Therapy…

Since he came home, baby J has received services through our county’s infants and toddlers program. Little M received the same services, and had the same therapists that baby J now has…

Every week, these three awesome ladies have come to our house to work with baby J, to help with his motor skills, and get him caught up to age level, and to help with speech, and to get physical therapy.
Baby J has come a long way since he came home ten months ago, and has made HUGE strides in many areas. Of course, the area where we’ve seen the biggest changes has been in his walking, and moving. Do you know our baby J can now walk up and down steps independently? He can! And he rocks it!

But baby J is also talking. In English. A lot. He is using real sentences, and starting to be able to voice his thoughts… and people other than the husband and I can understand him!

He is counting, almost to ten. He knows all of his colors and most of his shapes. He knows concepts like tall and short, and big and little, and slow and fast. He loves to read books now, and is starting to enjoy coloring. He is also learning to play.

When baby J first came home, he liked toys a lot…he liked to put them in bags and cart them around, and he liked to line them up, organizing them by color or size. But now he is learning to play with the toys. He enjoys making roads with tape, and driving his cars around. He enjoys cooking in little M’s play kitchen, and he likes to play with her My Little Ponies (oh yes, he does), and will even make them talk to each other.

Since we brought baby J home we have seen how different he was than our girl. Our little M is sensory avoidant, and how we work with her, and the things we do with her are often centered around that.

Baby J is not sensory avoidant. At all. Baby J is the opposite… he is sensory seeking, and want to have all of the sensory input, and the way he behaves display that side of him. He wants to touch and feel everything. Often he will rub the same thing over and over. If we are holding him, he will rub his little hands up and down our arms or shirt over and over. He will lick things (gross). His little hands are always out to touch things, rubbing the walls as he walks by, feeling the chairs when he walks through the dining room, or sliding along the rungs of our banister.
Once, when we were at a doctors appointment, there was a fuzzy rug in the waiting room, and while I checked in the kids went to sit down. After I signed us in, I turned around, and little M had her feet up on a chair to avoid being anywhere near the rug, and baby J was sitting down on the rug rubbing his head back and forth on it.

So different.

This week we had baby J evaluated by a sensory occupational therapist. Of course he qualifies for that service…so we will be adding her to our list of therapists we see each week for baby J. I am excited to get started with her, and excited to see how this helps our little guy!
I know baby J will do great with this, and the therapy he gets will help him be successful later when he starts school.

We are so blessed to have such great services available for our babies, and we are especially blessed to be able to work with these special women who love our kiddos, and work to hard to help them succeed.