October Update

The summer went by much too quickly!  It's hard to believe October is already just about half way over as well.  Goodness!

Isaiah is going through a developmental spurt, which is always incredibly exciting since he seems to have spurts, followed by months and months of nothing.  His last big spurt was April/May when he started pulling up and cruising, and saying a couple words.  Since then he had just been perfecting those skills, but in just the past week we have seen some exciting changes!

Speech:
Isaiah went  from 3 words, to 8!  EIGHT!  words in just the past couple weeks.  He can now say: Mama (sometimes mommy), Dada (sometimes daddy), up, bye, nigh-night, shoes, ouch, and just today he started saying hug.  Isaiah has been diagnosed with Mixed Receptive-Expressive Language Disorder, and an articulation disorder.  We are meeting yet another new therapist later this month to help work on his speech, so I'm hopeful that we will continue seeing some new words with a little more frequency here soon!

Gross Motor:
Isaiah has been cruising for awhile now.  He's getting quicker!  At the very end of August Isaiah stood on his own for a few seconds twice in one day, and even took 3 steps on his own...after that day he waited over another month to stand again (always just for a couple seconds) and he just this past week has been getting brave enough to take 1-2 steps on occasion between objects.  I was really hopeful that he would be walking more by his second birthday, and while I don't think he will be walking, he will hopefully be taking 2-3 steps at a time by then.  We are also starting with another physical therapist at a new center to see if that helps!  He will be in therapy several times a week but they are willing to come out to the house, just as our early access team does, as often as they can.  So I'm hoping that we will only have to go to the center once every week or two to make it a little easier for him!

Other:  He's doing better with eating, getting picky but that's something we will have to work on later.  Right now we just need to make sure he's getting enough calories and nutrition since he is so small for his age.  He has also been having night terrors, which seem to be much better the past week!  In the last week, he has only had one terror, when he was having them nightly.

Upcoming appts/meetings:
*Oct 22, speech evaluation
*Oct 23, physical evaluation
*Oct 31, MRI and new patient appt. with neurology
*Nov 22, genetics
*Nov 26, well baby
*We are due for another IFSP meeting in November as well.  Hoping our normal service coordinator will be back from an extended medial leave by then!  Before the IFSP meeting he will also have another set of evaluations done by the AEA team.  These aren't yet scheduled, but will be sometime in the month.
     **These appts are all in addition to his therapy sessions, so the next several weeks will be pretty busy for Isaiah.  He's always a good sport, but I can tell he gets frustrated by being in offices so much when we have busy weeks and he gets extra clingy and fussy during these busy months.  So please keep us in your thoughts and prayers this month!

Believe it or not, in the next several months we will be meeting with the school district to plan for Isaiah's transition from early access into the ECSE (early childhood special education) program at school!  Isaiah will be going to school next year (he can start on his 3rd birthday!).  He turns 2 next month, and the transition meeting will be in February.  I can't believe it!