Ethan Starts a New School

I love my daycare!

This Monday June 16th I had to move Ethan to a new daycare. This was a really difficult decision for me.  Ethan was already in a good daycare. They loved Ethan and he absolutely loved his teachers, but Ethan is in a really precarious stage of his little delayed development. He is cognitively not very behind his peers. In fact, I’m not even sure he is that behind at all – but is hindered by his lack of gross motor skills. I’m sure kids develop quicker when they can directly influence their environment.

“The door was open and then I closed it. The pile was neatly stacked and then I knocked it over. The floor was dry and then I poured my milk over it.” And I’m sure they develop quicker when they can feel consequences, “I touched this sharp object and it hurt. I knocked over that pile and mom got upset.”

Ethan has not had the opportunity to do either of the above – influence his environment or feel direct consequences in doing so.  He has simply maintained in his cushy life contently surrounded by the age appropriate items we put in his direct circumference. We try as often as we can to afford him experiences that other children have, things like walkers, push carts, etc. have been instrumental in his growth.

Ethan's little scooter - pulling
Mommy's cards down

He will also need speech therapy, so he may appear to be more cognitively delayed because he cannot communicate the same way that a child his age normally would. He makes cute, and sometimes not so cute, sounds. He babbles endlessly.

The point of all this supposition is that I really need to Ethan to be constantly surrounded by age appropriate activities – coloring, reading, blocks, shapes, baby puzzles, colors, etc. I need to him be standing as often as possible, cruising around, pulling things down, wreaking havoc and expanding his mini sphere of influence. This kid has no fear, I want to take advantage of that and throw as many challenges his way as possible.

So – what does this have to do with this daycare?

In Ethan’s current daycare there are two sections: Infant and Wobblers. Infants are babies 6 weeks to one year. After one year and once they can walk well, they transition to the Wobblers section, where they stay until 2 years old.  In the infant section there are many of the developmentally appropriate toys for babies – they spin, light up, make sounds, etc. However, in the Wobbler section they color, read books, have more buildings block type toys.

Time for a change

As we all know Ethan can’t walk – far from it. I pushed and pushed for Ethan to be moved to the Wobblers side. And then one day I simply went over during reading hour and set him right down on the floor to participate with the other kids. What I saw broke my heart, and kind of scared me – they all descended on him like a fun new toy. They saw him as a “baby” and they wanted to touch him, hold him, push him a little, “handle” him. Within seconds he was overwhelmed and started to cry. The teacher immediately picked him up, put him on her lap and kept reading. Then he was fine. But I knew we needed to make a change. He needed more mental stimulation than the infant section, where he spent a great deal of time playing with infant type toys by himself. But he was clearly too delayed for the Wobbler section, where others kids saw him as a baby even though some were right in his age group.

Where’s he going?

He started at a Montessori school that has a more tiered structure: Infants section until 14 months, Wobblers from 14-18 months, and Toddlers from 18 months -3 years. This school has clear goals to meet before any one kid is allowed to transition. They must be able to:

1. Walk on their own
2. Eat with a spoon (Ethan is actually getting much better at this)
3. Drink from a sippy cup (we’re about to make that transition soon)

Other things I like about this school:

Evening walk with my
parents and doggie!

• They will also teach Ethan sign language and of course, assist in potty training.
• It’s Montessori they will work directly within Ethan’s range of development, continuing to push him
• What I like most about this school is that because the goals are so defined, they work with each child to help them achieve those goals so they can move on to the next age group.

He is still starting in the infant section, and there is a chance Ethan may never be a wobbler – there is a chance by the time he walks, talks and eat with a spoon he’ll be over 18 months, even over 20 months, and will move straight to the Toddlers section.

Managing My Own Expectations

My boys walking
together

I’m nervous mostly because I’m afraid that I will put so much faith in this place that I will just expect to pick him up from school one day next month and he’ll come running over to me on his own two legs and shout “Mommy, I had such a wonderful day in class today – we read a book about airplanes!” And when he doesn’t I’ll be disappointed.

This place is obviously not a cure. But I do believe that every little bit helps. And while I loved his old school and would recommend them to anyone with a non-developmentally challenged child, I am counting on the individualized attention at this new school to help him increase his sphere of influence, challenge him and finally unleash the little troublemaker that I know is in there.

Ethan's May Milestones

I love horses now!

May was a great month for mommy and daddy – Ethan continues to engage with us more and more. It feels so, so, so good!

