Wow, where did this month go! As I was sitting here contemplating what to write about, I looked back and realized Eli really has made some gains. Sometimes I get concerned and discouraged that his development seems slow, and slower than Caleb's was, and HE was slow. But I am trying to just be patient and let him move at his own speed. As I posted before he has gone through some early intervention testing for eating and gross motor and did not qualify for services. But I feel that, monthly, I waiver back and forth between calling them again to have them repeat the tests, or see how they feel about his development now. I haven't actually done it and thought I would wait a few more months. I do have to remind myself to correct his age to an 8 month old.
For the most part, Eli is doing well and is a very happy little boy, and is content to hang out and play with toys. He is still very into playing with toys and loves things in the shape of sticks, he likes to wave them around like a sward or a wand. My concern is that he does love to just sit there, and has absolutely no motivation to move around or crawl at all. He finally started to consistently roll from his stomach to his back which is a good step. And has also gotten stronger at holding his torso up on his hands all the way, and can hold his belly off the floor in a crawl position if I put him there. He hates working on all of those things though and gets really angry when we are doing our "gross motor time". I try to make them short and have a few tries throughout the day. But those are at least some good developmental steps I have seen this month compared to what I wrote about last month, so that's really good. He has also gotten a lot more steady on his feet and loves to stand up, at any chance he can get! He will pull himself up when he holds our hands but doesn't use furniture yet. I have started leaning him against a chair with some toys and he will stand there and play for a bit and is not nearly as shaky as he used to be. He can also take a few wobbly steps when we help move his hands and body.
Eating wise the boy is an enigma! As I mentioned last month, he has a crazy gag reflex and gags over the smallest texture change. I have noticed he hates the texture of store bought apple sauce and anything of that consistency. However, if it's even more chunky or smoother he does just fine. I have started giving him very small bites of bananas or peaches and he does fine with that. He also does great with baby puffs, cheerios and mum mums. He actually just started feeding himself cheerios today, which was a huge step for him (and was so exciting that I don't have to come back and keep giving him one whenever he has finished a bite, and can just keep making the lunch or dinner while he feeds himself his snack! AWESOME!) The other crazy thing is that the other night I made spaghetti and I cut up some noodles really small and mixed them with sauce (that had extra spinach blended in it (for Caleb's sake)) and he did great with those too and had no gagging or throwing up whatsoever! He even did well with the chunks of spinach. I am now trying to figure out how I can make all of our dinners Eli friendly and just stop giving him pureed food, as solids seem to be more tolerable to him.
Eli still has some issues sleeping through the night and last night cried for 2 hours straight from about 1:30 until about 3:30, really I have no idea when he went to sleep because I finally just put my fingers in my ears and pulled the blankets over my head and went to sleep. But he is soooo stubborn it's crazy! I got up once and held him and re swaddled him and he fell asleep instantly but as soon as he was put down he started crying. Then Ryan held him and as soon as he picked him up he was out cold. But as soon as Ryan put him down he woke up again and started crying. So finally after a bit of going in every 20 minutes to make help him feel better and make sure he was OK, we just let him be because we couldn't stay awake any longer. We think he may be getting some more teeth again, his fingers are always in his mouth and he has become a drool factory again! So I am hoping that's all it is, and that the teeth will come in soon so we can start sleeping again.
So please be praying for Eli's development that he starts making some gains in his mobility (or that I would be at peace about his development if that's not what God has in mind). And also that he will start being a better sleeper at night. We could all use more sleep in this family! But we are still so thankful for our little baby and he is such a joy in our family. He is still a social little mini and loves talking to people especially kids. One area I am not concerned about at this point is language the boy likes to TALK! He babbles to us all the time, it is so fun and cute. Thank you also for all of your prayers for him! They mean so much to us.
Thanks everyone!
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