I love my new job, mostly, but it keeps me very busy. I've tended to only look at the week ahead in terms of my schedule, so imagine my surprise when I flipped to the following week and realized it was Thanksgiving. Now there were clues; all Thanksgiving specials on the Food Network, running into Aunt Sharon at the Dollar Store (aka House of Crap) and her asking me about Thanksgiving, the fact that it's November, and Thanksgiving is in November. In any event, I was surprised. So just in case your life is as insane as mine, it's Thanksgiving next week.
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I had four days off in a row. I love NJEA teacher's convention. It was so nice to be home with Ian. He's so freakin funny now. He dances, which is hilarious. He's also had a massive language explosion in the last two weeks, so it seems like he's saying something new every time I turn around. He also knows almost every letter of the alphabet. It's a little scary. He does his ABC puzzle and points to them, O, A, B, D, F, G, etc. etc. I think the only ones he can't name are J, L, Q and U (although he thinks Q and U are O).
He's doing so well with all of his delays and various other Ian-isms. The sound issues have decreased, and he doesn't seem to have any issues with touch now (yay OT). He's making a lot of progress with his imitation and pretend play. He will spontaneously do things like feed a stuffed animal, or put the phone to his ear. We're working on getting him to participate in songs (like head, shoulders, knees and toes). We're still working on the pincer grasp (think crab claw). Today he had a major speech breakthrough; I've been working on getting him to call me Mama if he wants something instead of him whining and crying. This morning he woke up and started calling Mama, Mama, Dee--Da-Dee from the crib. I was SO proud of him, but since it was Sunday and my day to sleep, I rolled over and went back to sleep (I'm a bad mom I'll admit it).
Finally, some super exciting news. Today we went to play with another little boy (around 15 mos). Ian was VERY engaged with him. They boys chased each other around, had parallel play, stole toys from each other, etc. Ian even gave him hugs and kisses (un-prompted). This is huge in terms of our worries about Autism. He has made an enormous amount of progress since the summer. Early intervention and a solid support system (thanks mom :)) works. I will never regret my decision to get involved with EI. It was the hardest, but best decision I have ever made.
Thanks for reading by brag post. I did take some pictures over the weekend. I'll upload tomorrow and post. :)
