Four Months Home

Kellin has been home four months, so here's a look at how far he's come! I will say that his progress doesn't seem to have jumped ahead as much in the last couple weeks, but when you compare him to four months ago . . . wow!

Sleeping: When he first came home, Kellin was a HORRIBLE sleeper. He was up for several hours each night, and there really wasn't much we could do to help him because he didn't really want to be held or rocked, and then was tired and fussy all day. Now he sleeps through most nights (although not all - every week or two, he has a night where he has difficulty), and he has a pretty regular nap, although he misses that occasionally too. When he is up in the night, we can often bring him in bed with us and that helps him fall back asleep. This doesn't work every single time, but often enough that we can count on getting decent sleep most nights. Phew!

Eating: When he came home, Kellin ate only from bottles, refusing all spoons and solids. Now he eats yogurt and baby food from a spoon, and he chews puffs and yogurt bites. He will even lift the puffs to his mout himself - but he won't put them into his mouth, so we still have to help him with that. I am hopeful that now that he is chewing, he will be able to eat a better variety of foods. I think one of our biggest successes is that Kellin doesn't refuse to eat nearly as often as he used to. When I sit down to feed him, I can usually count on him being cooperative and eating a decent amount. Of course, we still use a lot of songs as distractors to keep him eating and happy. One of our main goals for the summer is to move him toward self-feeding. Right now, Kellin doesn't feed himself AT ALL, not even holding his own bottle, but we think he is capable of learning this and will be working hard on it over the summer.

Medical: In general, nothing to report! Kellin has had no red flags come up in any of his medical testing, other than a need for an iron supplement. He is now up-to-date on his immunizations, and up until this morning, we had never seen him sick. The other three kids have had colds and stomach bugs in the months since Kellin has been home, but he has never caught any of that. We've been amazed at how healthy he is! We don't know how much he weighs now, but we hope to get him weighed soon. He hasn't outgrown any of his diapers or clothes yet, but he looks a little fuller in his face and legs, so maybe he has gained a bit.

Motor Skills: In contrast to the limp baby that came home four months ago, Kellin is walking! It's not his favorite thing to do, but if we hold just one of his hands, he will walk to toys or to his bath. He can take a few steps all on his own but is usually hesitant to do so, possibly because of course he can't see what is in front of him. With his hands, we are working getting him to touch different textures (clay, oatmeal, different kinds of cloth, grass, etc.), which he is tolerating more and more, especially if we use songs. We are also working on getting him to use his fingers separately, rather than using his whole hand for everything. To help with this, I try to get him to hold his puffs with just his finger and thumb at meals, I try to get him to use only 1-2 fingers when pushing buttons on a toy or when moving his hands along the Braille in his books during story time, and I sing lots of counting songs with him (helping him to hold up the right number of fingers). I'd like to point out that even though I've mentioned Braille and counting, we are not really expecting him to learn to read and count right now - but it's a great way to combine fine motor skills that he is ready to work on with exposing him to those concepts he will need later.

Communication: I still can't report that Kellin is using any words, but he still uses his four signs (blankie, more, please, all done). He understands many words, and the list of songs that he knows is impressive (we can tell he knows them because he will do the actions as we sing and anticipates which actions are coming next). He also requests songs by showing us the actions. We are working on getting him to babble back-and-forth with us (not too much success yet) and we try to have him listen to songs that emphasize basic sounds (we were given a CD by Kellin's speech therapist). We are hoping to teach him a few more signs, such as signs for his favorite toys. Other than this, we just keep talking and singing, and hope that one day Kellin will figure out this talking thing.

Attachment/Bonding: We think things are going very well! Remember the child I first met that did not know how to be held and couldn't tolerate it for more than a few minutes at a time? Now, Kellin likes to be held and loves to cuddle. He will fall asleep while being held sometimes. He likes hugs and definitely understands the word "hug." He reaches for Daddy (not as much for me, but I think that's pretty normal and we are working on it) and sometimes for big sister. He lets me rock him before bed. He seems to know the difference between his family and strangers and is uncomfortable when he hears strangers' voices or when they touch him. Because he has no language and also no eye contact, sometimes it is hard to tell how exactly he feels about us, but in general we are feeling positive that his attachment to us is getting stronger by the day.

Kellin is now working with a whole team of people - teacher of the visually impaired, early childhood special education teacher, speech therapist, occupational therapist, and physical therapist - who have been coming into our home to give us materials and suggestions about activities that will help Kellin develop and make progress. It has been fantastic to have others coming in and giving us a different perspective and fresh ideas. For example, the physical therapist suggested having Kellin try crawling up a couple steps and also "knee standing" while he played with toys. Within a couple days of trying that . . .

Here's a couple pictures to show what is going on in our house today. I mentioned earlier that Kellin had been healthy up until today. Well, yesterday Pooh got a fever, and now today Kellin has one, too. Did I mention that we were planning to go camping this weekend? Now the plan is for Daddy to take Rabbit and Tigger camping starting this afternoon until Monday, and I will stay home with the two sick three-year-olds.