Speech

Today a lady came to our house for just over an hour to do an initial observation of Noah and his speech and overall development. She was nice and seems to be good at what she does.

The assessment form was the same as the one we filled out for his 18 month pediatrician appointment, so we knew how it would go. He's off the charts good at gross and fine motor skills. He's on track for problem solving and social skills. He has zero verbal communication.

Now, he actually communicates with us very well. It's rare we don't know what he means or what he wants. But, he isn't say any actual words, and he doesn't point to things in books or know how to point to his nose, mouth, etc. The biggest reason he can't do those things is that, honestly, we don't work on those with him. He knows his feet and helps us when we say it's time to put his socks or shoes on. He knows his hands and helps put his arms through when we're putting his clothes on. But he can't be bothered with "where is your nose" silliness. And anytime we say a word for him to repeat back to us, he says "yeah" - like yeah I know that's an apple, I'm glad you know that's an apple, now hand it over. So, we end up not going over and over words with him.

In the past week he's started "talking" at us even more. And what we've noticed is that he seems to have so much to say that it gets stuck in his mouth. The lady said it seems like his brain is faster than his mouth. That's a good description.

He understands at least 60-70% of what we say to him.

Also, socially, he's made progress in the past month or so. He used to shake his head "no" at anybody who came to close to him. He doesn't do that anymore. Now, he hugs boys he likes at a friend's house and even hugged a friend of Nerdstar's who was visiting last night. (He hugs us a lot, too!)

We've scheduled a more in-depth diagnosis session for April 5th. There will be a speech pathologist and educator and someone else there to evaluate him. We'll probably go ahead and do that. But really, he's going to talk when he's ready. He's a stay-at-home boy with very little need/motivation to use words so far.

We are a little jealous of all the parents of little girls who talk early and often!

Weirdo

There's almost nothing Nerdstar finds more annoying than having something up her nose. So, of course, Noah thinks it's absolutely hilarious to put his finger up her nose! Cracks me up. I told her to put her finger in his nose to see if he'd stop. Her finger is too big for his nose, but it didn't work anyway.

He's also figured out how to point and grunt for something he wants. Not cool dude. He will also stand there and yell pretty darn loud at us when he's mad about some little thing. When he's annoyed (as opposed to mad), he'll swat at his ear.

Two other kinda weird things. He is always grabbing his tongue with his fingers. And he puts his hands over his ears to hear himself talk.

On the good stuff front. Twice I've heard him laugh while sleeping.

We also finally got a prescription cream that cleared up the lingering eczema spots on his legs/feet. We're so happy about that! Now he's not scratching his skin off every time we try to change his diaper, so diaper changes aren't a nightmare anymore.

And one for the record - just watching him run down the hallway can bring joy to my heart.

New Neighborhood Watch

Just a couple of things we find fun. For a long time now, Noah sometimes structures his "sentences" so that he says a few things and then laughs. We think it's cool that laughing is something he does quite a bit. Then, about a month or so ago when he was eating, he made a sort of "GULP" sound and when I laughed at him, he did it a bunch more times trying to make me laugh. Now he'll do it every so often. It's pretty darn cool he's already trying to make us laugh. We're sure there will be lots of nonsense stories and joke telling if he ever decides to speak English!

He's also always made me hold him up to see out the windows in front of the desk anytime he heard people/kids or trucks. The other day, I realized he's tall enough and (hopefully) careful enough to put his step in front of the window so he can look out anytime. It's pretty tall for him to get up and down from, but so far he's done great with it and loves looking out throughout the day.

Real Haircut

Our boy grows hair like nobody's business. We've already shaved his head three times, and his hair was cute but getting long again. There's a Cartoon Cuts at a mall we go to and so we decided to give it a try. The problem being that Noah really doesn't like strangers touching him. We really wanted him to have a regular haircut and thought we'd give it a try and if it failed horribly we'd just shave his head again.

He sat in Nerdstar's lap and there was much snot and many tears, but the lady was great and got it done. Now he's not so shaggy!

Video and Reality

I mentioned that Noah has his sets of you.tube videos that he watches every day. He still likes watching the donkeys, chickens, dogs, and cats at Bedlam Farm. I think that's cool. Last weekend we went to a small local farm and he saw some smaller horses and some chickens and we could tell that he made the connection to them from the videos. He got close to the horses, but wasn't quite brave enough to pet them. He liked watching the chickens for quite a while.

I'm glad he doesn't watch actual tv yet, but I've seen that small doses of some decent videos have been at least neat for him to learn a few things. (Enough qualifiers in that last sentence?)

1 and 1/2

Our dear boy turned 1 and 1/2 the other day. I've been trying to compose a post in my head and finally decided to just sit down and write one.

His check up is Thursday morning and I can't wait to see how much taller he is. He is one tall and skinny dude. When I bought his winter clothes several months ago, I got some 18 month sizes and some 24 month sizes. He's about to be too tall for all of the 18 month ones.

It's harder now to pinpoint new milestones. He's definitely into stacking things. He still loves throwing balls around. He does his "exercises" on his wooden platform - he doesn't just like to use it as a step down, he also puts his back foot back up there and goes back up onto it. He seems to be an athletic boy - but he's not at all a dare-devil. I like that.

One thing that has changed, although I couldn't say when it started, is his sleeping habits. I blame Nerdstar for the changes. It used to be that he'd get tired and we'd put him in his bed with his glow worm and blanket and he'd go right to sleep. Then he started wanting Nerdstar to stay in there while he fell asleep at night. Now, he wants one of us in there when he goes to sleep for naps or night time. Ugh. It's not too bad at nap time, he usually goes to sleep in 10 to 30 minutes. But sometimes at night it takes over an hour. He'll act like he's ready to go to sleep, then lay in the bed and fidget, or "talk" to her, or clap his hands (no idea why). If she tries to leave before he's sound asleep, he cries like he's dying.

One cute thing, though, if he is tired and you ask if it's "glow worm time" he'll run to his room and grab onto his crib and wait for you to put him in bed! And most days in addition to his nap, he'll take one or two "breaks" where he'll run to his crib and stand there and we put him in and he lays there with his glow worm for about ten minutes. Then he's ready to play again.

He's not talking yet, but he understands more and more of what we say to him. For a long time now if you ask him something, he'll say "yeah". But it's not universal - he doesn't agree to just anything/everything. He'll say yeah to stuff he likes to eat, but won't say it to asking if he wants steak and eggs. So, this weekend we were talking about having baby #2 (still at 90% NO) and Nerdstar asked him if he wanted a baby in the house - he just laughed and laughed! It was too funny.

He's still watching his you.tube videos a couple of times a day. He still loves John John on Sesame Street. We talk about getting him a little tv with wi-fi or roku or something, but that would be more for us than for him. For now most of the time we sit with him on our lap and get some snuggle time while he watches. But we also use it at dinner time some nights and put him in his high chair in front of the computer so we can eat in peace.

The most frustrating thing is still his eczema. We pretty much keep him in onsies so he can't get to his skin to scratch it. The cream works on his face, but not on the spots on his legs and feet. So, when we undress him to change his diapers it's a horrible fight with him to try to keep him from scratching. Lately, we've even put mittens on his hands to just get through it. We've scheduled another visit with the derm for him, we're hoping that in light of what we've tried so far, and the new info about his allergies, we can find a new strategy.

Most importantly, he's still the cutest, smartest, most wonderful kid in the world.

Noah Playing

These days he loves stacking the blocks and putting things into and out of the oatmeal canister. Well, other than still throwing them down the stairs and into his crib.