Developmental Review

Yes folks, its that time again. Bennett had a visit from his favorite nurse this morning!

She was very impressed with his improvement in gross motor skills! He is doing everything appropriate for his adjusted age of 11 months. He is crawling on hands and knees, trasitioning to sitting, pulling up and able to transition back down, and even making a few wary attempts at cruising along the furniture! His pelvis is very weak so standing and walking are probably still far off in the future. She gave us some exercises to help with that and she scheduled him for a consult with the physical therapist in August. The nurse said he will most likely be in the 16-18 month range before he starts walking, but he's surprised us before!

His speech skills are still delayed, but we still aren't too worried about it. The nurse said that oftentimes when a baby excels rapidly in one area of development, like gross motor, all other areas are put on hold. We think he says "da" and "ma" appropriately, and possibly "ba" (for bottle). Its hard to tell if he is just repeating our words. He rarely (as in once every three weeks) ever does the rolling consonants "da, da, da, da, da," etc. BUT, he can follow directions, so its clear that he is picking up language, he just isn't able yet to get it out. This also goes hand in hand with his lung issues, which makes it more difficult for him to talk. So, we'll reassess this area in August and see where to go from there.

All in all, he is doing FABULOUS!!! He's very obviously a healthy and happy boy. He's very alert and sharp! We just have to stay on top of things with these preemies, because if they start to lag behind in one area, it can cause amplified effects later on down the road, since it is all building blocks.

YAY BENNETT!!!