I can't believe my little Ben turned 3~ it has been an overwhelming year. Ben had a fantastic Birthday party! We had a ton of friends and family gather to celebrate the big day. Here's a picture of Ben getting into the giant moonwalk. The kids had such a fun time! I was so proud of Ben- he participated, played with the other kids, and was a trooper for the whole party!
Ben's school is fantastic. He is doing so well- he's learned the songs and the routine. It's hard-core preschool! They have schedules, circle time, calendar, art, snack, playground, songs, and small group time. I love getting to watch him and see how he does at school. Ben likes to be the weather man. He gets to go to the window and tell the class what the weather is like that day (with a little help of course!). He gets pulled out for speech twice per week. I think the hardest thing to watch is playground time. Ben doesn't play with the other kids, he just does his own thing. This is definately our greatest need at this point- social. Ben's speech was tested and found to be within "typical" age appropriate limits, but the pragmatic/social use of language is delayed- conversation, questions, etc... are what we need to work on. Ben's joint attention has improved dramatically! He addresses us, looks at us, is starting to show us things (yesterday he held up a big french fry and a little french fry and said, "Look mama, this one's a little french fry, and this one's a big french fry- look mama!" He's also starting to ask us questions, like "what's that?" and "do you see that?". My heart melts everytime he does this... you have no idea what a big deal this is.
Many of you have heard us talk about Ben's tummy and some potty problems we've had going on for a couple of months now. This is still a problem, and we will be seeing a GI doctor in Austin to try to address these problems. We've also had some behavior problems develop (screaming) as well as his sleep and diet have been affected, and his self-stimulatory behaviors have increased as well. Our doctor thinks all of this is related to a GI issue, and Ben may have an endoscopy done to try to figure this all out. In the mean time, the behavior has been our main concern. Ben has been having some tantrums (something that is new to us). While some of this is related to the GI issue, some of it is also the "terrible two's"... just a little late! Yesterday we had Ben's well child doctor visit- he is the size of a 4 1/2 year old kid... oh my...
Ben has also transitioned out of Sooner Start, our early intervention program, and into the Public School System. We opted to receive "services only", which means Ben goes to school just to receive speech therapy twice per week. We chose not to put Ben in the "Developmentally Delayed Preschool" at this time. With so much else going on, when would he have time for that?!!
