Georgia is having a great time with her new play mat. She lays in there looking at all the toys, batting at them and grabbing and pulling on them, and she especially loves looking in the mirror and talking to the baby in there. :) She coos and gurgles and wants so badly to talk to us. I always crack up when she's in her bouncy chair, because she is so intent on playing. When Nate used this same bouncy chair, he'd lay there contentedly watching the bubbles and fish. I wondered why they called it a bouncy chair, because he didn't bounce in it. Well, this girl does! She bounces and kicks the toys to make the bubbles and fish go. She has such a look of concentration on her face, it's so funny. I think I can already tell that Georgia is naturally a very determined little person. But she's a good baby and sleeps very well--usually about 6 hours a night. She is smiling and laughing ("Heee") a lot and is usually pretty happy as long as her belly is full. Here are a couple of recent pictures of her in her bumbo.
She was watching me make spaghetti. (Yes, I know you're not supposed to leave them on the counter in this, but she was in the middle and there was no way she could jump off.)
And this was Friday night looking at the toys in her play mat.
What's going on with Nate:
Nate's speech--which I didn't think was delayed at all to begin with--has improved so much since he started school. He speaks almost exclusively in full sentences now, and his pronunciation is very clear. He's learning lots of new words for things too. I try to figure out why he'd have the need to learn the word "slug" at school, but I guess he did!
He's working on going from sitting on the floor to standing up without holding on to anything. Friday at hippotherapy, he was getting up off the floor and had a car in each hand, and he stood right up! That's the first time he'd done that alone, and I was so proud! This afternoon I saw him try it again while his hands were full (otherwise, he reaches for something--having toys in his hand distracts him), and he got all the way up but then fell down. But he's making great progress there. I didn't want to start him back in soccer until he could stand up by himself because parents aren't on the field in the 3 year old class and he wouldn't have help for that. I think his school PT is working on that a lot, because today I asked him what he and Miss Ann worked on today, and he showed me some toe touches. :) His Green Hill PTs are focusing a lot on straightening his feet and legs when he walks and climbing steps, so I think all the bases are being covered really well.
Yesterday we went to the mall for a couple hours, and Nate got to play at the little "boat" playground. This time last year, he had to crawl around the boat and couldn't go down the slide without help. On his birthday this year (June 25), we went to the boat with Nate's First Steps PT for his last session with her. I remember we were trying to get him to walk up to the boat holding on to the rope rails with one hand, and he was having a hard time with it. So yesterday, we were just tickled to see him running around this boat by himself. He could step up the small step all by himself, then up the ramp, up some steps, and down the slide, where he'd say, "I wanna do it again!" and he'd run off again. To see him running around with the other kids is just awesome. I don't think we'll ever take that for granted.
What's new with Blake and Colleen:
Blake had 20 hours of training last week, which meant he had to work 20 hours more than his typical 50-60 hours! It was a rough week. We were both getting pretty burnt out and not getting to spend much time as a family. So yesterday he just worked a couple hours and then we all went to the mall. I got to get my hair cut! That's exciting because I can usually only get away about 3 times a year for hair cuts. We had a good time together. Then Blake took the kids home, and I went to dinner with the ladies from my Bible Study! It was a really nice evening.
Some of you may remember that around this time last year, the Spina Bifida Association was making a video of our little friend Brock, and we were there for some of the filming. Well, I saw the final video, but it was on a CD, and somehow they made it impossible to share online. A couple of weeks ago, one of the ladies on the SB board pointed this out to me. It's a video made with some clips of that original video, and Nate and I are on it for a second. :) Here's the link:
2 comments:
Colleen your posts always make me teary! Nate has come so far! It always reminds me not to take anything for granted!
I totally saw that on utube just the other day!!
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