So Many "New Skills"

When Teddy masters something, it's referred to as a new skill in our house. Lately it feels like he's made so much progress. In reality, it's probably all the little improvements are now coming together into noticeable progress.

At his occupational therapy appointment last week, his OT called Teddy her star pupil because of how well he attended to tasks and did at completing those tasks. The fact that he twisted off a jar lid was particularly impressive to her, earning him that high praise.

One night this week, Teddy pushed his chair by the light switch, climbed on his chair and began turning the dimmer switch causing the lights to go off and then back on and then back off and then back on. He giggled at what he could control, AJ narrated the situation, and Dave and I both snagged videos of it after watching in amazement at first. He rotated his wrist to turn the dimmer switch like it was no big deal.

In addition to his twisting and wrist rotation skills, he's also becoming much more interested and capable in helping to dress himself. Recently, he's managed to get his shoes on (without his braces, but still). He's also managed to pull on a pair of AJ's socks. He's gotten AJ's pants on correctly and pulled nearly up to his waist. He's had an interest in putting everything on his feet, but now he's starting to understand and be able to coordinate how his clothes go on his body. He actively assists when getting ready for swim class by stepping into his swim diaper and then his swimsuit. (Now it would help if he looked, so he had some idea where he was stepping in relation to the diaper or swimsuit.)

Today, instead of napping, he decided to raid his closest instead. After the poison control fiasco, he's pretty well limited to diapers and wipes that he can reach. (Oh, and that screwdriver that apparently fell this week. Nothing like walking into your child's bedroom to get him ready for school to be greeted by him holding a screwdriver like he's about to shank you.) Usually he pulls out all the diapers and arranges them as artwork around his room. Today he decided he would much rather go swimming that sleep, so he pulled on a swim diaper. He might have been able to get it all the way up had he not put two legs through the same hole.

Sleep? No, I'm ready to swim instead.

It's just amazing to us how much progress we've seen in the past few weeks. As his teacher was praising his wrist rotation skills, my comment was, "Nothing's sacred now, is it Teddy?"

Nothing is folks, nothing is.

And that's a good thing.