Therapy

I thought it was about time to do a post on the therapy that Jack receives.  He will be one year old in just 2 weeks...I can't believe it.  He has received Physical and Occupational therapy for almost 10 months and Speech therapy for about 2 months.

First, I'll introduce Katie, our PT.  We love Katie!  She is on staff at Childgarden where Jack attends daycare.  She works with Jack at school twice per month and also comes to our home every other week.  She makes Jack work hard and we appreciate her focus and determination:

In PT we are working on sitting up un-assisted, standing flat on both feet, getting in the crawling position and balance.

We have really grown attached to Katie.  She is great at incorporating me into Jack's therapy and is wonderful at showing me things to do with him.  Jack really enjoys her too.  Katie will be moving back to her home town the end of this month, and we are incredibly sad to see her leave.  We can't thank you enough Katie for loving our son and for working so diligently with him.  You are a great therapist and we know that you will continue to bless many families.  You have taught Jack so many things and he has become so much stronger...thanks for you persistence!  We will miss you!!!

Now, on to our OT (Occupational Therapist), Teddie!  Teddie is also on staff at Childgarden and works with Jack in his classroom and in our home.  We just increased Teddie's time to once a week as well.

Teddie always brings all sorts of new toys with fun textures and/or noises for Jack to manipulate and play with.  She focuses on Jack's fine motor skills...picking things up, bilateral play, using his pinchers, mid-line crossing, banging toys together, clapping, picking up food, drinking from a cup,etc.  We cover A LOT in her sessions.

Jack really loves Teddie too and is always intrigued by her new and fun toys.  Last night we discovered that Jack loves slinky's!  So, I will be buying some slinky's tonight for sure.

That's Kelly in the background, who is in school for OT,and has been shadowing Teddie.  In OT, we always start our sessions with feeding...picking up food mainly, sign language and drinking from a cup or straw.
Teddie always comes prepared and gives me handouts and ideas each session.  She is very focused and just fun!  Thank you Teddie for all your hard work and passion...it is definitely paying off!

Our latest edition to our Therapy Family, is Jill, Jack's Speech Therapist.  Jill has been working with Jack for about 2 months now I think.  We just increased her time to once weekly and she comes to our house for therapy each time. 

Jill is helping with feeding too and sign language.  Signs we are working on are: eat, drink, more, finished/all done, momma, dada. 

Jill encourages Jack to talk/ babble..which he is amazing at!  Jack doesn't stay quiet for long :)  Jill is also working with Jack on clapping, waving hi and bye and recognizing who momma and responding to his own name. 

side note - Michael and I just realized earlier this week that Jack doesn't know the word, "mama".  This broke my heart.  When I say, "where's Daddy?" Jack will look around everywhere until he finds him.  But if you say, "where's Momma"...nothing.  I know he knows me, of course.  He prefers me over everyone and lights up when I come into the room, but he doesn't associate me with the word 'momma'.  I know this is because no one really refers to me as that. Michael calls me Lou all the time...so maybe if we ask Jack, "where's Lou" he will look at me, LOL!  So, a main focus for us in speech right now and in general is to have everyone refer to me as "momma" so that he knows that's my name.  He also has only made the "ma-ma" sound twice.  It's a much harder sound to make than "dada" or "baba" etc, so we have been working diligently on that.

We are excited to get to know Jill better in the future and are happy she is a part of our therapy family.  They are really like family and we love them all and appreciate them soooo much!!!