Preschool Updates

This year was a big one for "back to school" around our house - Audrey started Kindergarten and Adam started 3 year old preschool! Of course I intended to post much closer to the start of the school year, but as always time flies and somehow it's almost time for Halloween!

Adam is attending the same preschool as his big sister and couldn't wait to start the year. He was a little hesitant about transitioning to a new daycare earlier in the year, so I wasn't sure what to expect, but he has done just great. He's now in a preschool setting one day a week for daycare and then twice a week at the private preschool. It has been so amazing to see how quickly he's turning into one of the "big kids"!

Physically, Adam continues to do very well. At this point we do very limited "therapy" activities at home, and really just try to encourage symmetry in his every day activities or present play situations that encourage him to use/strengthen his right hand. These days that looks like anything from squeezing clothespins and chip clips, using squirt guns with a lever action to make him use his whole hand, legos, connect four, catching bouncy balls ... the list goes on! He loves helping in the kitchen, so I can almost always get good work in on the right side by letting him help prepare meals, set the table etc. Basically anything he's interested in playing with we just encourage him to use both hands together or to at least try manipulation with his right hand. There are definitely time's he's more agreeable to this than others, but we haven't had to use any CIMT strategies or handsplints to help recently. As for his leg,running around on level surfaces there really isn't any difference left to right. When it comes to climbing or stepping up a big step he still shows a slight preference for using his left leg as his stabilizing or "stepping up" leg, but this doesn't keep him from using stairs using a reciprocal or "every other" pattern, climbing EVERYTHING at the playground and trying to jump on or off anything he can find. He's riding a two wheeler with training wheels and has gotten much better at his little Razor scooter. I definitely have to keep my eye on him because he's absolutely convinced he can hang with the big kids in just about everything!

Adam continues to show good progress related to speech and cognitive development as well. He has age appropriate speech patterns - which means that although he's still working on S-blends, giving us "Fiderman" instead of "Spiderman" for Halloween, most of his words are intelligible to unfamiliar listeners. In fact, Adam has become quite social and often slows me down in the grocery store befriending random ladies in the aisle to tell them about his love of dinosaurs, preschool and brag about pooping in the potty!! It's hysterical and I love every minute. Speaking of which, HE'S POTTY TRAINED! That happened over the summer and although as noted above poop took a little longer, he's doing great now. This means he was able to start school this year and is loving being part of a class. According to his teacher he's doing really well and we see a lot of new skills already at home. He's counting higher (mid-teens consistently), knows his shapes, colors, is interested in letter recognition but not accurate, able to recognize his name/his sister's from a group and is now writing A's, M's, H's and O's ... with both hands!! Although he definitely shows a preference for writing with his left when using pencil or crayons, he often times draws with chalk or colors with his right. We continue to watch his cognitive development closely and as he starts this new stage of preschool to grade school it is definitely on my short list of things that I'm learning more about to be prepared to help support his learning.

Here are a few pics of our little guy in action:

Turning 3 with his excavator cake

Climbing on everything!

Painted his face himself

First day of swim lessons

This boy loves construction equipment

So far Adam throws lefty and bats righty ... guess we'll see!

A little blurry, but my baby picked up his sign with his right hand all on his own. One of those moments that caught me off guard and brought me to tears. So grateful that my little boy is so happy and has the opportunity to experience everything I could hope for him at this age!