Shape Sorting

Henry and Karina had fun running around the living room on Friday. They looked like two peas on a pod. Like Henry, Karina is tall and skinny. Alicia has been turning their chairs so that they face each other during meals, which they really like. They get to smile at each other.

I asked Alicia if she'd be willing to make "real" breakfasts for Henry in the mornings. I suspected that she would enjoy it because she enjoys cooking. Thus far, she has been giving Henry baby food for breakfast and lunch. I'm hoping that by converting to "real" food, Henry won't throw up so much on her watch. The baby food flavors that we give him are not terrible, but they cannot compete with the flavor of real food as they are devoid of all spices. So maybe if Henry is given food that he can, for the most part, feed himself and that he enjoys, we can avoid the gag reaction. Plus, she won't have to fix two separate meals...one for Henry and one for Karina. She looked enthusiastic about it. She made him scrambled eggs in the morning, most of which he ate. I told her that if she made up a list of supplies that she wanted us to stock in the kitchen, we get them. She offered to contribute to the supplies, which is nice, although not necessary. I figure that we waste a lot with Henry, so it would be better to use up our stuff and feed Karina than to have the food go to waste. For example, Henry is unlikely to eat a whole piece of French toast by himself. Why not share it? In any event, I am hopeful that this solution will result in Henry throwing up less and Alicia getting the opportunity to do something she likes doing.

Shirley, Henry's PT, visited in the afternoon. She asked us what he'd been up to since she last saw him. We told her about him walking down the stairs. That was unexpected. Plus he can spin and walk backward. He didn't walk down the stairs on his own in front of her, but he did it with some assistance. She looked impressed.

She asked if he was jumping or trying to bounce up and down when we hold his arms. Can't say that I've seen that. She said it was the next thing to look for, although it is a bit early to be launching off the ground at his age. I wouldn't be surprised to jumping off furniture is coming our way soon. I remember that the cute little 16-month old red-haired boy who Henry met at the mall several weeks ago was launching off objects and falling to the ground with much gusto. If only we could turn all of our floors into gymnastic mats for the next year!

Shirley was also impressed with Henry's attention span. Give him a book. He really listens and interacts with the pages. She went through the big truck book with him. It has textures in it. She would say, "Where's the truck?" Henry would repeat "truck" and point to the truck. She asked him where the bunnies were. He pointed to those too. I think that he was trying to say bunny, but just the sound "bun" came out. I didn't know that he knew the word "truck." His vocabulary is impressive. Two syllable words are much more difficult to say, so often the last second syllable gets garbled or lost. "Bottles" are "Bots."

At one point, Shirley had Henry sitting in front of his dinosaur puzzle. She sat behind him. She asked him to pick up a piece, and then she helped guide his hand to the correct spot for the piece. Jeff and I were amazed. We'd never seen anyone manipulate Henry's hands with much success. It was one of the things that frustrated Selah, Henry's former OT. Henry generally doesn't like to be told what to do or forced to do something with his hands. He often pulls his hands back. But he didn't seems to have any issues with it when it came to Shirley directing him about where to put the puzzle pieces.

Shirley thinks that Henry looks good. A "miracle child." But she wants to still visit a couple times a month because he is still "at-risk." We agree. Henry is doing great, but the "at-risk" status is going to be hanging over his/our heads for a long time to come.

Grammy visited in the afternoon and took Henry to her house for dinner. He had a good time with her and Grandpa. He, unfortunately, bit her on the hand. She was not sure how we wanted to handle punishment. We've decided to put him down, tell him that biting hurts, it isn't nice, and we don't want to be with him if he is going to be mean, and then walk away. I'm not convinced that physical punishment is going to work with him because his pain threshold is so high (a typical consequence of being bombard with painful stimuli when the brain is still undergoing major development in the NICU). A couple months ago, Henry kept trying to crawl into the fire place. Telling him "no" wasn't working. So I gave him a slap on the hand. That didn't work, so I gave him an even harder rap on the hand, trying to create what should have been a big stinging sensation. Nothing except a sweet but puzzled smile from him. As near as I could tell, the only thing that it did was leave me feeling like crap, the worst mother in the world, for about a week. Consequently, we are going to try social sanctions first in response to biting. We aren't sure what we are going to do if he bites while we are out in public.

We are pretty sure that Henry knows what "no" means now. When Henry tries to open the door to my office by himself, Jeff will say "Henry, no" at which point Henry bursts into tears.

After Grammy and Grandpa dropped Henry off, we played in the living room. I read "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban" out loud while Henry and Jeff played with the shape sorter. Something clicked for Henry. He was able to put the shapes through the shape holes, instead of merely through the large opening with the flap.

Henry didn't seem sleepy, but around 10:30PM, we decided to call it a night.

Around 7:40AM this morning, Henry got up. He managed to ram his head hard into my face as my wake up call. I thought that he'd broken my nose. While Dada was taking a shower, Henry and I played in the living room. He again demonstrated his shape sorting skills.



We went to the UA for breakfast at Cafe Paraiso. Then, Henry ran around the turtle pond area. He kept trying to climb over one of the walls, much to our frustration. Acres of grass to run around and he decides to go to the one location that we didn't want him to go. Sigh.

Henry came home, had a nap, and then played. Jeff took him over to Grandma and Grandpa's for an afternoon visit.