I had a lot of stress planning Timothy's birthday party because I wanted it to be special and fun for him as well as a celebration of him. We celebrated his actual birthday somewhat quietly with just the three of us - four if you count his speech therapist, for his scheduled appointment and she very sweetly brought two gifts for him, really she is so nice. Timothy awoke to a surprise of his new little kitchen and recycling truck as well as new pots and pans and a shopping cart (gotta have the push toys). He loves the kitchen as I knew he would - mainly because he likes to open and close doors over and over again. The "burners" make noises and light up - really likes that. He couldn't even concentrate on the pots/pans or the cart as the kitchen and truck were enough. Again, I got him too many toys and even saved one of the others we got him for a Christmas present. So we had a nice quiet family day and spent a lot of quantity and quality time with our little man.
His birthday party was fine - next year we are going to Chuck E. Cheese, I swear, wow. We had it outside although on the cool side and borrowed our neighbor's moonbounce. Timothy even got in this time especially when his little friend and idol Carter went in to play. Spent all day Saturday decluttering my house (decluttering means moving cr** to the basement and hopefully on to a new home in Goodwill). Greg and I pride ourselves on not being too material but we have managed to keep a lot of junk over four moves in the last ten years. I watched a show on hoarders and that's what made me determined - but I digress. I cleaned and cleaned since all of our neighbors were going to be over...and no one came inside, but I now have a cleaner, less cluttered house!
Timothy had no idea what was going on - just that all his neighborhood friends were over and he didn't understand why. He did fine and we are so happy that he's our little son. We had two cakes as you can see including Elmo. His all-time favorite activity of the day? Watching his Uncle Scott blow up the balloons with the helium tank. He was transfixed and spent all morning pulling all of the balloons up and down from the ceiling. It's also what he played with all afternoon and evening after his nap. So much for presents.
He's grown almost two inches since we last had him evaluated and is now in the 10-25%. He weighs almost 25 lbs. We still have speech therapy every week with the focus now on sounds using the tongue like "d", "t", "p" and "b". He's very guarded with his tongue and uses it to protect the rest of his mouth. We try to massage his tongue and the sides of his cheek with a device called a nuk. Lately he's starting to move his tongue around in his mouth more as a result. He can also say about 35 words. Even words he already knows he's improved upon such as now saying momma for mom. He's only behind in speech by about three months according to the IA doc. It's probably more than that - he still has a long way to go but he really is doing just great. His receptive speech is even above age at 25 months.
Timothy can play by himself for long periods of time - about 45 minutes to an hour. He loves his puppets and making them dance to music or using them when watching videos about a farm or an Elmo/Sesame Street video about birds. He loves loves loves his Kindermusik class. He imitates us constantly with the way we are sitting or kneeling or lying down. He's laughing and smiling so much more after his second surgery to the point of doubling over, I love this! He sleeps most nights a blessed 11 hours a night - how lucky are we? Naps are another story much more difficult but getting better - sleeping really is important for brain development in little ones as well as mental health for much older ones. He also loves cars and trucks as well as any type size and shape of ball. What is also amusing is hearing him when he makes himself laugh. That's pretty darn cute. Preschool is fine - each week he gets a little bit better. Last week he started crying before we were out of the parking lot but only for the first hour. Monday is my first day co-oping with another group of children, heard this is quite fatiguing.
