A Day of Firsts!

Maria's view-

So I've stepped it up a tiny notch with some of Griffin's daily routine.  I have experienced 3 different things that I have never seen him do before!  I'm so excited!  This little boy is ready to explode with a new life!

1.  This morning, I was curious if he would actually come to me if I held my hands out, when I went to his crib at 0645.  He was sitting up in the bed.  I held my hands out to him like I normally do, but I didn't swoop in to pick him up.  He grabbed my hands and put my hands on his sides once he realized that I wasn't going to pick him up.   He placed my hands exactly where they needed to be in order to pick him up!


2.  At breakfast and every meal from here on out, I have started making him lean in to his spoon to eat.  He is so used to his food being shoveled down his throat, sadly.  So I decided to see if he would actually lean in for the bite.  It took a few tries, but he caught on quickly and now he will go to the spoon.  I want to do this because I hope I will be able to tell if he likes or dislikes a certain food by his lack of desire to lean in.  He will eat anything and everything you put in front of him, but if he is slow to lean in, maybe I can figure out his favorites!

3.  I started teaching him to sign 'more' today.  I have a love/hate relationship with sign language because of Little G's speech delay.  I think she depends far to much on her signs and doesn't feel the need to speak, now that she can hear.  BUT I have got to have some kind of way to communicate with Griffin at meal times.  I'm hoping that the sign for 'more' will replace his need to cry out for food.   So I would sign 'more', then I would take his hands and help him sign it, and then I would pick up his spoonful of food and say 'more' and put it in his mouth.  We did this for snack this morning and snack this evening.  I started noticing that when I would hold his hands to help him sign it, he moved his hands into the motion all on his own!  Right down to just having his fingertips touching each other!  He did this 5 times in a row and then our snack was over.  I'm certain that he is catching on, but he had to have my hands on his to prompt the sign.  Like a reminder.  I also found that this was a great distraction for him in between bites.

I had a much easier time getting us loaded up for tennis lessons today.  I prepared as much as I could ahead of time and it helped so much.  duh. :-)

Also, while at tennis, Chris got off work early and picked dude up for another 1/3 of his lab work.  Yes, 1/3... they added more labs in addition to all of the others, so we have to go back.  The tech said that he is so dehydrated that 2 veins collapsed.  He has quadrupled his fluid intake just within the past few days even though he doesn't like to drink and he never likes to drink with meals.  He is showing no physical signs of severe dehydration or nothing that concerned the doctor.  I imagine he's been this way his entire life, worse, actually, because he is drinking more and more every day.

During his nap time today and many other times before this, Griffin will somehow get his arm out of his shirt and then put his arm through the neck of his shirt about 3 times with the other arm.  I'm not exactly sure how he does this, but he does it well! LOL.  Too cute.

I got all of the paperwork to fill out from the behavioral specialist.  It is A LOT and all very complicated because I haven't a clue who my son is!  I'm just now figuring him out, slowly, but we are getting there!  So I think this questionnaire isn't going to be helpful to anyone.

But anyway, steak, potatoes, and broccoli were on the menu tonight and all 3 Gs tore up some broccoli!  WOO-HOO!  After dinner, Griffin decided he wanted to dance with me as I hummed out one of his orphanage songs that the music teacher sang so much while we were there.  It's in my brain forever!  I think he recognized it because he instantly stood up and started dancing side to side with me.

Until tomorrow!