A little update

Cole is quickly growing into a little boy. We continue to marvel at how much he changes from day to day. He has a few "words" now: "da da", "boom", "help", "doggie", "good girl", "more", and his favorite, "yeah." Most of these words would not be recognizable to anyone other than us, but his speech therapist says that they count as real words. He does a couple signs as well - "all done" and "more".

We're still working through his feeding issues. He's getting much better at chewing, but still pockets the food in his cheeks and the roof of his mouth. He seems to lose it in there, and gets pretty frustrated. He seems to want constant stimulation. It's tricky to find things that he'll eat that aren't pureed, and we're experimenting around with adding more flavor and spice to his foods to help wake his mouth up. He still loves his straw cup, so that has been a huge win for us.

He's still wearing a bib most of the time as he continues to be a drool machine (it goes along with low facial tone. He just doesn't feel the saliva). Mom keeps holding off on buying new bibs in the hope that one day he'll stop slobbering everywhere, but his current collection of bibs is starting to get pretty nasty. It might be time for an update!

We are going to wean him off of formula soon, and are hoping to get him on to either rice milk or coconut milk or a combination of the two. Mom has been working with a nutritionist to make sure he gets almost all of what he needs through food since rice milk is mostly water.

We are working on developing his fine motor skills and quiet play skills as these will help his patience during mealtime. He seems like to like "playing" Connect Four (although he likes to eat the checkers, so we have to keep an eye on him).

He continues to love walking his doggie. When we ask him if he wants to take Doggie for a walk, he always enthusiastically says "yeah, yeah, yeah!" as he heads toward the back door. He loves his baths. He'll give the same "yeah, yeah, yeah!" when we ask him if he wants a bath, and he'll head to climb up the stairs to his room.

This week Cheeks discovered that he can walk sideways and backwards, and it was so fun to see how pleased he was with himself. He is a really happy and social little guy these days, and we're so thankful. We love you, Big Boy!