Poor Scott

Last weekend, Scott was upstairs with Dougie and walked into the bathroom door. He was in quite a bit of pain but was certain his toe wasn't broken so he opted to not get it looked at. He went to Houston as usual this week but by Thursday was concerned that the pain had not subsided at all. We made him a doctor's appointment for today.



It's broken. In fact, it was so broken that they brought in the intern to see it as a example of a very clear break. Scott will have to see an orthopedist to see what needs to be done from here. His toe is turning out quite a bit and the doctor wanted a specialist to check it out. He'll also need to wear a rigid foot brace for a while. Fortunately, he's not in a cast - his toes are just taped together to try to get the broken one to stay straight.

Scott is taking the entire thing in stride.

Can You Hear Me Now?

Dougie's doctor asked us to bring him in to get his hearing testing. With his speech delays, he wanted to be sure that there wasn't something physically causing it. So, this morning we braved the icy rain and brought him in for a hearing test.

The test itself went quite quickly. The technician had him sit on my lap in a soundproof room with two speakers on either side of Dougie. First, she talked to him and watched for him to look at the speaker. After a few rounds of that, she played noises out of the speakers at different volumes. If he looked at the speaker, a toy inside lit up and moved. The entire test took less than 10 minutes.

After the test we waited around for what seemed to be forever for the doctor to come in and chat with us. He told us that Dougie measured within range. We expected that would be the case but it was very nice to have it confirmed.

So, now we know it's just regular old speech delay. Dougie is making progress on his speech already even after just a short time in speech therapy. He is definitely trying to say a lot more words and will even repeat back a two word phrase (though not spontaneous yet).

Back in the Groove

It's hard to believe the holidays are over. We have a bunch of posts to catch up on to share how it went. Hopefully, we'll get those out over the next few days. We're making an effort to Blog a bit more often this year.

After a break for Christmas, we got back into the swing of toddler activities today. We've switched to a program for older children (2-5) that is a bit of an adjustment for both of us.

We started with "math" which, for Dougie, is just counting. We had 10 cups each marked with a number. We counted out the correct number of balls for each up and then we counted them again as he put them in the cup. He had a great time and got very excited as we finished each cup but tired of the activity when we got to seven.

Putting the balls in the cup


Cheering for himself


We talked for a while about the color blue and looked at blue things. Then Dougie did a matching exercise. For some reason, this always surprises me that he does well at it but he has become quite adept at matching.



Finally, it was time for art. Dougie loves making "art." Our project today was to use a balloon to make overlapping circles that would look like a snowman.



As you can see, Dougie didn't quite get the concept. He had fun anyway though and when he was finished we added some sparkles to make it look like snow and hung it on the wall.

All in all, a good start to our new program.

2 Year Check-up

We had Dougie's 2 year check-up today. He's still growing and remains on his curve.

Stats:

• * Weight - 24.6lbs (11%)
• * Height - 34" (40%)
• * Head - 19.3" (56%)

Dougie is doing really well. He was developmentally on target for everything except communication (which wasn't a surprise to us). The doctor reiterated that he thought it was important to have Dougie in speech therapy at this point. Apparently, he should have about 50 words by age two. Dougie only has 15 and doesn't pronounce some of them properly (not normal toddler mispronunciation but a lip position issue). We've been lucky enough to do speech therapy with his old feeding therapist so we all know each other well. Of course, Dougie is convinced that he should be eating and keeps getting into the high chair.

Dougie Turns Two

Our little guy turned two today. We had a great day! I have pictures but we'll post those tomorrow. I wanted to share one of the ones from his birthday photo session.

Picture With Santa

We took Dougie down to get his picture with Santa today. Scott wanted to join us this year and he took the day off for Dougie's birthday so it seemed like the perfect day.

Dougie didn't think so. The picture is better than last year (last year's Santa experience) but not by much.



Maybe next year...

End of Feeding Therapy

It has been a long 10 months. A very long 10 months! We have officially graduated from feeding therapy. Dougie is in no way an "excellent" eater but he qualifies as normal toddler "picky" which was enough. He still needs a lot of encouragement to eat anything other than the foods he really likes and the list of foods he enjoys is pretty short but we're continuing to work with him.

More Soccer Pictures

We had soccer again today. Dougie is quite mixed on the entire thing. At times, he is having the time of his life and other times he doesn't seem to want to participate. It's quite different for him though and we think he's just adjusting.

We did manage to get the good camera out today to get some better pictures.

Scoring a goal on Daddy




Throw In (okay, not really but it looks like one)


Kicking down the field


Knocking down cones(this isn't how it was supposed to be done but the coach told us to just let him do his thing for a few classes)


He eventually got what he was supposed to do with the cones


Running around the field


Watching the hoops

Toddler Art

Today, we did our first toddler art project. I've been looking forward to Dougie making art pieces for a while now. In keeping with our snow theme, we made a snow covered tree.

Dougie started by applying the paint with his fingers. He didn't really like the feeling of the paint on his fingers though.



