Recent Milestones

Truman has hit several small, but important, milestones lately. He has learned:

1) to clap.

2) to move to music. Sometimes, this is clapping. Sometimes, it's waving his arms up and down.

3) to climb down off of the couch, steps, etc., by backing down off of them.

4) the sign for "more." He is still not very good at it, but it's finally some communication that we understand.

5) to point. Specifically, he points at all lights and says the same thing that sounds something like "gheet." We don't know what that means, but it clearly means something to him and is an effort to communicate something to us. Again, another small baby step toward communication.

6) to stack blocks. He has stacked up to four for his therapist, and as of this week, is choosing to do so on his own during play.

7) use the ring stacking toy correctly and without prompting.

8) actually allow his feeding therapist to feed him.

9) allowing his therapist to take him away from Daddy without complete meltdowns--progress in the separation anxiety department.

10) Play peek-a-boo. He actually will even play by himself, just putting random blankets, towels, and such over his face.

11) to scribble with a crayon. He still mostly wants to bite the ends off, but now he can make art for Mama's office. (Hint, hint, Daddy!)

In general, Truman seems to be doing a little bit less vomiting lately, which is great. In other news, we are starting to introduce him to other children, something he clearly needs. So far, we have seen him 1) knock down another child by using him as a piece of furniture to pull up on; 2) simply push other children out of the way of whatever he is trying to get to; and 3) take a chip literally out of another child's mouth and eat it. So, Truman has some learning to do about how to play nice with other small people.

He spent about an hour in the church nursery this past Sunday. He apparently cried most of the time, but at least he didn't outright scream the whole time. Today, he and Ben are going to a trial Little Gym class, and he start swim classes again in about a month with me. We also will try to get him more play dates with other kids and just front yard playtime in the neighborhood. Hopefully, he will have fun and learn the social skills he needs, but also his pedi thinks this will help with speech and eating development as well when he sees other kids doing things.

Finally, he just keeps getting more affectionate and hugs his parents and kitty all the time now. It just melts my heart.