Wednesday, January 14, 2009

Rapid acceleration

Quinn has entered a period of warp-speed development. It seems like he learns something new every day, usually right before our eyes. I'll post some new photos soon, but in the meantime here is a synopsis of what's up with the little guy:
- He has gone from taking only the bottle to eating anything he can get on the bottle nipple. Soup, mac and cheese, stew, mashed potatoes, rice, refried beans, cottage cheese, pudding, eggs. There seems to be nothing the boy won't eat. He still won't eat from a spoon or put food in his mouth with his fingers, but his self-created system is serving him quite well for now.
- He has learned to stand quite well, but his upper body is not developed well enough to him to walk. He hasn't figured out how to get down once he's up, though. He started screaming in the middle of the night, which is very unusual for him, and when I went into his bedroom he was standing there in his crib, with no clue how to get down. I helped him lay down and he sighed and went straight to sleep.
- He was gone from smiling only when tickled or prompted with crazy antics to giving us regular, unsolicited smiles and laughs. He has gone from serious and analytical to happy and analytical.
- He got a plastic box for Christmas with holes in the top and shapes to fit through those holes. He would randomly try a shape in a hole and if it didn't fit he'd give up. Even if he had it almost right and just had to shift the shape a tiny bit, he wouldn't do it. Now he picks up the shape, looks at the puzzle top and puts the right shape in the right hole. Yes, the star is still a bit hard, but hey, give the poor kid a break!
- He is winding down his feeding therapy - once he starts using a spoon and feeding himself finger foods weren't home free. Next up is occupational therapy, which started today, and physical therapy, which starts Friday. Keeping up with him and his appointments, plus squeezing in some work when time allows, definitely fills up the day!
- He has gone from one or two vowel sounds to a full vocabulary of consonant-studded baby babble.
- He has learned his first English world. Say, "clap, clap, clap," and that's exactly what he'll do.
- He is now mimicking our behavior. In California, when the adoption therapist told us he should be doing this, I assaulted him with "Twinkle Twinkle" so relentlessly that showing him jazz hands would make him cry. Now he claps with us and taps his hands on his knees when we sing.

1 comment:

Donna Hutt Stapfer Bell said...

Refried beans...nom nom nom!

(You can find me over at LJ - this is just a placeholder for now - http://kyburg.livejournal.com ..and Xander's site is http://xanxanbell.livejournal.com ...come over and take a look!)