Sum-sum-summer time

19 Months

Ian, you are growing more independent each day.

At 19 months, you can:
build with Legos
sing the ABCs
run around like a mad-man

put together puzzles

brush your teeth
help with simple chores, like putting away trash and the dishes
kick a ball
give the sweetest hugs
say both Mama and Dada

Your favorite activities include:
reading
cooking with Mama (You are the ultimate cheese sprinkler.)



trying on shoes, no matter how big they may be

making lots of noise

Mother's Day weekend

With cousin Christian at Grandma's the night before Mother's Day


Giving Mama a hug


Mama Clydie's turn




Taking Ruthie for a walk


Riding Mama's old tractor

Speech

In April, Ian went for a speech evaluation at CHOA. At 17 months, he was at the 22-24 month age for language perception and the 12-14 month age for language production. He needs to be working on pressure sounds: b, t, d, and p. Pressure sounds are made by closing off your throat. Children with clefts are sometimes unable to make these sounds properly because of the inproper formation of the soft palate and uvula. This is normally corrected during the palate repair, but sometimes that is not enough either because the child's muscles to control the uvula are too weak or the uvula itself is too short. We are hoping that with speech therapy we can remedy the problem without another surgery.

We have since been referred to Babies Can't Wait, a program that offers in-home speech therapy, to see what can be done about the language delay. They will come by June 5 to do an evaluation to determine if Ian qualifies for their program.

I have already seen progress in his pressure sounds just by working with him at home. We have been making the "p" sound at bathtime in the bubbles. (It helps him to see that those types of sounds require air and makes something, like the bubbles, to move.)

He can say:
Mama
Daddy
Clydie
Grandma
Jaime (our dog)
top
uh-oh
ball
up
puppy
cookie
Papa
juice
yummy
yea
bye-bye
Emma (our other dog)
hey

He can sign:
please
more
book
bath
milk
change diaper

The list has grown a lot since our visit to CHOA in April. (It was maybe 7 words consistently.) I hope we continue to see this kind of progress!

Busy, busy, busy

We have been busy! Since the last time I blogged, we have had:

Ian's first snow(March 1),

Ian's first beach trip (April 6-8),


Ian's first Easter egg hunt, and


Ian's first power wheels experience (May 12)! (Notice the "cool dude" spiky hair--He had just gotten hair cut number five.)

Any suggestions?

We've got a picky eater on our hands. He has gotten tired of baby food, which is fine, but he doesn't want much when it comes to big boy food. He loves things that dissolve easily (cookies, Gerber Puffs, Nutri-Grain bars, and muffins), but these things have practically no nutritional value. We've tried giving him things we're eating without much luck. He looks interested, but turns away when we attempt to give him anything. Any ideas? I don't mind trying anything. I really want him to get more into fruits and veggies instead of all those carbs.

No more b-o-t-t-l-e

Ian is offically off of his bottle as of last week. We were very worried how he would do, but it didn't phase him when I handed him a sippy cup instead of a bottle. He has been using a sippy cup off and on since he was about 5 months old, so he's had plenty of time to get used to it. But now he's a full-time sippy cup user :) We were happy to ditch the bottles without a big fuss.