^5

I cannot even begin to know how many times in your short life that I have asked you for a high five.

Any time I would ask for one, you would either just stare at me or go in for a hug. I won't lie, the hugs were pretty awesomely sweet.

I asked you for a high five not even 10 minutes ago- AND YOU DID IT! With your sly little stinker smile. You even did it another 6 times. I think it's safe to say that you now know what it means to high five.

You just got awesomer.

Early Intervention

I've been avoiding this. I don't want you to think that there's something wrong with you. I don't like the social stigmas that come with that kind of statement. You and I were both getting frustrated, I couldn't understand what you were trying to tell me and I could tell that you had something you felt you needed to tell me.

This morning Ms Jackie and Ms Julie brought two fantastic bags of tricks and toys. You got right down to business playing with them and exploring everything they had in their bags. We found out that you have done very nicely developing your motor skills- you're 10mos ahead of where you should be! We also learned that some of what I had suspected was right, your speech and communication is about 10mos behind.

At 19mos old your vocabulary sounds more like a 9-12mos old. Hearing that crushed me. I didn't know that most of what I was counting as part of your word base were what are referred to as declaratives or exclamations. Things like "uh oh," "no," "what's that," don't count as words on the evaluation. I was pretty sure that I was going to cry when I heard where they placed your speech.

I keep reminding myself that now:
1. You're going to get the help you need.
2. You're young enough that the delay shouldn't be apparent by the time you're in kindergarten.
3. I did what I was supposed to.

I'm having a really hard time not feeling guilty or upset about this. Logically, I know that your hearing was affected because you had ear infections which kept fluid in your ears. You had a hearing screening and birth but you didn't have another hearing test for the next 15mos. There is no way for anyone to accurately gauge when your hearing was affected, all we can do now is help you.

So that's what we're doing.

A few fantastic firsts

Today should have been your first East Egg Hunt; you had other plans. There were about 50 eggs all over the back yard for you. I figured that you'd run around picking them up and squealing since plastic eggs are one of your most favorite things to play with. You didn't. Instead you ran around the yard dodging the inferior eggs and picking up the 5 or so that you thought were best.

Aunt Rose opened one to show you what was inside. We both thought that if you saw that there were things INSIDE the eggs for once that you'd want to snatch them all up. Instead you ran off with your foil bunny to eat him out of sight.

So we got to hunt eggs instead.

You loved everything in your basket- which made me super happy. There were a set of Fisher Price Little People, a whole bunch of Silly Bands, Bubbles, a Book and a Playskool Poppin Pal. You seem to love the bubbles and popper best.

After your bath you SUPER surprised me. You picked out a nail polish color and then sat perfectly still while I painted your fingers and toes. When I was done you signed again, so I painted my toes. That resulted in some pretty awesome squeals of delight.