We had a great vacation.

Preston said "thank you" to me for his breakfast the other day.

He was not prompted. Just said "Dah-Doo"....I said "you're welcome" . It was great!

He is ready to get back to work with Carrie, Angie and LaQuita!

Week in review

We met with the whole team on Wednesday to make sure we are all on the same page regarding Preston. Looked good. We're going to start a notebook to keep track of homework and that will make things easier on the therapists as well as Mike and myself and our tasks.

Preston has had a really good week. LaQuita (Speech) is looking forward to starting some diagnosis testing on him when we start back after vacation. Preston hadn't seen Angie (Behavior) in a couple of weeks and that waas evident in the way he treated her! He still completed tasks which was BIG deal. He usually would just get up and walk away but this time we could lead him back and finish the tasks. He didn't give Angie much eye contact but the team meeting was shortly after our session with Angie and he was sure hugging and loving on her!!

We're continuing to work on animal identification with Preston. We are also working on "The Itsy Bitsy Spider" with him and on body part identification.

Oh another thing he did during speech was he identified an animal and then put the matching figurine on the animal flash card and THEN when asked to hand the animal to Mommy HE DID IT! He doesn't normally associate me with "mommy"....He knows who I am and he knows I am his mommy but he generally hears "Give" and immediately kisses and hugs someone. We kind of got past that this week. That was a great milestone!

We'll be in Colorado all next week on vacation!! It will be a while before I can update.

OT Monday June 16th

We had a really good session with Carrie yesterday.
By chance, Carrie's 7 year old daughter was in tow and joined us for the session. Preston adored her and was willing to work-I LEFT THE ROOM!! Most of you know that is a big deal as he doesn't let me out of his sight very often! He really liked Maggie and was excited to take turns with her and show off for her. He took turns nicely and did some nice color matching. Carrie showed a concern for Preston's left eye and is having us meet with a pediatric optomotrist to have his eyes checked. Looks like it may be crossing. We will see what the Dotor says about that. Anyways it was a nice session and Preston was just enamoured with Maggie. We have asked that she join us again it was such a good session!

Speech 6/12

Well, it started out a little questionable but the session was really terrific. And by started out I mean initially, maybe the first 5 minutes we wondered if he was in "avoidance" mode....he came out of it nicely and he had some GREAT progress. The biggest thing to me was all of the mimicking. He was mimicking everything so nicely. We finally got him in a game of "Mine" "No, Mine" "NO, MINE"....etc. I hope he will instigate this soon. I tried it several times last night (after LaQuita left)and he didn't really want to "play" that way again...but I'll keep at it. He also did some good matching of animals and cards. He mimicked high five, 1-2-3-GO, and several other things. I need to look at my notes.

His progress lately has been really good. All due to our wonderful therapists and their committment to seeing him progress. We are so thankful for each one of them every day!!

Oh and he said "Banana" on Wednesday morning. That was a first! "Nana" YAY!

Monday OT

Had a good session with Carrie yesterday. She brought us some straws to use for the week. We're trying to strengthen those mouth muscles and maybe control the excessive drooling.

He followed well. Had some attending issues but for the most part was pretty engaged.
He seems to like Carrie which is very helpful!

He has also started JUMPING. Very exciting. It's very cute to see. I will try to get a video clip of that.

A great Speech Therapy Session

Ahhhh, the work is paying off. LaQuita and Preston had a great session yesterday

They did some fun games, where there was a lot of interaction and some sensory stimulation that Preston really responded to. He was sitting on the couch and LaQuita would act like she was going to sit on him, but she would actually, be laying back on him. He would PULL her back to lay on him! He would ask her for more and they both giggled a lot. Would have been a GREAT video to upload here but that was about the time I realized my camera was BROKEN! ACK!!! And you all know me and my camera….so that was a bit upsetting….But I did get this picture since it’s really the viewfinder that is broken.

Also, LaQuita was getting Preston to identify pictures on flash cards. He did GREAT. He identified truck, car, baby, dog, cat, apple and ? one other….She would hold the card up and say “What’s this” and he would answer! He did that for several minutes and did very well at it. Finally when they were done, he took the flash cards and was holding them up to ME and saying “DAT?” (What’s that?) He was playing “Speech Pathologist”!!! It was SO cute and such a milestone. He also said "apple" nearly PERFECTLY.
It was a great session.

At dinner last night we were all sitting at the kitchen table and watching the bumble bees swarm around the back bushes. They are very aromatic. When they would go away, he would look at me and shrug his shoulders, lift his hands in the air and say “Air Dough?” (Where did they go?) It was GREAT. We did that for probably 10 minutes. The interaction was so fun. It was just a great day for speech all around!

Several items.....

We're having a pretty good week. Carrie (OT) came on Monday. Preston did pretty well for her. They played some good games. His fine motor skills seemed better to me.

I found the counting pig (Fisher Price) and bought it. Preston has been having fun with that.
Since we have been saying "1, 2, 3 GO" to him...I hear him trying to mimic that. He has the 2 (DO) and the Go (Dough) down pat. The rest is mumbling but I get the jest of it. I am hoping he will start mimicking the pig-that's the idea.

Last night he was an "only child" for the whole evening. Coop is at grandma's and Taylor is on her mission trip. He seemed very verbal. He was babbling a lot and very animated. I even asked Mike if I was on target by saying "He sure is being talkative". Mike agreed it was out of the norm for him. He wasn't talking to us, but just talking in general as he played. He really never does this and if he does the rest of us are talking over him.....

We have been trying to get him to answer questions.
I asked him last night "Who's that?" and pointed to Mike and he answered "dada"....Mike did the same for me, but he didn't "get" that question. But I do notice he is saying "mama" more. Not sure if he is really calling ME mama or not but I am hearing it more.

I have been working on telling Preston when I am leaving the room since he has a really serious attachment to me. I mean it's nice to have your kid love you and want you around but this is seriously overkill and to see the tantrum he throws when I leave the room even to go to the garage or bathroom or to my bedroom to change clothes is awful. Angie suggested I start telling him "I am going to the ________, Preston. I will be right back". I am sure this is going to take some time....but so far it's not working yet! I know he is fine within minutes of me leaving but it's still not pleasant for anyone.

Preston keeps going to the cabinet where the cups and bowls are and pointing and saying "DIT"...well, I am not sure what "DIT" is but it's NOT drink.....so it must be snack or bowl or something. Anyway it's definitely communication and that's what we're trying to derive from all of this!

Not meeting with Angie this week-or next actually. So, the 18th is the next time with her.
Meanwhile we will see LaQuita tomorrow!!