Explosion in our House

For months, since February, we've been working with the boys on putting things in their mouths to desensitize them and convince them to eat by mouth. And it has been more than an up hill battle most days.

Today during feeding clinic Evan put a special oral stimulation / sensory tool that looks like a lollipop made out of a sponge soaked with water in his mouth and sucked the hell out of it over and over and over. Not only that but he learned to dip the sponge into the water for more to suck. He refused to eat any real food off the spoon but he chewed and sucked the hell out of this stupid little lollipop stick with a pink sponge on the end. It was all I could do to keep my composure and not scream and jump up and down in tears right in front of Evan and his therapist.

Cameron has a slightly higher degree of oral sensory over-stimulation issues and so he's refused to put the lollipop in his mouth, but he will occasionally let me do it. Baby steps.

I hope this works, the image link was tricky to find. Here's what the sponge brush looks like.


This last week Cameron has been rolling on to his belly, pushing into a sit or into a crawl and either crawling backwards making him very angry and frustrated, or pulling into a stand so he can cruise the furniture in the playroom. But the greatest thing for him is that this afternoon while making our daily cruising-the-furniture trek through the play room Cameron actually crawled forward without hesitation and with great speed for about six feet and over the small step up from the playroom into the kitchen and then plopped his butt backwards into a sitting position. At that point I burst into tears.

Hey Cam! Look what I found!


Not to be out done by his brother Evan also has been doing his best to face his fear of falling and is lurching himself forward or twisting to the side placing both hands on the floor in valiant attempt to get into the crawl position. He's repeatedly done several face plants but no crying or fussing. But because he hates to be on his belly he hasn't realized yet that he could roll on to his belly and get into the crawl position. But that's the next big step for him to learn. Evan is also doing the same "use mommy as the jungle gym" moves that Cameron started to do two months ago. This is an enormous relief off my shoulders because every gross motor skill after he figures out how to stand up and crawl will come wickedly fast.

Waiting for Daddy come home from work:


Chewie sitting on the steps and also waiting for Daddy to come home from work:


The boys watching Chewie on the stairs:


Bridget, with her typical caught-in-the-headlights look, wishing the hairless puppies would get away from the door so she can jump on Daddy as he comes home from work:




This week the boys have also learned to wave hi and bye bye and practiced waving at people walking past us while sitting in a restaurant window at the mall. Super cute and Cameron has almost figured out to say buh-buh. He also loves to point at his own nose which is a skill that he's right on track for his adjusted age. Another really adorable thing about their finally getting more mobile is that are FINALLY sleeping better. Not through the night, but much better, and I'll take whatever they give me. And Cameron has started to do new things in his sleep that are just too adorable. Now he sits up in his sleep, he talks in his sleep, and every morning he's pulling up and jumping up and down in his crib when my husband comes in to get them up at 5:30am. Pretty soon, maybe in the next month or so Evan will be doing this too. We're lowering their mattresses to the lowest setting this week.

Notice Cameron's top two teeth showing:


It's been such a great day and a beautiful tremendous relief to see improvement that is like a great explosion of development instead of tiny little improvements that we have to grasp on to.



Our new jungle gym that isn't actually Mommy, and this one has a slide:










Ew! Not liking the grass too much Dad.