was thinking.. I haven't really said where we are, what we are working on etc... At the beginning I had a list.. a super long list. I knew every single thing we needed to work on, I knew that he would put every.single.thing in his mouth and needed to stop that. I knew that he didn’t receptively understand language; I knew that he was a picky eater (not textures or flavors but just limited to random selections that he chose). On and on I knew. Then some time last year I said to his therapists, "I feel like no one is driving his ship", meaning no one person or theme is in charge of his direction and progress. I realized it was because our goals were now more abstract. All of the little quirks are worked out, all of the blatantly noticeable differences are not there anymore. I used to hate going to the grocery store because he wouldn't respond to the cashiers "hello" even with eye contact or a head turn. Now we have "hi" which I begged for, dreamed about etc. etc. Now I have it and of course I'm greedy, now I want full, functional sentences! N isn't clumsy anymore and doesn't fall when a surface becomes uneven as he walks. He can climb up and through things and play functionally on a playground. Rock wall maybe not yet but hey. He no longer eats mac and cheese which I let him food jag on but didn't know enough back then about re-introducing it a short while later so it's now a maybe some day food. Basically we are working on adding more foods to his current variety which includes pretzels, pretzel fish, mandarin oranges, cheese pizza (still round pizza but working on deep dish) American cheese (took his therapists 1 yr) bananas, candy, milk and that is basically it. As of lately he has added applesauce in several flavors and yogurt. Very exciting! Kid will eat a booger but no chicken ;). We are working on expanding his language from just single words (he knows millions of words) to 2,3 and 4 word phrases. He has started requesting preferred items and finally is able to choose from two verbal choices vs visual choices. When he sees things it is easier for him to understand but auditory abilities are emerging nicely. N stays engaged in activities with others for longer periods of time and this continues to expand. He will no engage in activities that are not only his preferred choices and responds consistently to others. As far as making friends, language is a huge part of this process but the kids in his typical class love him and he loves other kids you can tell by body language etc, but he does not yet know how to interact with them .This is also emerging. N is extremely smart and is doing Kindergarten work at 4 years old. He is reading simply words and can do simple math. He loves to spell words and guess words that you spell for him. Our team agrees that once language and speech are perfected we will have limited challenges. We don't know yet exactly how he will learn but based on how smart he is already with basic academics, the outlook is good. We still have speech twice a week, OT twice a week and music once a week as well as a play session once a week. We have mixed it up many times with therapists and currently have an almost perfect team. We may shake it up once more but the great thing is that N is so easy going and loving, that he easily adjusts to new situations and people. We know we are lucky and that our we are able to work on our challenges and help N grow. N's personality is such a wonderful asset to him because everyone loves him almost instantly. I'm excited to see more progress and watch him grow.
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