two cute things happened this week that i couldn't not mention. they were just too cute.
they weren't goals we'd been working on, they weren't developmental milestones, but they were sweet.
gosh, were they sweet.
cute thing numero uno:
i was sitting in finn's room playing with him when my mom called. i forget what we were talking about, but it was something distracting enough that i only had half an eye on finn. sometimes he takes those opportunities to do cute things. (he gets a little shy about it when we're playing one on one.)
so i'm chit-chatting away with grandma, when i see finn go over to his animal puzzle and pick up one of the puppy dogs from out of the puzzle. he carried him over to the rocking chair and sat him up against the pillow just perfectly, along with his favorite doll (chuckanucka- he's an ugly doll) okay chuckanucka was upside down, but the dog was just perfect. and once he had them sitting together just right, he stood there and rocked those little suckers!
it was SO darn cute.
he didn't put a ball up there, or a block, or a binky. he put the puppy dog up there.
i was proud.
you go on and nurture those wooden dogs and ugly dolls, baby. you just go right on ahead.
cute thing numero dos:
this one is even nearer and dearer. but alas, i didn't get a picture.
wednesday afternoon i went in to get finn from his nap and almost fell over when i found him sitting up cross legged in the middle of the bed
reading
a
book.
spread out on his lap turning the pages.
he had apparently rescued a few picture books off of the chest next to his bed and pulled them in through the crib slats for a little bookworm time.
could i have been prouder? i think not.
an enthusiastic reader ranks almost as high as an enthusiastic sleeper in this house.
almost.
is he just the sweetest thing, or what? he may not be up to speed with all of those other toddler milestones just yet, but gosh if he doesn't rank off the charts in the sweet category.
i could eat him with a spoon.
the farther we go down this road of early intervention with finn, the more i am starting to notice how differently he sees things. i work on a lot of specific tasks and activities with finn every day, but i also observe him a lot during his down time. i'm starting to pick up on the things he sees. things that are obvious and distracting to him are not obvious or distracting to me.
it's hard for me to describe this, so i took a little video of him. this particular video features finn doing one of his recent favorite activities- walking up and down the driveway.
finn likes to look at the cars in the driveway and he likes to play with tucker. sometimes finn will go up to my car and if i ask him to touch the license plate or touch the bumper or touch the light, he will do it. but more often, and as you will see in this video, i will ask finn to touch the license plate and he'll look at it (which you can see him immediately do by the back of his head moving up), but then he'll get distracted by something else. something that he just can't seem to get past. in this video, he's distracted with the little bumps in the plastic on my rear bumper.
another thing that's funny to notice in the video is when finn turns around to see tucker. tucker is really motivational for finn- he loves to follow him around, touch his tail, touch different parts of his face, imitate him panting, etc. in this video he hears tucker's collar jangling behind him and he turns around to see him, but as soon as he turns around he immediately sees his shadow on the driveway and becomes so distracted by it that he ignores tucker completely.
you'll also see him enjoying looking at the oil spots on the asphalt, and the way his binky rolls back and forth when he drops it.
sometimes finn's weirdness disturbs me. but most times, it really amazes me.
there is something really beautiful about the way he sees his world.
because finn sees things differently than i do, he really resists doing his early intervention activities with me and with his therapists. he is not cool with sitting down and doing a puzzle or stacking blocks or pointing to different body parts when it's under our terms. a lot of times i think it's because he's stubborn. but i'm also starting to think that a lot of it is stupid and boring to him at first. he doesn't want to sit down and stack blocks when there is something else really interesting going on (like that little string on the blinds that moves back and forth a little bit in the breeze... how do you guys not see that?) the good news is, that after i force finn to go through the motions in some activity that is completely uninteresting and frustrating to him, he secretly starts to enjoy it. about halfway through doing a puzzle his cries of protest turn into half laughs. then 20 minutes later when i'm not making him do it, he'll go over and start trying it out by himself. once we show him how to do it, he starts to like it a little bit. but it's not obvious to him. other things are.
while it's encouraging that finn is eventually receptive to learning different skills, it's also apparent to me now that teaching finn new skills isn't ever going to change who he is. hopefully early intervention can help him learn some basics that aren't so basic to him, and those skills will help make his way through life a little bit less challenging. if he learns to problem solve now, if he learns to ask for help now, if he learns to communicate and engage with others now, then hopefully down the line he won't feel as isolated or misunderstood. he'll have those early tools embedded in his brain that we're working so hard on placing there now.
he will probably always see things a little differently.
and i'm not okay with that.
i'm more than okay with that. i'm proud of that. i'm glad for that. i love that.
on sunday finn found a little stone that was out of place laying in a section of mulch. he noticed it and picked it up right away. he rolled it over in his hand and thought about it for a minute. it was interesting to him. then in a tiny instant i saw his little mind work at something... he pulled his gaze away from the stone and looked at me. and then- with some obvious effort- he handed me his stone. he saw something different that i didn't see, and he wanted me to see it, too. he shared it with me.
that's never happened before. it makes it all worthwhile.
today happily marks the six month mark until i no longer have to refer to finn's age in terms of months.
after two, that's it. he's two. or he's two and a half. or he's three.
gosh i hate these month age referrals.
and the parents who refer to their kids' age in terms of months long after it's appropriate.
oh, little jimmy is 49 months old.
seriously? your kid is four. now stop that.
the past six months since finn turned one have been tough ones indeed, but happy ones as well.
we sure do love our little dude.
saturday finn learned to play drums with the actual drumsticks!
he used to just bang them like bongos, and showed no interest in the sticks.
he was really proud of himself and his new found talent, so he carried the drumsticks around for a while.
i'm not quite sure we can call him a rockstar yet, but it's a step in the right direction! :)
more updates soon... i have to cut this one short because we are dealing with new molars this week and all of the joys (read shitty diapers and crummy attitudes) that come with them! wheee!
i'll leave you with some happy finn baby beach pictures.
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