30 MONTHS!

I am getting to this almost a week late. But Sammy is 30 months. Crazy how fast time flies by! Sam at 30 months is still our energetic, stubborn, spoiled little man.

Gross Motor Skill-
He is doing amazing. Over the past month he has learned how to climb up to our bar stools by himself, climb up to the counter tops in the kitchen and bathrooms......which makes for some great messes!!! Completely is independent at the park he is really good at knowing his limits too, which makes me feel safer to let him do his thing He is getting better at jumping, but still does the one-two jump step. Is super fluid with walking up the steps with the rail or wall for support. He still has a hard time stepping up stairs/curbs with nothing to hold onto. We are working on this. He does great stepping down without holding on now. But our next goal for him would be stepping up without holding on. And jumping. But our PT told us that typically comes later for hemi kids, and he gets the concept just doesn't have the muscle strength and confidence yet.Fine Motor Skills-
We are still seeing lots of carry over from CIT. However he is getting more and more stubborn when we ask him to use lefty. Which is surprising to me, because he has on his own been making some great gains with lefty. We have a large brita water filter in our fridge that has a spout on it that you have to pull down to get the water. We let all the kids get water when they need. Sam will open the fridge, with his right hand hold his cup and with his LEFT hand pull down the water spout. This is huge in my book. Lots of these two handed skills just worry me. But if it is something that SAMMY wants to do, he does it. Also opening Tupperware, was challenging for him at the beginning of the summer. Now he just grabs the container and off that lid comes. So two handed activities really coming along. He is getting better at putting his shirt on(still needs help with remembering our left arm!!!) and can now take his shirt off by himself. Joseph just started dressing himself completely over the summer, so I know boys can just take longer on things like this. Joseph 3 and a half would still say "I just can't do that mom I am little!" And cause I am a softy I would still help him!!! I just want to get working on dressing with Sam, because I know it will be challenging for him for probably many years. I worry about snaps, button, zippers.........but little steps!Speech-
Crazy how much a few much can change in this area. Sam cracks us up with his little personalities. He tells us jokes that we don't understand, but he thinks are so funny. Like "Diaper Lady!" Oh, for a few days he would say "Diaper lady" and crack up. Got all the kids going and they would all laugh and laugh. Now that he is potty trained (with help) he goes around saying "I big, I no baby!" Some of my favorite things lately is "I coo-coo" as he runs around like a crazy guy! This past week he has been not feeling well. One night he was up and crying. He stopped and said "I SICK mom!" His vocabulary is just exploding, words we didn't even know he knew he says. He still drops words in sentences like "Jojo whiner butt!" Instead of "Jojo IS a whiner butt". We repeat back to him the "correct" way to say the sentence. Or he will run the words together so "I sleep with you" sounds like "I seep chyou". All our kids did this and it is age appropriate for right now. Two things I have noticed that he is doing a lot of is big and little. And still boy and girl reminding us of our body parts. Yes he says ALL the names......which we always have done used the real terms, but sounds funny when your two year old says "Mom, you girl banina" "I boy, I penis". Also he is VERY into nice and mean. Often pointing out which is the "bad guy". Like he has these transformer cars and Megatron is the "bad guy car", Optimist prime is "nice car". And of course we all are mean throughout the day. Also he is branching out of his words. For example it used to be that all bugs were bugs. Now he is distinguishing (not always right!) different bugs. The other day he brought me in a worm "Look Mom, see ant." EWWWWW!!!

Potty Training-
Still going really well. We are proud of him. He woke up this morning completely dry and had another accident free day. Just a big boy. I am amazed at how easy it was. He still needs help and reminding but especially for boys that can take months!!!

All and all he is doing really well. We need to go and take him to get his vision tested again. We aren't noticing anything happening. But our infant development therapist noticed that he wasn't putting Connect Four game pieces as far on the left side as he did on the right side. We brought him in last year and she said he was doing really well. But of course it is easier to tell vision problems as they get older. And we need to get moving on private therapy again. AND we need a new brace. Sam says "Owie hurts" everytime we try to put on his SMO. Lazy summer was great but it is time to get moving on everything again.