On Saturday, Henry woke up wanting "pancakes." I asked him if he wanted to go to Tohono Chul Park or Joel's. He wanted to go to "Joel's." As soon as we sat down at Joel's, he demanded "pancakes." He ate a lot. Probably had 3/4 of a decent sized Joel's pancake. Joel, the owner and chef, came out to our table as he sometimes does. He asked about syrup b/c Henry was eating it plain. We explained that the pancakes were tasty enough w/o the embellishment, which he was pleased to hear. Hands down, they are the best pancakes in town (probably the best that we've ever eaten). Afterward, we played on the grass. Walked and rolled down hills. Visited the turtle pond, which was fully stocked with turtles. Then, we went to the Kids Center, a medium-small toy store. Lots of books. We bought Henry a book and then a tee-ball set. Came home. Henry took a long nap. Poppy visited him after he woke up. Grammy was still sick. After Poppy left, we played tee-ball. He was entranced with the parts of the tee-ball stand for whatever reason.
We spent Sunday morning at home. We went for a walk. The Wildcats played at 11:40AM. They won! We were supposed to attend a wedding in the afternoon and Alicia was supposed to come over to babysit. She called about three hours before the wedding to cancel b/c Karina was sick and said her husband who had surgery 2 weeks early was unable to look after her. So I ended up going w/o Jeff. I'm pretty miffed about the situation b/c it isn't like our friends get married every day. It was a lovely wedding. I didn't get home until 9:45PM. The Doodle Bug was sound asleep.
We've noticed the past week that Henry's play skills have progressed in the bathroom. We've noticed that he has imaginative play with his bathtub toys. He makes Pete and Sam "lean back" on the edge of the bathtub or "dive" into the water to go "swimming." Very cute.
Here are additions to our word list as far as we can remember:
254. Fire pit
255. Water spout
256. Bike
257. Golf swing
258. Soccer ball
259. Arm circles
260. "Stand head" (as in "stand on your head")
261. Sink
262. Camera
263. Cheese
264. Soy bacon
265. Asparagus
266. Snowman
267. Gorilla
268. Polar bear
269. Kangaroo
270. Sheep
271. Robin Hood
272. Marian
273. Tiger Woods
274. "Back!" (as in "get back" to the dogs)
275. "Turn it on" (in reference to the television)
276. Sleep
277. "Turn around"
278. Bank robbers (characters in "The Haunted House)
279. Money bags (objects in "The Haunted House")
280. Again
At one point over the weekend, we turned off the TV. Henry then reached for the remote and said "turn it on." Jeff was walking golf at one point. Henry saw Tiger Woods on the screen. The commentators made reference to "Tiger" and Henry responded "Tiger Woods."
This morning, Henry said "Javelina!" in his sleep. Must have been an interesting dream. We had an appointment with Cuyler for an OT evaluation. She said that DES has again reversed its decision and will be paying for services b/c there are some law suits in the works if they don't. So, it looks like today's session will be covered. But who knows. The decisions for DES to pay seem to switch every couple days. If DES doesn't pay, we were willing to do so, because we believe that these evaluations are very important.
Cuyler had Henry do several tasks. She was impressed by his attention span and verbal abilities. Basically, she was testing two things with the Peabody scale: grasping and visual-motor integration. She said that the grasping scale stops at 15 months and doesn't resume until 42 months b/c the basic grasping skills don't change all of that much during that time span. The changes that do take place are very subtle. Henry tested at the 50th percentile for adjusted and actual age on grasping.
Visual-motor integration was the other area tested. He was at the 35th percentile for his actual age and the 75th percentile for his adjusted age. She said that he basically looked like a 21 month old on those skills. She says that at 2 years old, we can start thinking about him by his actual age. This is when kids often "catch up." I won't rehash our perspective on "catching up," other than to say that "catching up" implies that he was behind and we don't know why anyone would expect a preemie to "catch up" b/c development starts when sperm meets egg not when someone happens to come out of the womb. But, his legal birthday is April 30. That's the day that society recognizes. And given that he is "advanced" for his "adjusted" age, it doesn't really matter.
The places where Henry did not perform as well with test tasks were the areas that we didn't expect him to do particularly well. He gets frustrated fairly easily with puzzles. Shape matching and fitting was where he got some points off. But he did really well with drawing, which surprised us a bit b/c we haven't done a whole lot of drawing. And he was awesome with block building, which is something that we only do occasionally. He managed to stack six blocks, which is something that we hadn't seen before. Again, this begs the question: Have we held him back? He can obviously do things that we haven't done with him.
Cuyler said that Henry has now entered the arts and crafts phase. She said that construction will help build those visual-motor integration skills. That means that I get to go to the crafts store in the near future. I also want us to get Henry a table appropriate for his size.
When the test was over, Henry announced that he wanted to "Go home!" He wasn't very patient during Cuyler's discussion of the test with us. We went to Trader Joe's afterward. Then home. Henry took at 10 minute nap in the car, but wouldn't sleep when we got home. I suppose that means he'll be going to bed earlier than usual tonight.
After having a couple bites of macaroni and one bite of pizza, Henry left the kitchen. We read "The Haunted House." I asked him questions about what was going to happen next, and he answered them. I was stunned. Mickey, Donald, and Pluto are in a passageway at one point in the story. The ghosts are coming toward them. I asked Henry, "What did the ghosts say?" He said, "Go away!" That was the right answer. At another point, I asked him "What did Mickey, Donald, and Pluto trip over?" His answer: "Money bags." Again, the right answer. Not bad for a 19 month old/22.5 month old.
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