He made it!

Well, I guess all of Alex's Star Spangled Banner renditions were leading somewhere (last year he used to sing it ALL of the time). He is in the choir for the upcoming year. He must have gotten a recessive gene from who knows where since neither Sean nor I can sing ourselves out of a paper bag. The choir sings at various school assemblies and before all of the grade level musicals. He'll have a fun year.

Sean had a nice trip to Albuquerque last week. He flew out late on Thursday and returned Sunday afternoon. He has made several contacts at Sandia National Labs and went out to meet with them. He is hoping to receive some funding to support a student. His step brother, Jerry, has lived in Albuquerque for several years, so Sean visited with him as well. Jerry took Sean to do a little sightseeing on Saturday. They traveled from 5000 feet to 10000 feet above sea level in a gondola tram. The view was spectacular and the weather was gorgeous. I think what Sean enjoyed the most was the quiet. He had a nice "piece of quiet" while they hiked and Jerry's house was calm. There were no kids running, jumping, and screaming in the background. He commented that the sounds seem to echo around our house even after the kids are in bed. That's probably true!

I spoke with Benjamin's occupational therapist last week about speech therapy for Benjamin. She definitely thinks we should have him evaluated and get him started on some sessions. He communicates nonverbally very well. His verbal skills seems to be behind, though. He has a few words, but doesn't use them very consistently. One speculation is that it may be related to his explosion of physical skills. Apparently, toddlers can really only focus on one major thing at a time so they usually slow down on verbal skills while they are mastering motor skills. That makes some sense to me especially since Benjamin was delayed on crawling, cruising etc. due to low muscle tone. The OT has also mentioned that some of it may be related to his lack of eating by mouth. Since he doesn't eat by mouth, his tongue muscles don't receive as much stimulation. We just need to get him moving along verbally.

Well, speaking of Benjamin, he is currently emptying all of the desk drawers. I need to go put everything back in the drawers and get on with the day.