Early Intervention Update

Monday we had our first meeting with our coordinator.  It was her first time to meet Barrett and I think he liked her.  She was very encouraging and basically said we just have to model, model, model to him.  Talk all the time to him. She wants us to start signing with him (which we probably should have been doing from the get go but we didn't, you live and learn.)  She gave us some "homework" and so far it's been going great.  I'm just so thankful for this opportunity to have someone help us help him.  She liked that he makes a lot of noise and she really thinks with a little pressure he'll be saying some things soon.  Right now, he doesn't have to talk.  I've been anticipating his needs for 16 months now and he's never had to ask for anything.  I know what he wants before he has a chance to tell me.  I've got to take a step back and let him come to me when he wants/needs something.  I'll be honest, that is really tough.  It so much "easier" to just give him what he needs when he needs it.  Being a parent is hard.

We went for Barrett's hearing evaluation on Wednesday.  While we were sitting in the waiting room there were several other families waiting for PT/OT and we realized how blessed we were.  We were quickly called back and the two girls that did the evaluation were so sweet.  Everything went really well  and it was a fairly simple process.  He tested in the normal range.  We are so thankful that he is fine.  They said we were on the right page with early intervention.   So now we just talk and model as much as we can to him.  We need to arrange his environment so it encourages him to ask for help.  She recommended we put his toys in clear plastic bags so that he can see them but not get them.  This encourages him to come to us and ask for help.  So far he doesn't seem interested in asking for help, he just moves along to find something else to play with. So we've got our work cut out for us.   We will see her again in two weeks.  Hopefully she'll notice some progress.