20 months

Only 4 four months until he's 2! Wow, where has the time gone?

Ian, your biggest accomplishment in the last month is your climbing ability. You can climb anything! You climb onto the chairs--all of them, onto the kitchen table, up your new rockwall, and into bed--especially to snuggle with Daddy if he's still sleeping. You can also climb down the stairs, using your scoot-on-your-bottom-and-plop-on-the-stair-below method. It made me nervous at first, but at least you were trying to be safe.

First speech therapy session

Ian's therapist came to our home today for the first official session. She gave us different exercise assignments to work on over the next couple of weeks; a few include:

*wiggle tongue and stick out as far as possible (That's good to teach, right?)
*blow bubbles
*drink thick drinks through a straw (Ian had a Chickfila milkshake today. Hey, doctor's orders.)
*use a whistle
*use a big-boy cup each day
*bite small pieces from a bigger piece of food

The exercises, most of which we were already doing, are intended to strengthen Ian's mouth muscles to better produce sounds. The pressure sounds Scottish Rite wants him to produce are not supposed to be mastered until 2, and some, even 3 years old. They need to know if he is capable to determine if he will need a surgery to help correct his speech. We are hoping speech therapy will help. No one wants another surgery.

As far as his word production goes, he is doing great! At least I am impressed. He has started talking much more and attempts to say pretty much everything we do. Scary, right? New words include, but are not limited to:
shoe
more
top
side (for outside)
up

New toy

"Ooooo!"

Trying out his swing for the first time.


"More..."

"...please." (Even though it looks more like bath.)

Digging...

He looks so old when he's serious.

Our little climber. Have I mentioned he can now go up and down the stairs inside?

Not without my sippy cup.

...more digging.

Sweet boy. Thanks, Daddy, Grandpa, Grandpapa, and Uncle Tim for my new swingset! I love it!

Father's Day

Summer buzz

Ian's hair was getting a bit long. Instead of taking him to get it cut, I half-jokingly said, "Let's just buzz it."

Before: Ian unsuspecting of what we were up to.




It was at this point when I changed my mind. Too late...




After: Finished product. Not too bad, it's just taking some getting used to. This cute kid can pull it off though.

Dinner for three?

We had meal success today! Twice! For lunch, Ian had apple sauce, PB crackers, and Spagetti O's. He has never shown interest in Spagetti O's until today. He ate only one bite, but that's one bite closer to real spagetti. For dinner, DJ made tacos for us and nachos for Ian. Ian gobbled up the meat off the nachos and then asked for more! He ate a good helping of the meat and then finished off the tortilla chips with cheese. Does this mean I get to start cooking one meal instead of two? We are so excited to see what Ian will start eating in the next few days! Let's just hope it's not a fluke...

Park playtime

Mr. Independent


Checking out the lake


Throwing bread to the geese

Excited! Pointing to say, "Look, Mama!"

First sentence

"I wub wou" , more commonly known as "I love you". How sweet is that?

What's even better is the fact that now is when he is supposed to be speaking sentences. Between 19-24 months is when toddlers should begin stringing words together. Ian is 19 months! This is very exciting considering he was told to have a moderate speech delay. That's not to say he doesn't have a lot to work on, but at least we're making it in the right direction. He will also say, "Bye-bye, [insert name]." Yay for progress! I am interested to see what the speech therapist says next week for our first session. Wish us luck!

One cool dude

Helping Mama

Ian can be very helpful. He helps put away dishes and puts things he finds around the house in the trash.



He especially likes to help Mama cook, and maybe grab a sample



...or two.

"Smile Pinki"

For those of you interested, we watched this documentary by Smile Train yesterday. Smile Train is an organization that raises money for children across the world with clefts for surgery.

http://www.smiletrainindia.org/smile_story_pinki.php

Just to warn you, it's pretty long (about 45 minutes) and if you're like me, you may need some tissues nearby.

Fishing with the boys

Ian was the worm-fetcher. He was much better at this than his mama would have been.

Speech

Yesterday we met with the people from Babies Can't Wait. Since Ian was born with a cleft, he automatically qualifies for the services. It was determined that a speech therapist would come to our home twice a month, starting on June 30. How awesome is that? They, the therapist and case worker, reassured us that the pressure consonants we were told to work on(p,d,t,b) should not be mastered by now. Most children do not have them completely mastered until about two and half. [Sigh of relief.]

We set up goals we would like to accomplish in Ian's speech. After 6 months of therapy, we would like to see better production of the pressure consonants. After 12 months, we would like to see more understandable communication by Ian.

He has started using more words on a regular basis. For example:
cold
hot (pulls hand away quickly)
up
eye
nose

He has started signing:
juice
eat

We are excited to see what else he will be learning in the next months!