Spear Summary of Month 22

Spear Summary of Month 22.

This is a summer of Spear’s entire 22nd month, covering all of September 2019. He was 21 months old during this month.

toddler boy - summary of the 22nd mont of life with a toddler boy

Sleeping and Eating

Not a whole lot of new stuff this month in the area of eating and sleeping.

Yes, still clinging to that bit of morning nap. Yes, probably need to drop it.

He’s still a GREAT eater. Still prefers meat over sweets.

He has first hardcore consistent word and it’s WA-WA which is great b/c he LOVES water and it’s wonderful that he can clearly communicate that he wants water when he wants it!

School

Spear continues to just LOVE school and I’m starting to REALLY see the benefits at home.

My purpose in enrolling him in school was for his speech, but a great thing he’s been learning is how to sit still and focus on an activity.

He is my WILD MAN (reminds me SO much of Britt!) but he’s now doing much better focusing on one thing at a time and sitting still for longer time periods.

I discovered in the kitchen that he just loves to “cook” and now that I’ve figured it out he will sit and “cook” for a solid block of time while I can get dinner going.

He also ASKED me to color during dinner prep too! He was so proud of his picture and I know that has come from school for sure!

His teachers all love him and he always, always smiles at drop off and pick up.

They have little themed days too at his school and one of the days was dress up like your favorite character – DUH Stitch had to happen and it was ADORABLE!

Speech

Spear officially started speech this month! He had his eval visit with his speech therapist in August but the real legit weekly visits started this month.

His therapist is awesome! Super sweet and upbeat and encouraging.

During his first visit he said:

in
out
bubbles

all for the first time during her visit!

She said he’s very smart (duh 😉 ) and that he has TONS of babbling and vocalization which is super good.

He LOVES when she visits and every time I see progress!

Tips for Speech

I plan to write a BIG blog post all about speech tips once we’re further along but I plan to do a bit of tips in his monthly posts so I can remember them all 😉

tons of repetition while showing objects
putting objects near mouth while speaking to help with association
putting words with an action or sign

“playing dumb” when he whines to encourage him to use language
shorten longer words that may be more difficult
once they master a word, require it (example: I shortened “water” to “wa–wa” and he picked it up right away super easily and now I require him to say “wa–wa” before handing it to him)
once a new word is solid, require it but only ask 5 times then just give object so there isn’t frustration

Current Word List:

wa-wa for water
Bible
baa ( for sheep)
quack (for duck)
ugh-oh
bye-bye
dog
book
all done
eat
more
eyes (while pointing to eyes)
blocks
car
touchdown

ENT

My gut has said that something is UP with Spear. His speech therapist agreed that he sounds like he’s underwater with the way he talks.

I took him to an ENT appointment and it was $360 which I didn’t mind paying because I felt so confident that they’d find something.

But nope! They did a hearing test, fluid ear test, and physical exam and said he is perfectly healthy in every way!

He also asked the typical autism questions which I mean I appreciate but he’s been evaluated for autism like 15 billion times at this point so I KNOW that’s ruled out and I was there to focus on Ears. Nose. and Throat.

I left pretty underwhelmed with the dr. Sure, maybe there isn’t a physical issue at play with his speech but Spear has straight up had congestion and a runny nose since he was an itty bitty baby! You can’t tell me there isn’t something going on with THAT either!

Zach made the point that Spear is teething a lot right now and all of our kids have always been snotty with teething. So we are pressing pause a bit and seeing what happens but my plan is to give it a couple months and then hunt for a better ENT somewhere and possibly an allergist too!

I’m super thankful for a healthy report but I also just don’t fully trust that haha!

Friday Frolic

Our local YMCA has an event each week called Friday Frolic where kids ages 5 and under can come and have a free play experience.

I’ve taken my other kids but knew that Spear would especially LOVE it.

And I was right 😉 He loves to just be able to RUN and PLAY and it’s a great together activity for us!

We went twice this month and one of the times Wake and Lindsay joined us – so fun!

Spear loves the foam pit and getting the blocks out the practice stacking “up up up” then “ugh oh” knocking them down.

He also loves to walk around and find things he’s not supposed to play with and to try to figure out how things work.

Last time I took him to this event was back in May with Tessie and I remember being so excited when he took some steps on his own – now he’s got the full run down 🙂

Sibling Time

Spear is getting more interesting in seeking out that quality time with his siblings.

I think it being back to school has had him missing them and wanting to be close to them.

I love seeing them all forming those bonds together!

More About Spear

He is just so smart in that common sense way which reminds me SO MUCH of Zach.

I think Zach has his mini-me 🙂

He just figures things out so quickly and will watch us do something once and then copy them so quickly.

The timer went off on our oven and he went and got the oven mitt from the drawer and went to the oven to get the food out.

Spear does wonderful for independent playtime. I’ve bumped it up to 45 minutes but still in the pack and play because dude just DESTROYS the playroom and his room when left alone. Can’t trust him yet!

He does LOVE the playroom though and loves climbing the stairs! He’s been working on going down by himself and does it SO well!

He is still VERY wild and has figure out how to climb up on the dang table. Wears. Me. Out.