Recent Developments

The holidays were WAY too busy at our house! And so much has happened! Jack is making excellent strides in all of his therapy.
In Speech Therapy, he's FINALLY started using his voice, especially when he's playing. When he pushes cars across the floor, he'll make an engine noise that is just too adorable. Obviously he is paying attention to his older brothers! He's also using sign language, but just at dinner time. He'll sign "more" and "milk". We're working on signing "all done" and "thank you".
In Physical Therapy, he's trying very hard to walk. In our last session, he was standing without holding onto anything, and the therapist held out some Cherrios. He took two steps, took the food out of her hand, and stood there eating them without holding onto anything. She believes he has the strength to walk, its just getting the confidence to do it.
Yesterday in Occupational Therapy, he just blew the therapist away. Though speech development has been his biggest hurdle, he's had to work very hard on his fine motor skills as well, and yesterday it paid off. He was playing with a bucket with a lid that had shapes cut out on top. He consistently took the lid off of the bucket and expertly placed it back on. We clapped everytime he did it, and when we didn't clap, he clapped for himself! He then showed off by placing the appropriate shape in the appropriate hole. Then the therapist turned the bucket upside down, which irritated Jack a little and he kept trying to turn it over so he could put the blocks in it. But then she placed two blocks on top of the bucket and started to say "I wonder if he will stack them." She didn't get halfway through her sentence when he picked one block up and placed it neatly and purposefully on top of the other. Our therapist, Carrie, was speechless. She finally said "I didn't even have to show him what to do..." And then I stated that I hadn't ever seen him do that at home.
He's been doing so well that we are now going to cut down on some of the therapy. Speech therapy is every other week now, instead of weekly. Occupational therapy is now just once a month. Until he starts walking, we're going to continue to do physical therapy twice a month.
Next week, Jackson will move up from his infant classroom at school to the young toddler room, or "wobbler", as our school classifies it. It will be a sad move, because he has grown so connected to his teachers, and they have just fallen in love with him over the past 14 months. But I know that this will be best for him, and in the visits he has made to his new class, he has acted like he owned the place, so I'm sure that he will be fine.