We were thinking of how far Ty has come since he turned 1. At his first birthday he could not yet crawl, talk, or feed himself. He has changed SO much in that short amount of time. While he is still doing his crawling method (which he is incredibly fast at doing!), he can now climb on things, pull up to stand, stand independently for short periods of time (until he realizes that he's not holding on, and then he sits very quickly!), and walk holding on to hands pretty good distances! We are working SO hard to get him walking in PT and in our spare time, and our goal is by the age of 2 (the typical age for kids with DS to walk). Thinking how much he has done in the past 6 months, I'm pretty hopeful that he'll achieve this one goal in the next 6!
His speech has just taken off so fast in the last month, that we are just amazed! He has always been vocal, but it seems like the lightbulbs have gone off recently! He is up to 15 words (most recognizable, some more easily understood in context), 8 signs (some he says with the word), and 2 animal sounds (dog and sheep). A lot of new words he uses frequently, so we read a lot of books ("boo"), and have to say no to bath time ("bat") every time we pass the bathroom! It's so great being able to communicate with him though, and for him to be able to tell us what he needs or wants. He's got the cutest voice, too!
To celebrate his half-birthday, we spent the day with a new Down syndrome playgroup called "Saturday Explorers". A friend and I organized this group, since there are very few resources for kids with DS in our state, and Saturday was our first get-together. We went on an apple picking adventure in our town, and had a beautiful day for it! We met a lot of great people, and are looking forward to our monthly get-togethers! Ty had fun meeting his new friends, but quickly lost interest once we started picking apples! He grabbed one and held it, but was not impressed! He fell asleep soon after! :)
Happy September!
