New stuff to feed your obsession

I don't think y'all deserve it, but there are new pictures of Ace on Drew's flickr. Seriously, the last time he put up a buttload of pictures, one awesome person commented, and she hasn't even spent the past 13.5 months insisting she's the president of his fan club, VERONICA. We could keep all these pictures to ourselves, but we're benevolent enough to give you stuff you can access at all times when you need your adorable fix. I'm just saying, y'all, people in third world countries can't access pictures of Ace every day (except my friend that lives in Namibia) so y'all should learn to appreciate it. And comment on it. Go.

How's Ace doing, you ask? His physical therapist thinks he's making progress, but we still have a fairly long road ahead of us. She is working on his gross motor skills (sitting up, crawling) and she's going to have an occupational therapist come in and start working on his fine motor skills (holding stuff). This will include being fitted for splints for his hands, because part of the tightness associated with his spastic diplegia is in his fingers. He tends to ball up his hands, especially his first finger and thumb, and that can't be easy to crawl on. The splints will help him learn to keep those fingers out when he's trying to do something.

As far as sitting up goes, he's definitely making progress. He's starting to catch himself when he starts to fall over if I've propped him up, but definitely not every time. When he's concentrating HARD on something that's in front of him and he really, really wants to get his hands on it, he'll sit up just fine. Also, for some reason, he sits up nearly to perfection in the bathtub. I mean, catches himself if he starts to fall over, keeps his trunk straight, everything. If only I could get him to do that on the floor or in the bed. I am baffled.

Crawling is the same, still belly/military/army/commando crawling, whatever you want to call it. Basically, he puts his elbow out and drags himself with all his might forward, kicking his leg frantically as though that helps him get somewhere faster. One of the exercises I do with him every day is basically sitting on the floor with my leg straight out, putting him over my leg with his arms on one side and legs on the other in order to get him up on his hands and knees and do that bouncing thing that babies do. He does it when I get him up in the position just fine. He'll do it by himself on the bed, on grass, and on carpet, but as y'all know, we don't have carpet in our house, so he won't get up on his hands and knees at all. I'm starting to think that's been an impediment to him crawling and that bums me out. We'll see.

He loves talking, babbling, and making noise. LOVES it. He especially loves squealing as loudly and as shrill-ly as possible. Especially when I'm on the phone. His main "words" are da, na, ba, and recently, ga. I'm trying HARD to get him to say "mama." He's kinda on the verge, I think, and I cannot wait till this child looks at me and says "mama." Since he's so far behind on his speech, I'm thinking I'll grab a Baby Signing Time DVD and try to get him to start signing. He really mimics certain things well (shaking his head back and forth, smacking tables, piggy faces, various noises, etc) so I think he might take to signing pretty well too. I'm sure I'd be just as happy if he signed "mama."

What I really love is that if he's being held and he wants someone else to hold him, he starts pushing away from the person that's holding him. I think that's so cute... it's kind of a relief to see genuine affection from him.

What I really, really love is when he leans in for kisses.

What I really really really love is the fact that when I get him out of bed now, he lays his head on my shoulder and lets me snuggle him for a few minutes. When he does that, and I say "awww," he says "aaaahhhhhh." If I say "Mmm, I love you," he says "Da-da-da-la." I LOVE that.

Great. Now I wanna go get him out of bed and cuddle with him. Must. Not. Wake. Baby.