Blaise at 21 months

July 2006 was an eventful month for Blaise: sessions with the teacher and the therapist started; several visits were made to Gra’ma and Grampa; and, reaching 21 months old.  We also had a nice surprise visit with Cata and her son Spencer.  Spencer was in the area to take part in a tennis tournament (even though court temperatures topped over 100 degrees!).

Meanwhile, Blaise is dashing about with heedless energy, and has started using the sign language she is picking up from her sessions with her teacher.  She can point to her eyes, ears, nose, chin, mouth, neck, shoulders, knees, toes, and head, when prompted.  She can also label and point to light, trees, grass, cars, trucks, and buses.  When she hears a plane flying overhead, she shouts “fly!”

here are recent pics:

 with Blaise a few days before she turned 21 months old

with gra’ma and grampa on the same day

River backdrop, with Cata

  Greeting me in the lobby after work, July 25

Mom and Pop visit with us

Last week, I decided at the last minute to drive up to Jersey to see mom and papa.  The surprise visit made them very happy, and, to top it off, Blaise was in good form, even though we arrived at nearly 2 in the morning (given our late start).

The following Wednesday, they returned the favor, and drove down to visit with us.  They are staying through Sunday, although Blaise and I are hoping they stay through Tuesday as I have both Monday and Tuesday off.  They got here in time to celebrate Blaise’ “20 month birthday” with us. 

Here’s a picture of Blaise at 20 months:

Tomorrow, we hope to drive to a picnic spot by the Potomac, and do a barbecue.  Hope the weather holds up, as the rains have just been unusually heavy the past few days.

Baby, Baby, Baby

Waking up anxious on her first Christmas, Dec 2004

                                                                          Blaise at 6 months with grandma.

At 8 months sitting up in bed

Smiling back at me: 9 months old and sitting on her high chair 

                                                                   

On my birthday

 

          Nov 2005

Christmas 2005: backpacking through the living room 

Playing dressup: cape and beret at 14 months

 

Enjoying the snow: Blaise at 15 months 

Loving her new bob cut  

Blaise assessment

Blaise was looked at by several child development specialists (1 physical therapist and 2 education specialists, one of whom is going to be her case coordinator) this past Monday.  They stayed for over 3 hours, and played and talked to her.  Their assessment at the end of the session was that Blaise "is a sweet, loving child with enormous potential but needs help in a few areas."  One of the areas is the development of lateral and back muscles that will help Blaise keep her balance during physical activities and will also help reduce her emerging tendency to throw back her right shoulder when her left arm is active.  This tendency is due, of course, to the lack of chest muscles (or pecs) in her right breast area.  The other significant area is in "receptive and verbal communications," as, based on preliminary observations, they place her current development in this area as at 13-14 months, or about 5 months behind. 

I was quite disappointed by the latter assessment, particularly, as I did not expect she would need help in this area.  My discussion with the experts also led me to have broader concerns.  Quite apart from the communications aspect, I am now concerned that Blaise is not being engaged intellectually on the level that she wants to be engaged.  The experts are convinced that she would be able to close her current gap quite easily, once the sessions with the relevant specialist start.  However, they pointed out that Blaise has other capacities that are not being developed adequately, such as using toys and other things creatively, for purposes other than the ones that are pretty straightforward.  These are capacities that I want some of the upcoming sessions to focus developing.  For example, during the assessment, Blaise was given a stick and a small ball.  One of the experts pushed the ball under the white cabinet, into an almost unreachable dark corner.  To that point, Blaise was happily playing with the stick and the ball.  When the ball was pushed under the cabinet, she bent down, face and chest on the floor, and used the stick to slowly bat the ball from out of the corner, then out from under the cabinet, until it rolled out into the open.  I must say I was quite amazed that she figured the whole thing out.  In the first place, she had never played with both a stick and a ball before, (and before they rolled the ball away from her, I was already happy that she was formulating that cause-and-effect relationship in her head, when she started playing "stickball" with the ball).  And in the second place, she was never challenged with such a problem before.  She was quite happy when we all clapped after she pushed the ball out with the stick — and eagerly looked at her new "playmates" (the experts) for new stuff to do, new challenges to figure out.

As I mentioned, I think Blaise needs to be challenged, needs to be engaged so that her advanced and adaptive mind can be honed and sharpened for varied skills and tasks.  I feel enormously guilty that I am not with her often enough to do this.  The few hours we have, which is at the end of the day, are simply not enough.  Besides, when I get home, we're both tired out by our days already.   And sometimes, I have to cook our dinner, yet.  It's true that we also have the weekends, but that's not enough either.  It's almost like we have to start slowly, and before you know it, the weekend's gone, and I have to go work the next day.  It's clear I have to reframe my arrangements at home … but I have few, if any, options.  

And, of course, there's her eating (or worrisome lack thereof)…

worried,

anna

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