little rascal

Noah found Daddy's wallet...
On a side note, we were driving down the highway yesterday and all of a sudden I feel a gush of wind... strange I thought since all the windows were rolled up. I look back in horror and see Noah opened the back door!!! It was swinging wide open as we were barreling down the road at 55 mph... I about had a heartattack! The past few weeks I have caught him trying to open the car door by using his feet to grab the door handle. I have learned a valuable lesson... always always always lock the doors as soon as you get in the car or your toddler will use his feet to throw open the car door!

Anywho, we also had Noah's evaluation with a new speech therapist... and she is uuuhhhhh-mazing! Noah did so well in the evaluation. It's amazing to see his language comprehension and how he responded to someone other than his parents. The therapist says that she was impressed with some of his verbal skills for his age, such as being able to say CHICKEN correctly, because average kids are unable to make the 'ch' sound appropriately until 6 years old. He is able to vocalize most of the consonant and vowel sounds, which again is above his age level. The biggest issue is his lack of motivation to speak. We discussed lots of strategies to motivate him. One example is to give him lots of choices and only reward him with the item when he makes an audible vocalization towards one or the other. She also wants us to start working on him sitting calmly for a minute or so... she is going to meet with the occupational therapist to get some strategies on that (ways to meet his sensory needs while sitting still). The therapist was very encouraging and says that she expects great results with the speech therapy because of his progress in the last few months and because we are intervening early. She recommended weekly speech therapy and may move it to twice a week... still on the waiting list for occupational therapy there. Very excited to finally be getting Noah the help he needs!