Excitement!

Exciting breakthroughs with Kellin's eating over the past week! First of all, he is eating - really eating - a good amount at each meal, sometimes up to two containers of baby food or yogurt in one sitting. We are using the chunky baby food for some of his meals, and he's doing a great job chewing/mashing the chunks before swallowing. I finally feel like he's eating a substantial amount and not just getting all of his calories from his bottles. And for the REALLY big news - Kellin can feed himself! He picks up puffs from his tray and puts them into his mouth. He chews and swallows and doesn't gag nearly as much as he used to. It is SO exciting to see him (sort of) enjoying food.

And . . . the child that would not touch any food with his fingers and HATED being messy - just give him some yogurt to play with! I was holding him on my lap for this picture and you can see me trying to lean away as Kellin sprays yogurt everywhere. Boy, did he have fun!

After I cleaned him up and he was all wet - yep, he loved that too.

And some cute pictures of Kellin with a new favorite toy -

Tonight we ate out a restaurant, which is something we haven't attempted too many times with Kellin. He's very unpredictable in public, often clingy and fussy. Tonight he sat happily in the booth and played with a toy, and after a while, he scooted over and snuggled up close to Pooh. It was actually cuter than this, but we tried to get a picture. Kellin is really becoming more aware of his brothers.

In general, things we are working on with Kellin:
-Walking - still not his favorite activity but he will walk if you hold one hand and even sometimes take a few steps on his own.
-Helping with dressing - he will help push and pull his arms through the sleeves of his shirt and helps pull the shirt over his head, he stands up for pulling up pants and is just starting to help with that a little (if we take his hands and do it with him); he's a master at taking off his socks!
-Playing with toys that are not musical, so he has to explore a little more - this depends on his mood. Sometimes he is content with balls, cups, rings, bucket, etc. and other times he only wants his precious cube toy (or something similar). He is good at dumping the shapes out of his shape sorter bucket but needs a lot of help to put them back in. He is starting (a little) to get the idea of taking turns - playing "catch," passing his cube back and forth - with LOTS of help.
-Crawling up the stairs - he needs someone to move his legs through the process but I think he's starting to get the idea.
-Books! Kellin had no idea what books were, so we try to read to him every day, using books that have textures, sounds, and/or Braille. He's not a huge fan but is getting used to it and has a couple books that he prefers over others.
-Communication - we are always hoping that Kellin will figure out how to tell us things. He is saying more babbling sounds but no consistent words. He often says "mama, yeah, on," but even though they sound like words, they don't really seem to mean anything. It seemed like he said "bath" one night, but it hasn't happened again. We talk to him, sing to him, use signs, play CD's, and anything else we can think of to help him figure out language. I have to believe it will come eventually.