freaky

[mamajoan]

This family friend of ours named Sally babysits Isaac every Monday night when mom and I go to chorus rehearsals. When I was a teenager I frequently babysat for Sally's daughter Hannah who is about six years younger than me. Hannah now lives in Chicago, but last week she was home for a visit so she came along with her mom to babysit.

It was freaky. I don't think I had seen Hannah since she was about 12 and now she's 24. Needless to say, she has changed a bit. ;) I can't handle that shit. She should still be eight, for chrissake.

In other freaky news, in the past four days or so, Isaac has gone from "sits still where you put him but seems to starting to get an inkling that he could move around" to being able to scoot quite capably on his butt. He can very easily turn himself around in a circle and even move laterally a bit. He's also getting close to crawling, although you have to put him on his tummy; he can't get to the crawling position from sitting or vice versa.

There was actually a lot of angst around this last week, which I spared y'all. Long story short: I got all worried because Isaac wasn't mobile; I made an appt with his pediatrician; and as soon as the appt was made he started doing more moving around. Of course! ;) The appt was today and it went fine. The pedi isn't really very worried about him, although she did say I could get Early Intervention for him if I want. I'm going to think about it a bit. Meanwhile, tomorrow we have a meeting with the daycare staff to discuss his overall progress. (Another source of great angst that I spared you. It was a stressful week.)

Anyway, now that Isaac's able to get to things you placed out of his reach, it's going to get a LOT more "interesting" around here....

Comments

[algernon-mouse.livejournal.com]

I can relate to your 'issues' with Hannah's age. Ben's sitter is actually a boy that I used to babysit all the time. It's very surreal when he comes over to my place and looks down at me.

I keep telling myself that this, somehow, is the same child that I walked to kindergarten. Life is weird like that.

[jrosehale.livejournal.com]

For what it's worth from a non-mother: It seems like every baby has something that doesn't keep up with the other kids. My boss's boss is freaking out b/c his son isn't talking at 18 months. One of my friends freaked out because her daughter hadn't gotten any teeth at 16 months. Obviously it's something you're going to worry about and investigate, but it seems from my limited experience that every kid has something like this.

I'll be wishing you well.

greetings

[millers-angel.livejournal.com]

Hello there ... I just added you as a "friend", and I hope you don't mind! I was browsing around a bit on LJ and decided to see who all was interested in Douglas Adams. Lo and behold, I found your page. Your writing is intelligent and articulate, so I figured I'd tag along for a while.

As for the crawling thing - I wouldn't crawl for the longest time! I guess I was just a very content baby, never felt the need to go anywhere else. Finally, my parents learned that I was obsessed with Cheerios and found that I would crawl like crazy to get them.

Toodles!

[sydb42.livejournal.com]

In my MOMS Club, there are two babies who were "delayed" in crawling/walking. One little girl never crawled, and just started scooting at close to a year, but nowhere near walking. The other crawled ok, but still wasn't walking at 14-15 months old. The mother of the little girl, as far as I know, just let her go at her own pace. The mother of the little boy had him in physical therapy a couple times a week to get him to start walking.

You know what? They both started walking at roughly the same time (and I think now that she walks, she may do crawling, but she never did crawl before she walked). They are within a month or so of the same age, so I suppose it could be argued the boy did walk first (he's the younger one). But really what that told me is that kids really do develop differently and unless there's an obvious physical problem, they'll figure it out on their own.

I think the more Isaac realizes how much fun he can have moving around and getting into things, the quicker he'll learn to crawl/walk. If he's scooting, he may never crawl and just go straight to walking. :)

[mamajoan.livejournal.com]

Yeah. From what I'm hearing, Early Intervention / physical therapy has a short-term benefit, but when you look at the kids again in 5 or 10 years, you usually can't tell a difference between those who had EI and those whose parents just waited it out. So I'm not too terribly worried.

I definitely think motivation is a big factor. Until recently Isaac didn't really realize the benefits of being able to move around. Now that he does, I'm betting he's going to pick up the pace.

[flick.livejournal.com]

Early intervention?

[mamajoan.livejournal.com]

Early Intervention is a gov't-sponsored program whereby a child under 3 can be evaluated for developmental delays and receive therapy if necessary. Unlike other such programs it's open to everyone, not just people below a certain income level. They work on a wide variety of different issues (physical, social, intellectual) and can usually send a counselor/therapist right to the child's daycare to work with the child there so it's not a disruption for child or parent.

I get the impression that a lot of parents use EI when their child is on the late side, but still within the normal range for a particular skill. But of course it's really meant to be used more for kids who are really worrisome-ly behind.

p.s.

[mamajoan.livejournal.com]

And I should add that it seems to me Isaac is right on the edge between "on the late side of normal" and "late enough that we should worry."

[flick.livejournal.com]

Ah, right. Now I understand!