It’s official: Wes can push himself up from all-fours into sitting. And he can do it well!

The downside of this is that putting Wes down for a nap, unless he’s already passed out or practically so, is basically pointless. I lay him down on his back and leave the room; a few minutes later I hear him making noise, and his voice sounds like it’s being projected OVER the crib wall. Because now he’s sitting up. And once he’s sitting up he can’t get back down to the lying position, unless he falls over. (Except that his balance is actually quite good, so he’s usually stuck upright.)

I keep having to go in and push him back down and tell him to go to sleep . But a minute later he pops himself right back up again. I come in and find him like this, looking all pleased with himself:

He seems to enjoy his new trick. Whenever he pushes himself up he gets a gigantic smile across his face and is truly happy.

Video of Wes pushing himself to sitting.

For my birthday some of my family came over and we played a game of croquet in the backyard. It’s one of my favorite games ever, but it was about 100 degrees outside, so we pushed through the game as fast as we could. I took some photos of us playing, but the little guy on the sideline stole the show.

Today I handed Wes to John so I could make some dinner. When I came back upstairs Wesley’s eyes were glued to the computer screen. Like daddy, like baby.

Lately I’ve been trying to help Wes learn how to go from all fours to sitting. I think he’s starting to get it. (See video below.)

Wesley pushing back up to sitting.

Wes is also getting to where I can play games with him, which is really fun. Yesterday we played one where I draped a cloth over the side of his crib, and he’d roll over and grab it and pull it down. We did that over and over, and he really liked it.

He thinks it’s so fun when I put a toy on my head and tip my head forward so it falls off, and then I do the same thing to him. When he feels me set the toy on his head his face lights up with this look of delight, and he likes it when the toy slides off. We can do this game over and over again, too.

When he’s tired, especially, it’s easy to make him giggle. He’s ticklish and just loves it when we “get him.”

And, like all babies, he’s fascinated by paper. Any variety: church programs, daily comics, bills… Maybe it tastes good?

Last week we had playgroup at the park and I remembered my camera. This is the first time Wes didn’t try to eat the swing, and he was game for letting me push him in it, but he wasn’t especially, shall we say, excited.

In other news, today Wes had his first visit from a speech therapist. Apparently a lot of normal-type baby skills are good indicators of how they’ll do speech-wise. The lady, Donna, evaluated him using a system called PLS-4 (Preschool Learning something something to age 4?). She checked things like how he handles toys, what sounds he makes, interaction level with other people, etc.

She said Wes has great eye contact and is very aware of things around him. She also said his tongue control is pretty good. (It helps a lot that Wes hasn’t been as congested as many DS kids are; when you can’t breathe through your nose you tend to hang your mouth open to breathe.) Apparently the palate is soft and forms around your tongue, so the more the tongue stays in the mouth where it belongs, the better your speech will be later on. Hopefully Wes won’t be too bad off in that area.

I think her primary concern is that he doesn’t make a sufficient variety of noises yet. He rated really low in that area (“expressive”), but better in the “auditory” area. Overall, he scored in the 32nd percentile (9-month equivalent) for “auditory” and 1% (4-month equivalent) for “expressive,” which averaged out (and don’t ask me how the math works here) to the 4th percentile (6-month equivalent).

Which made me want to ask for a re-take.

During her evaluation she asked how many vowel sounds he makes and I said that I wasn’t sure, but the one I hear the most is “Uuungh,” which he makes when he’s mad. So she put him down for one and I guess that weighted his score badly because he should be making multiple vowel sounds by now.

But anyway. Setting aside my parental bitterness, the gist is that he’s doing really well in some areas and needs improvement in others. Some of her suggestions are:

1. Practice turn-taking with Wes. I do something, then let him respond either by mimicking me or reacting (like laughing). Wes isn’t a great mimicker yet (but he’s great at staring), so this will be something to work on. The lady said she can’t stress enough how important learning turn-taking is, so I hope we get good at it.

2. Help Wes become more aware of his mouth region. She said to man-handle him a lot. Touch his mouth, massage his cheeks, anything that will help him become more aware of his mouth area. She suggested patting his mouth when he’s making noise (like an Indian call), get him used to that, and then try patting his mouth when he’s not making noise. Eventually he should learn to make the Indian call spontaneously.

Who knew parenting would involve so many things to learn? Wes is so capable, sometimes I worry I hold him back because I don’t know how to push him well enough, or just don’t push him enough. Thankfully, he manages to progress anyway.

Last Saturday was the fundraising 5K for Best Buddies. My friend Alicia, who is a much finer runner than myself, ran it with me. She’s training for a marathon, so for her this was an “easy run.” For me, this was my Super Big Mega Run. I had planned to go with Wes in the stroller, but the night before our stroller sprung a leak and John got to hang out with Wes instead on the sidelines.

I actually enjoyed this one more than my first 5K, probably because this time I had someone to talk to during the race. I ran it faster by almost a minute, clocking in around 28:40. In any case, considering I just started running in March I’m happy that I can keep my legs going for more than three miles without keeling over and dying.

Wesley’s favorite part of the race was probably sitting in the lawn afterwards playing with some toys we brought. He’s ten months old now (!). And still smilin’.

I felt like such a grown-up mom today because when I got ready to take Wes to the store with me I popped a little Tupperware into my purse filled with munchies for Wes. That’s right, he’s starting to eat finger foods!

Not heavy-duty ones, but little fruit and veggie puffs that dissolve easily in the mouth. The package says the baby should be able to crawl and pick up the puffs himself before he’s able to eat them, but I don’t give him the entire puff at once; I break off little bits and pop them in his mouth for him to suck on.

His therapist introduced the puffs to me last week when she came (otherwise I never would have thought he was ready for them). She wanted to see how his mouth handled munching on solids. It’s common for kids with Down syndrome to have a hard time working food in their mouth. Their tongues are often large, their mouths small, and low muscle tone causes their mouths to hang open a lot. Wes seems to be doing well in this area, though. When you put the cereal puff in his mouth he munches on it with his mouth closed. His therapist said that he’s doing great and has good mouth and tongue control.

Wes totally digs finger foods. Then again, so far Wes hasn’t met a food he doesn’t like. When he sees my hand moving toward his mouth he instantly drops his jaw to make room for the puff. Also, he recognizes the word “more” and when I say “More?” he’ll open his mouth for it. What a smart kid.

Here’s a video I took of him the other day eating finger foods.

7808-eating-finger-food