Catholic Dads

Milestones

August 15th, 2009

One thing I haven’t been doing is recording the new developments of my Down-syndrome baby boy. I may wish later I had — but, fortunately, they’ve been coming fast! Over the past 7 weeks — since he went off the Prednisone, and the seizures it was there to treat went away — he has

started raising his feet when he’s on his back
grabbed things intentionally (that weren’t dangling over him from his “gym”)
decided that being bounced is funny; so’s holding my foot when I wiggle my toes
learned the “b” and “d” sounds. He uses them to explain to the world how awful the world is. It sounds like it’s just so terrible he’s stumbling over the words to get it out
got this new behavior of shaking his arms and legs in a sort of caper, when he’s on his back. It may mean excitement; I’m not sure. I am sure it’s good exercise
learned to blow raspberries
learned to smack his mouth open and closed, for the noise.

No more food for me! Got it?

No, it’s not a signal for food; he just does it
learned to refuse food. (Back when the Prednisone Monster was kicking his butt, that would have been unthinkable, but…) He does this by keeping his mouth firmly closed.
been calmed merely by looking at us, rather than only when we’re touching him. That speaks to me of greater awareness
made some forward progress, without help, in his attempt to crawl
stared in wonder at his right hand. (OK, maybe he did that before. But it’s weird)
taken an interest in this stupid-looking toy: you push one plastic thing down and another arises. He did it himself, too, several times, although he didn’t look at it when he did. What does that mean? But it’s the first toy he’s done anything with that did anything back
passed something from one hand to another. I haven’t seen it repeated yet, but that’s just today

I’m so very impatient for what the PT says are our next big goals: sitting, crawling. And whatever his speech therapist would say is next if he had a speech therapist.

And I was feeling very blue over it today. But Marisa pointed out that our Gross Motor Skills for DS book says rolling back-to-front is around 7 months for DS, and sitting is 11 months; Liam did his first rolling back to front right around 7 months, then shut down 2 1/2 months for his infantile spasms. So, except for that delay, he may be around average for DS children. So I’m trying to take comfort from that.

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