I realized that I haven't posted much on Nic lately, poor middle child. I have blog-neglected him. Hopefully one day he will forgive me.
The more I get to know Nic, the more I love his sweet, nurturing, and silly personality. As his ability to express himself grows we have the joy of experiencing new facets of Nic. I could do without the two year old tantrums, and the shrieking in frustration when his limited speech skills fail him, but on the whole it has been exciting to watch him learn to be more aggressive in declaring his opinions and to see his personality unfold.
He continues to have speech therapy once a week, and it is working wonders. He is still very delayed, and we expect him to continue in therapy when he transitions to the school district over the summer (when he turns three), but his progress has been helpful in easing his frustrations. The more he is able to express himself, the more his therapist is able to pinpoint the causes behind his delay. It isn't a language comprehension issue because his receptive vocabulary is great. He simply continues to struggle in making certain sounds. The good news is that he has become very responsive to prompting, he perseveres in attempting to make himself understood, and he really enjoys being praised for getting words right. He is now using two-word phrases in therapy, but I've heard him use three word phrases on occasion. He also attempts repeating much longer sentences from books, songs, and in imitation of me or Jeff. He uses too many words for me to attempt to record them...but in the last few days we've heard "Mack" (from Cars),'Wii," "pickle," "snuggly," "snuggle Mommy" (my favorite), and "snuggle baby" (not Kenny's favorite).
He hasn't had any sickle related problems lately. We are so thankful. I am pretty obsessive about handwashing when we get home from things, and we've only had a few sniffles so far this flu season, but nothing serious. I took the boys for flu shots on the very first day our pediatrician offered them, and Jeff and I got ours as well, so hopefully we can avoid the ER for a while longer. His next scheduled blood draw/hematology visit isn't until next year.
The other big update is that he has only one more molar and we will be done with his teething. Nic is that child who teethes for months and months. Tommy's teeth seemed to appear without warning and overnight, so all of the misery that Nic has experienced took us by surprise, but it is almost over! His final two-year molar should be arriving any time now.
The true sign that Nic is a "big boy" is that he is now pushing his own shopping cart at Trader Joe's. The last time we went he got his first cart and dutifully followed me around the store at a nice, slow pace. The problem was, he kept stuffing things he liked in his cart! We didn't even make it past the first aisle before he was helping himself to some frosted mini-wheats. Then he added Christmas cookies and chips. Even worse, he refused to put things in his cart that he didn't like. Everything I put in that he disapproved of was carefully removed and placed back on the shelf. It was so funny. And no, he didn't get to keep the sugar cereal or the cookies and chips. He will have to learn that we shop off of a list sometime,and it might as well be now.
The more I get to know Nic, the more I love his sweet, nurturing, and silly personality. As his ability to express himself grows we have the joy of experiencing new facets of Nic. I could do without the two year old tantrums, and the shrieking in frustration when his limited speech skills fail him, but on the whole it has been exciting to watch him learn to be more aggressive in declaring his opinions and to see his personality unfold.
He continues to have speech therapy once a week, and it is working wonders. He is still very delayed, and we expect him to continue in therapy when he transitions to the school district over the summer (when he turns three), but his progress has been helpful in easing his frustrations. The more he is able to express himself, the more his therapist is able to pinpoint the causes behind his delay. It isn't a language comprehension issue because his receptive vocabulary is great. He simply continues to struggle in making certain sounds. The good news is that he has become very responsive to prompting, he perseveres in attempting to make himself understood, and he really enjoys being praised for getting words right. He is now using two-word phrases in therapy, but I've heard him use three word phrases on occasion. He also attempts repeating much longer sentences from books, songs, and in imitation of me or Jeff. He uses too many words for me to attempt to record them...but in the last few days we've heard "Mack" (from Cars),'Wii," "pickle," "snuggly," "snuggle Mommy" (my favorite), and "snuggle baby" (not Kenny's favorite).
He hasn't had any sickle related problems lately. We are so thankful. I am pretty obsessive about handwashing when we get home from things, and we've only had a few sniffles so far this flu season, but nothing serious. I took the boys for flu shots on the very first day our pediatrician offered them, and Jeff and I got ours as well, so hopefully we can avoid the ER for a while longer. His next scheduled blood draw/hematology visit isn't until next year.
The other big update is that he has only one more molar and we will be done with his teething. Nic is that child who teethes for months and months. Tommy's teeth seemed to appear without warning and overnight, so all of the misery that Nic has experienced took us by surprise, but it is almost over! His final two-year molar should be arriving any time now.
The true sign that Nic is a "big boy" is that he is now pushing his own shopping cart at Trader Joe's. The last time we went he got his first cart and dutifully followed me around the store at a nice, slow pace. The problem was, he kept stuffing things he liked in his cart! We didn't even make it past the first aisle before he was helping himself to some frosted mini-wheats. Then he added Christmas cookies and chips. Even worse, he refused to put things in his cart that he didn't like. Everything I put in that he disapproved of was carefully removed and placed back on the shelf. It was so funny. And no, he didn't get to keep the sugar cereal or the cookies and chips. He will have to learn that we shop off of a list sometime,and it might as well be now.
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