Then he moved on to applying the stickers. Dougie could have done this a lot longer but we ran out of stickers.



Finally, Dougie discovered the paintbrush I had given him early. He decided to try his hand at painting again.





Painting with a brush is fun!



I finally made Dougie stop when he started eating the paint (thank goodness for non-toxic). His final masterpiece:



Dougie decided to play with his snowballs more while I cut out his tree.



Today was a lot more successful. The morning seems to be a much better time to get Dougie into his activities.

Who Loves Their Dog?

Dougie doesn't get a lot of one-on-one time with the dogs. We're still a bit concerned that they'll knock him over. We had Maggie in the other day though and decided to let her have some playtime with Dougie. It really is great how well they get along.

Today's Toddler Activities

This week's focus is snow so all our activities are snow based. As you can imagine, being in Texas adds some complexity to it all but we're making do as we can.

We threw snowballs into a basket



Then we played with a snowman felt toy (that mummy made)


We also talked about snow and looked at pictures of snow though Dougie wasn't that into that part.

Tomorrow is art day, hopefully, we'll have some cute pictures to show from that.

Message from Santa

Santa sent Dougie a message:

Message from Santa

On/Off

It wasn't too long ago that Dougie discovered light switches. He loves turning lights on and off but we always had to help because all the switches are too high. Today, he learned that there was one within his reach when he stood on his learning tower. Now he can play with it whenever he wants. Great, just great. ;)

On


Off

It's Official - I'm a Soccer Mom!

We finally found a soccer program for Dougie. I have been looking for a long time but most programs won't take kids until they are 4. Then, a friend of mine mentioned that we should try SoccerTots. We signed him up and Dougie had his first class this morning and loved it! Well, he loved half of it. The class is almost an hour and that is a long time for such a little guy to be running around. It'll get better once he gets used to it.

We tried to get some pictures but Dougie was moving fast and my camera couldn't keep up. We hope to have better ones next week.







Now, I just need a minivan.

Puzzle Me This

Dougie loves puzzles. I would have thought he was too young for them but they use them in feeding therapy and he was doing so well with them there that we decided to get him some for home.



He does this particular puzzle at least 10 times a day. He'll put the pieces in, dump them out and do it again. These particular puzzles make noise when you put a piece in. We haven't put batteries in all of them but he actually doesn't seem to care if it makes a noise when he puts the piece in.

Sometimes, Dougie will even work on several puzzles at once. He manages to work out which pieces go with each one and will get them put back together without a problem.

Lost in Translation

Today's activity was finding a ball hidden under a colored dish. The premise is that you re-hide the ball under the same colored dish each time. It takes a few attempts but after a few rounds finding the object should be easy.

I covered Dougie's eyes and hit the ball. Blue ball/blue dish. He found it on his second try.



I covered his eyes again and re-hid the ball and moved the dishes around. This time, he checked under the blue dish the first time. This actually sent the ball onto the floor but he did find it.



I covered his eyes again and asked him to find the ball. He had clearly had enough because he walked away from the table and into his playroom. It wasn't long before he returned though.



Apparently, I should have been more clear. :) At least he's resourceful.

Scrub Scrub Scrub

This year in Kindermusik we have talked a lot about doing things around the house. One of the songs is about cleaning the house. At the beginning of the year we sang "Dust Dust Dust" but lately we sing "Scrub Scrub Scrub." Dougie always enjoys singing it in Kindermusik and scrubbing the walls there.

Today, Dougie found a soft book and started using it to scrub my desk. I sang the song for him while he was doing it and he kept saying "aga" (again). I decided to get him a sponge so he could clean properly. He loved it. We sang and scrubbed for almost 20 minutes.

Sorting

We had Dougie's speech evaluated several weeks ago and the therapist asked if he could do several activities like sorting, matching, etc. It dawned on us that we had never asked him to do any of those things. So, we've decided to start trying to do a few more structured activities with him in addition to his reading time and the ever important play time. :)

Today was our first activity and we worked on sorting.

The Setup


Sorting




As you may be able to tell from the pictures, sorting is not currently Dougie's strength. He loved to put the little pompoms in the cups but he didn't really care which ones they went in. By the end, he was putting all the blue ones together but he never took to the brown or yellow. We plan to try again tomorrow at a different time of day and perhaps with some different colors.

Mystery of the Falling Pants

Occasionally, Dougie comes over with his pants down around his ankles. He's skinny and sometimes, he just isn't wide enough to keep his pants on. We have to buy the bigger size so they are long enough and they just don't make boys belts for kids this age. So, I dutifully pull them up and send him back on his way.



He doesn't mind it too much though he does like to be wearing pants. I have witnessed them slipping myself so I know that it does happen naturally but apparently, sometimes, they get help.



That was taken immediately after I had pulled them up. Perhaps we have been over accusing gravity.

More Pictures from the Park

Our chapter decided to have a second photo opportunity so we decided to try again for a few more pictures of Dougie. Here are some of the best: