15 months already!

A few days late, but Theodore turned 15 months old this week! It's hard to believe how much he's growing up.

We have been quite busy since my last update. As I mentioned, Grandma Carole and Granddad Bill were in town for two weeks. We then had a nice Thanksgiving long weekend, and Auntie Suzie arrived! Theodore really enjoyed her company. At the end of the week, his Auntie Catherine arrived as well! We had a full house, which was lots of fun.

Celebrating Hanukkah with Auntie Suzie

We have also started with his early intervention. Once a week an "infant educator" comes to the house for an hour, where we do play therapy, focusing on speech development and cognitive skills. It's fun and informal, which is nice. Due to the time that elapsed between Theodore's assessment and the start of the intervention, he's already achieved at least half of the goals she has for him! We are also doing physical therapy once a week, in San Jose with a therapist who specializes in pediatric PT. Again, it's a lot of fun, playing and climbing. She is working to encourage him to do a hands-and-knees crawl, or at least try out the position to develop his core muscles. She also keenly noted that when he stands up and climbs (more on that in a moment) and also when he scoots, he is always pushing off from his "good" foot, rather than the one with the abnormality. She thinks it is an unconscious compensation, because while we saw the pediatric orthopedist again and she thinks everything looks fine and healthy, he does have less structure to use to balance on. So we are trying to encourage him to use that foot/leg more, to avoid it being underdeveloped, compared to the other. He's pretty game for it, though by the end of the session he gets annoyed!

The other big news is that starting pretty much the day after I last updated, Theodore had an absolute explosion of new skills. He can climb up and safely back down the stairs, he can easily pull to stand and is very close to doing it without needing something to pull on, he's cruising very fast around the furniture, and he can push his firetruck and take several steps behind it. Due to the heroic efforts of Grandma Carole, he is now self-feeding very well, though we're still working on a cup. He actually prefers to bite into food now, especially whatever you're eating! He also clearly understands so much more of what we say - practically everything. He is pointing up a storm and has started to express very definite wants. He's developing a little toddler attitude! He also hates being told "no", but has to get used to it... It's been lots of fun, though, watching him take off - for a while, it seemed like every day he learned or did something new! He will give his baby doll a "kiss" if you ask, he initiates peek-a-boo play, he can put some of his puzzles together - so many new things. And in general, he continues to be a very happy, cheerful little boy.

Cruising around the coffee table!

Theodore also had his fifteen month pediatrician visit this week. It went well, though the doctor was concerned because he has not put on much weight and is still under nineteen pounds. He did grow in length and head circumference, however, and is burning up calories like crazy these days with all his activity. We are trying a bit of a bulking up diet, though, to see what we can do! Otherwise he was considered very healthy.

That's a long enough update for now! If I don't get to update over the holidays, hope everyone has good ones, whatever you celebrate. We are off to Canada on December 17th for just over two weeks, splitting our time between Brampton and Ottawa.

Video this time: taken by Auntie Suzie, it's Boy vs. Roomba!



And as always, the pics!