Just 2 Week & 2 Days, We Will Have A 2 Year Old!!!

     In just 2 weeks and 2 days Mason will be 2 years old! That seems so crazy to me! In some respects it seems it has been longer than almost 2 years since I became a mommy, but in others it seems so short! We are looking forward to spending his birthday, just the 3 of us.
     Mason continues to work hard at all of his therapy appointments. He has recently started standing by himself for about 10 seconds at a time. Mason as also been using his right hand to try to place objects into his left hand or to help lefty grab them. Lefty has also been trying to help with eating. Ins addition to making progress in both fine and gross motor skills, his speech is also coming along too! He is attempting more words, squealing, and expressing emotions (happy, sad, frustration ,etc.) more. We have recently started working with sign language again to help him express himself easier (at least hopefully).
    I continue to thoroughly enjoy watching Mason's development! He may be a little slower than 'average', but he is working on his own pace and I love how determined he is!

Even More Progress :)

      In the last 3 months Mason has made tremendous progress in both fine and gross motor skills. A few days after the last post he began 4 point crawling 100% of the time! YEAH! About the same time as he began crawling, Doug taught him how to give a high 5 with his right hand. Ideally we would love for it to be either hand, BUT this is HUGE for Mason. Except for pointing with his right hand (and occasionally his left), he couldn't do any gestures with his hands. Then about 1.5 weeks ago, I taught him how to clap. We have been working on it for a few months now.  I got him to first clap his right hand to his left arm, then with a little more practice I got him to clap the right hand to his left fist. We kept practicing and now he can clap with the left hand almost open :)!  He is also beginning to clap independently when he wants to.
      In addition to working on his motor skills, we have been taking him to new places and letting him explore his world more. Last month he went with some relatives from the Baggett side of the family and my parents to the National Children's Museum in D.C. He had a blast crawling all over the gym they had in the the 3 and under room. He wasn't a big fan of working with shaving cream though (I don't blame him, it stinks :( ). We will have to try more sensory activities at home to get him used to it. This month he went to Frying Pan Farm Park with some relatives from the Cross side of the family. He enjoyed getting to see the farm animals and riding a carousel for the first time too. We look forward to taking him to the pumpkin patch next month :).
      He has begun to work with his speech therapist too. She has come for only 1 appointment so far, but has given us some info to help Mason. She wants us to work with giving nouns names, sounds, and actions. That's easier said than done since not all nouns have sounds and actions associated with them. She also wants him to use straw cups exclusively to promote development of his mouth muscles. We were already using them in conjunction with soft spout sippy cups, so we just took away the sippy cups. She also complained about some of Mason's electronic toys, saying they were too young when they are not. They are age appropriate and Mason likes playing with them, so they stay :). If Mason fixated on his electronic toys, then we would take away some of them but he doesn't. I firmly believe that a variety of toys is what is best for Mason. He has electronic toys, but he also has wooden toys and other toys that do nothing until Mason does something with them.

      We are so proud of the progress he has made! He works so hard and I'm glad he gets to see the results!

Just This Week.....

     Mason has made a LOT of progress this week. On Tuesday, I went to get Mason from his crib after his afternoon nap. He was sitting up in his crib barely awake. This was the first time that Mason sat up on his own. YEAH! In the last month and a half, Mason has made so much progress that I have been lucky enough to have a LOT of proud mommy moments :).

     Then while at MiSue and Grandpa's (my parents) house, my mom found him sitting up in their crib after his morning nap on Wednesday. Okay I know what some of you are thinking (including me a little bit and Doug too), that maybe he used the crib to help him sit up. Nope! During PT yesterday, he sat up unassisted :). I saw it! He went from a four point stance (hands and knees) to pushing to a side sit position to a full sitting up position. It's nice to see his hard work paying off ;).

     Then yesterday afternoon, he refused his afternoon nap. I went to get him out of his crib and he was STANDING up! I know we really should have lowered his crib when he started pulling up on the sofa, but he showed NO interest in pulling up in his crib or other places until yesterday. There he was standing up, and of course it would be near the end of the crib with the changing table attached to it. He had popped open the wipes and had one in his hand staring at it. So needless to say we lowered his crib last night and took off the stuff on the top of the changing table. 

     When I put him to bed last night he noticed the lowered mattress right away ;). I sat him down in his crib and he gave me a kinda strange look. He spun himself around while staying in a sitting position, looking all around his crib. He pulled himself up and smiled (maybe a sign of approval?...LOL!). After his normal bit of fussing, he went on to sleep ;).