4 months home today...

(I copied this text from an e-mail, and blogger does not like me, so the paragraphs look funny!)

Really, how have 4 months passed by so quickly? This update is so long
overdue, sorry. I started one 2 weeks ago, and in the middle of it,
cyberspace ate it. sigh... So, this will be in bullet points.

What Jonas is doing now:

-feeding himself with his right hand. He will use a spoon with assistance.
-starting to army crawl. Moves all over the place in his own way!
-standing holding on to something for long periods of time.
-Always has both feet on the ground when standing.
-loves to swing, and be in his johnny jumper.
-JUST IN THE PAST COUPLE DAYS: taking steps when someone is holding
his hands. His therapist says that he will not need a walker when he
learns how to walk.
-He LOVES to wrestle and be rough housed!
-Some language is emerging: Speech always takes a back seat to Gross
Motor skill learning. He is understanding and following
commands more and more.
-He does a lot of repeating simple sounds and mimicking us. He
especially does this with Luca, our 2 year old.
-His bald spot is 'almost' gone! ;-)
-plays with all sorts of toys, and really enjoys toys that make music.
He will play with these appropriately to make the sounds or songs.
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Things that he has overcome:

-A lot of his self-stimming behaviors are gone. He still does some and
we are going to start some things to reduce these. the biggest one is
taking his right thumb and hitting himself in the cheek, neck, head.
Sometimes really hard. I am going to buy a hip carrier to see if
carrying him around more will help. We are also going to start
'listening therapy'. The OT will be doing this with him. It is
supposed to stimulate the vestibular part of the brain to componsate
for the self stimulation.

-NO MORE 'FREAK-OUTS'! I know you guys at GLA know what I mean... But,
I think we found the root problem. Lactose Intolerance... He has been
on lactose free and soy milk products for the last 3 weeks, and he is
a DIFFERENT BOY!!! The poor baby, I was comforting him through these
'freak outs' with bottles of 'milk', and making it worse! He does not
have gas, diahrhea, or crying outbursts any more.

-He is eating normally, and has been for a long time now. I have him
down to 2 bottles a day (morning, and after nap). Everything else is
from a sippy cup that he holds by himself or a regular cup, that he
holds all by himself.

-He no longer holds his left leg up anymore when standing.

-He does AWESOME in new and strange situations now! I don't bring
bottles or food with me anywhere to calm him now.

-He never throws himself back anymore when being held. He really is
acting like a normal 2 1/2 year old in a lot of ways.
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Therapies that he is in:

Physical Therapy: 3 times/week: She is working on standing, crawling,
balance, transitioning, standing from a sitting position. She called
me yesterday when I was in Indy with Micah at an Ortho appointment.
She had just finished Jonas's therapy and she said that he did
awesome! He is starting to use his left hand/arm more than she has
ever seen him do. she also said that he kept saying ma ma, very clear.

Occupational Therapy: 2 times/week: She was working on feeding himself
and he mastered that in about one week. She was also working on
drinking out of an open cup, and he mastered that in about 2 weeks.
She said that she goes home at night and her mind reels about all the
things that she wants to do with him. She will be bumping up his
sessions so that she can get more time in with him. She is still
working with him to get a strong chew. Another interesting thing that
she is going to start with him is 'listening therapy'. I do not know
much about it yet, but will be learning soon. What I do know is that
he will listen to sounds, music, tones, through special headphones to
achieve different goals. Our biggest goal right now is to really
stimulate his vestibular system so he does not need to 'self-stim'
anymore. It will be interesting, and I will let you all know how it goes.

Speech Therapy: 1 time/week: One thing about speech therapy, is that
it really overlaps with OT in the beginning. She is working on some
simple signs with him, because kids that are overcoming gross motor
delays really put speech on the back burner. The brain can only focus
on so many things at once. He is definitely showing comprehension of
Creole and English. He will follow simple commands, especially when
dealing with eating. He will search for an object near by that has
sound when asked to. Most of these commands I am still saying in
Creole and then repeating them in English. I want to give him the
benefit of the doubt, so I am probably still speaking too much Creole
to him. We really want him to start communicating with some signs, so
he can tell us his needs. He does not get frustrated, so I must be
getting him what he wants??? He is a pretty laid back guy, so that
does work in everyone's favor! :-)

He LOVES all of his therapists are rarely cries during therapy. His PT
says that he is her only client that usually laughs all the way
through therapy. He just loves learning, and craves all of these new
things that he is learning!

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Tuesday we had a meeting with Fort Wayne Community Schools to
transition Jonas from First Steps (0-3 therapy), to pre-school. I
know, it seems wayyyyyy to early, but at age 3, special needs children
are transitioned into the public school. The outcome of the meeting:
The head of pre-school special ed wants to place him into the
preschool/kindergarten school that my older 2 kids attended. Micah is
still there in Kindergarten. It is a PHENOMONAL school (Whitney Young
Early Childhood Center), and they integrate 5 special needs kids to
the 15 typical developing kids. The typical developing children are
4-5 years. It is great modeling for the sn kids! Both Hannah and Micah
went this route and did great! There are always 4 adults in the
classroom and one is a special needs teacher. He will also receive his
therapies right at school, and his current therapists still want to
see him. He will go through a gamet of testing over the next couple
months, and then in December we will reconvine to place him. He will
start when he turns 3.

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We are truly blessed to have Jonas in our family, and I thank God all
of the time for giving him to us! The kids are doing great with him.
Luca has finally adjusted, but he himself is a WHOLE other story! :-)
He is into his terrible 2's and gets into EVERYTHING!!!!!!!!!!! This
is a very challenging juggling act to work on things with Jonas, and
at the same time make sure that Luca is not destroying something in
the house! :-)

I think that is all for now, and I am sure that I forgot so many
things to say.

Oh, by the way: He was in to see the pediatrician this week, and he is
having a growth spurt! He is now 30 lbs.
10 oz, and 36 inches long. Last month is was a pound lighter and an
inch shorter. He really is a 'brown' Hubley!

Look, my bald spot is filling in!!!!!!!!!! YEAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!