for something other than biting mommy and daddy!
Her developmentalist has been pushing her just as hard as everyone else and she is doing great there, too. She's working on coloring, and her biggest hurdle there is pressing hard enough. She knows what the crayons are for, same with the paper, but when she does it, there's just not enough pressure to make marks every time. She has been stacking blocks and other objects for a few weeks and immediately getting excited and knocking them down. She's awesome at putting things "in" (like toys in her bucket or a box) and has been getting better at putting the square peg in the square hole and so forth. She actually did the triangle first, which is supposed to be harder than the circle or square! This concept still has a way to go, but on occasion she gets it!
PT has kind of stolen the show lately with her starting to crawl "the right way" more and more often and pulling to high knees or standing more and more often. She's got a long way to go in all of these, but it's very exciting to get her moving on this stuff, as she seemed to have plateaued for a little bit. I am super pumped for her from a developmental standpoint, but definitely scared of being able to keep up with her once she starts getting around faster and faster! She's quick and determined above all else, when she wants something, she is off to get it!
I certainly can't leave out Speech. Her ST has been working with her with lots of different signs and encouraging different sounds. This is Alexi's department to decide her own pace most clearly. We certainly can't get in there and make her do any of these, the way we can physically manipulate some of her other exercises. She has signed dog while looking at Tank and saying "diggy" several times, so I'm 99% sure we're gonna call it, that's the first word. Even though she's been saying Dadadadada for like a year and even signed it once while saying it!! Dada is obviously the easiest first babble, and for anyone who doesn't know, to sign dad you touch the top (front) of your head with your thumb with an open hand. Kids with DS for some reason tend to use their thumbs to touch and it tends to happen with an open hand, so I couldn't quite count that either (unless she backed it up by repeating it for me, which didn't happen.) She's got a few other signs she certainly understands, and sings me some awesome songs full of different sounds, so we'll keep workin' there!
Wow, that's a whole bunch of "updating!" Whew, it seemed like that ran on a bit to me. There is just so much goin' on since our last update! Although we are certainly proud of progress, we're honestly not too worried about her keeping anyone's pace but her own.