May Milestones

• Waves hi and bye – we’ve only been actually trying this for a month or so, he picked this up pretty quickly :-)

  

  I can reach!

• Reaching over his head with both hands – we’ve  been working on this since the start of physical therapy. This has always been particularly hard for Ethan.
• Reaching out for Mom and Dad specifically – We’ve been working on this since he was born!
• Successfully put shape blocks into the corresponding cutout  - at least 4 months of dedicated weekly work
• Cruised all around the coffee table by himself – 8 months of physical therapy
• He spins himself around while sitting - this is huge for us because any time that Ethan learns he can control his own direction to reach toys around him he becomes more motivated to work harder. See the video below! 
• Successfully eating with a spoon and putting the spoon back onto the plate (he can’t scoop his own food just yet) – we’ve been working on this for a few months now.
• He rode a horse! This was random and fun – he loved it. We’ll definitely get him up on a horse when he’s older
• And my personal favorite – he gives hugs now!!!!! We weren’t even practicing this per se, just one day I was hugging him as I always do and he hugged me back. Swoon!

Thanks for horsey ride Jr. Blind!

Thank you to our wonderful physical therapists and to the director of our preschool who keeps trying to keep him engaged during the day.  And thank you to Terry – who keeps me sane during all of this!

Owning the Milestones

Family fun day
at the Jr. Blind camp

It is a parent’s God-given right, neigh, duty to watch, record, celebrate, and unfortunately fret over their children’s milestones as they grow. Some little ones are right on schedule – a parent will read in a book that their baby should start babbling on a given week, and presto! The baby starts babbling. Sometimes kids are little behind and sometimes they shoot out ahead of the pack. In the end, they basically all are able to walk, talk, use a potty, stack blocks, drink out of a sippy cup and eat with a spoon.

Unless… you have a special needs child. First off you can just throw the existing milestone chart right out the window. Adios! Those are no good to you now. You have to create your own sets of milestones now – some are created by your PT, some are created by your own research and seeing what other kids with similar diagnosis can do, and some just by getting to know your baby and knowing what he or she can accomplish and when.

Now the normal milestones are not forced upon a child, they are generated based on the idea that all things being equal most children will accomplish these tasks during this range of time. It’s a little different with a special needs child. The milestones, while not “forced” per se, are definitely pushed ahead by loads of hands on exercise and instruction. That’s how I coined the term – “Own (or co-own) the Milestones”. As a parent of a special needs child, you co-own every milestone that your child meets.

I want to state that I am in no way taking away the important influence that parents have over so-called “normal” children. When your child hits those milestones it’s definitely in great part due to the environment you’ve created, the practice you've done, the love you give, and, of course, the genes you’ve bestowed on your little one.

With a special needs child however, there are usually hundreds of hours of work and multiple people behind getting your child to accomplish just one of the tasks on that milestone list – usually months and months after other kids in his age range. Here are some examples:

• Ethan couldn’t sit up without falling over until he was over 10 months old – 5 months of physical therapy
• Ethan couldn’t reach out his arms fully extended until he was 14 months old – 9 months of physical therapy
• Ethan didn’t begin cruising on his own until he was 13 months old – 8 months of physical therapy
• Ethan has not yet taken a single step without the aid of a push cart or a person. Just to get him to take a single step with a push cart took 8 months of physical therapy.
• Ethan has not crawled one single crawl on his own ever… we’re at 10 months of physical therapy and he just flat refuses to do it.
• Ethan cannot transition from one movement to another – sitting to kneeling, kneeling to crawling, kneeling to standing, standing to sitting (he just falls backwards), kneeling back to sitting. He needs to be physically moved from one to the other – 10 months of physical therapy and counting....

Congratulation to
us all!

So – when Ethan meets one of these milestones, I not only celebrate his achievement, I congratulate myself and I congratulate Terry on our achievement.  I also thank our parents, I thank his teachers and mostly I thank his Physical Therapists. It’s not a milestone Ethan has met, it’s a milestone we all busted our buns to meet together. We co-own it.

Because of this I am now going to do a monthly blog called Ethan’s Monthly Milestones, outlining the milestone achieved, the amount of time we’ve been working on it, the normal milestone date, the date we were aiming for, and the date accomplished. Also, we will give the appropriate thank yous to everyone who helped him accomplish his milestones.

And to end this I will thank everyone who keeps reading these blogs. You give me my own set of milestones to achieve! J