Weekly Update -- 31 August - 6 September 2009

Yay! I'm 139 weeks old today!

Masinja had a pretty eventful week this week. We were busy just about every day! On Tuesday Masinja got to go back to Parent Connections and play with Miss Jacqui and a bunch of other kids. I attended a workshop on Sensory Processing while Masinja was playing. I decided it would be a good idea to attend this particular parent training session because many of the therapists and educators that have worked with Masinja have mentioned the possibility of sensory problems. I have done quite a bit of research on the subject and T.M. and I have also talked about it at length. After attending the training sessoin and learning even more about it T.M. and I have decided to ask Masinja's doctor about it and see where that leads us. We'll keep y'all posted with what we find out.

Masinja also had speech therapy again on Tuesday. His regular speech therapist wasn't there though because she is out on maternity leave. He enjoyed his session with the therapist that took her place though. We have been working on expanding his vocabulary to include action words. He got to play with a computer program that dealt with verbs and he really liked it. The program involved children acting out actions and his favorite one was "fall down." Every time the boy on the computer would act out "fall down" Masinja would giggle uncontrollably :o)

Masinja had a follow-up occupational therapy evaluation on Wednesday. We are still having feeding issues with him. We stopped taking him to OT months ago because everyone kept telling us that it was normal for a toddler to be picky. We didn't want to take an appointment away from a child who would benefit more from OT than Masinja and we felt that we could work around his picky eating habits. In the last month or so though he has exhibited behaviors that concern us. He doesn't chew his food completely before he swallows it. It may not seem that alarming but when you consider the fact that he does this with chicken nuggets and carrots it is alarming. He still doesn't eat a wide variety of foods either and therefore doesn't have the most well balanced diet. The occupational therapist and speech pathologist that conducted the evaluation noticed that he primarily doesn't chew soft solids but instead swallows them whole. He also is not yet using utensils consistently and is still quite a picky eater. Most of the things that he needs help with can be addressed through speech; however, so starting next week he will get half an hour of speech and half an hour of occupational therapy. This will make things much easier on both Masinja and I because it means only one trip to the hospital instead of two!

Last, but not least, Masinja got to see his Uncle Boop (Jeremy) again this week. He came for a visit and Masinja enjoyed it very much.

That's all for now.

Peace,
T.M.M.