Friday, March 6, 2009

Happy Friday!

Hello, everyone! It's been a busy week over here... Stephen is just walking all over the place, and has been much happier now that his ear infection seems to be cleared up. He's been talking a little bit more, but still not a lot. We had a consultation with a Speech Therapist on Wednesday through Sooner Start. It is not uncommon for kids who are late walkers to also be delayed in their speech, and Stephen is no exception. However, he isn't very far behind, and probably could catch up on his own, but we've decided to go ahead and get speech services now, instead of waiting until he is even more behind, just in case. The therapist said that overall, Stephen is doing really well - he has well over 100 words in his vocabulary right now, and uses them all appropriately. The fact that he is quiet and doesn't babble all day long is actually a good sign, because it means that he UNDERSTANDS what language is for. Our goal for now is to try to get him to learn more verbs so that he can put together more sentences (he does that a little already, but not enough to effectively communicate), without putting too much pressure on him. Should be easy enough, right? (And since this is the Internet, you can't see that I am being TOTALLY sarcastic about how easy it will be. Stephen is a VERY stubborn boy.)

Today, we met Stephen's friend Alexander, and his mom Amy, at the zoo. I packed our lunches, and put the little stroller in a bag with a shoulder strap, as I was hoping Stephen might be willing to walk a bit more. Well, he walked from the car into the zoo, and then all the way to the Pachyderm exhibit (which if you are familiar with our zoo, you know is a long way). And then he staged a sit-in, because he was pooped. He also ended up doing a good amount of walking at the exhibits, and was especially excited about standing with about 5 other kiddos watching an otter swimming. He was enamored with the little girl standing next to him, and he wanted to touch her, but she said that he was "bothering" her. Her mom tried to explain that he didn't understand, but she was only 4 or 5, so I don't think she did either! Oh well. It was a lovely day, and we enjoyed our trip! Here are a few pictures (I didn't get to take too many...):
Stephen was being very goofy right then...

The boys were pretty pooped by the end of our adventure. I'm surprised Stephen didn't peace out in the car, but he's taking a super nap right now!

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