Whew!

Sorry I've been a bit lax about updating this week. We've been busy! On Thursday, Stephen took a header coming inside the sliding glass door after swinging, and got his first shiner. The picture doesn't really do it justice - It was a little swollen over his eye, and discolored under the scrape, which has now turned to a "lovely" shade of yellow. I think he got off easy for this particular fall - the scrape WAS awfully close to his eye...

Stephen continues to improve by leaps and bounds with his speech. Erik and I, along with his physical therapist, had just figured all along that his speech would really pick up once he wasn't thinking about the walking so much, and it turns out, we were right! The speech therapy is just to help him get caught up to speed for his age level. He actually isn't that far behind, now - he is putting together some 2-3 word sentences already, and shows a good understanding of how language is supposed to be used (the therapist thinks it's great that he doesn't just babble incoherantly, and is usually at least TRYING to tell us something). The best part is that Stephen is telling us when he is hungry. I was worried about that, since he has a tendency to get caught up in playing and doesn't realize he's hungry until he is REALLY hungry, and then has a meltdown, but so far, when we don't understand that he is hungry, he lets us know that he is "ugwee." It certainly makes things slightly easier around here! He is also repeating a lot of words now as well, so we are very excited!

If my tracking number for the missing part for Stephen's toddler bed is to believed, tomorrow is the day! Stephen is still very excited about getting his "bi bo beb." I'm not sure that he realizes what exactly that entails, but I'm anticipating that Erik and I will be having to get up quite a bit these first few weeks to return Stephen to his bed once he figures out he can get out if he wants.

This last picture is of Stephen's nap yesterday. This is how he fell asleep, leaning on his stuffed lion. We moved him so that he was laying down, and he slept peacefully for another hour.