Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes

And so it's a new year.

Maybe that doesn't mean much to you, but here at the Vitality household, we all have things to work on.  Can't save the world if we can't save ourselves, right?

We are also working on Brady P.

He wants to be a big boy.

One of the things he is doing so well already is at the dinner table.  Often times, we are in and out, and eating a meal together seems impossible.  But once we started doing dinner more often as a family, we saw big progress.

Braeden loves to eat what we eat.  He even ate all of his bean salad yesterday.  With a fork.  I was so proud that tears welled in my eyes.

He is clearing his plate of food we make.  With a fork.  We are still working on the stabbing technique, but I can tell he is as proud as we are.  So kudos to eating dinner together.

He is wearing big boy underwear.

Okay.  Not all the time, but we give him a few hours in the evening to keep his superhero underwear dry for as long as possible and encourage him to pee on the potty between activities.

Sometimes it's already too late.

But if we all stay positive and encouraging, he will get there.  We believe that it's hard for him to recognize, let alone control the feeling of peeing.  That's part of the hypotonia in his muscles that comes with Down syndrome.  His muscles hang loose until he uses them.

But when he uses them, watch out.  He is strong.

We are also really practicing speech.  

Enunciation. 

Getting those sounds right.  We encourage him to use his words, but then he is not comprehendible to other people.  How embarrassing for all parties involved.

He wants to use his words.  Especially with our new dog, Missy.

"Missy, down!" he will shout to her when she jumps onto his trampoline with him.

It sounds like "Biggy, gum!" but I smile to myself because I am proud that he tries.

And now we are drilling it.  There are certain sounds like 'f,' 's,' 'o' and 'z' that we can probably nail in the next few weeks if we keep at it.  The more we pay attention to what he can already do, the more we can play off his skills to improve on them.

I'm really excited and hopeful about this.  As long as we play animal games and read animal books, we'll have plenty of words to say that will keep him interested.

Want to know one thing that is helping?  His new glasses.

 

A spectacle in his specs

Yup.  His attention span for reading and writing has improved because he can actually see what he is looking at more clearly.  And he doesn't turn his head to read out of the side of his eye.  Or touch his nose to the book.

Little man.

We are so proud of him.

Here's to a progressive new year to us all!

*If you like pictures of snowflakes and frost, check out the new prints at the Vitality shop!  For the next week we're running a sale: ALL orders ship for free and any order of $20 or more gets 20% off with coupon code NEWYEAR.  Enjoy!