Last weekend, we went to Canada to celebrate Grandma and Grandpa’s fiftieth wedding anniversary!
Obviously, this after we told him we were going to see Grandma and Grandpa, but is before the car trip.
Peter Gwydion is still not even a little bit of a fan of the car. He screams blue murder (well, purple murder, because that’s what color his face has been known to turn.). It puts us into a really difficult situation, since a key part of our parenting is not letting Gwyn “cry it out.” It’s important to us to honor what he tells us, to respect him and his wishes the way we want him to respect us as he gets older. Family, though, is really important to Kevin and me. So, I sit in back with Gwyn to sing songs and play games- we let Gwyn know that we love his mad side, too, and that he’s not alone when he cries. Right now, that seems to be the best we can do, short of just not taking car trips anywhere. With our closest family members three and a half hours away, though, that’s not the ideal solution, either. Anyway, if your baby falls asleep in the car, you can trust that I’m jealous of you right now.
Once we get where we’re going, though, everything is usually pretty happy:
Snuggles from Grandma
Mr. Center of Attention
Grandma, cameras, and his crazy rattle that's made of cornstarch resin. Life's pretty good in this picture.
Note Gwyn's left hand, and Grandpa's futile efforts to minimize damage to his beard.
His intense concentration in this picture absolutely cracks me up.
Aww, look, he's so sweet and innocent...
...until he tries to pull your beard off!
Getting some cuddles from Nana Charlotte
Tired baby with Momma at the end of the party.
The next car trip we’re tackling is the one across Pennsylvania and then down to DC for American Thanksgiving. If you’ve got any good car tips for babies, now’s the time to share!
We had our EI “evaluation” a couple of weeks ago. It was just fine, and we really liked the people who came out - C, our services coordinator, and M, the nurse who runs the developmental tests. At the evaluation, M found that Gwyn is actually just fine chronologically in gross motor skills - he’s learning to walk, crawling and climbing well, and quite strong! His fine motor and language skills - which go hand in hand - were developmentally behind his gross motor skills. Since babies often have growth spurts in one area, then have a growth spurt in another, this wasn’t surprising, and not worrisome at all.
Now that he’s crawling all over the place, though, I thought it would be great to have a teacher come in and show me some new games to play with him, so that we could enjoy each other more in this new developmental stage. So, that was our plan - a teacher, specializing in fine motor skills, would come out twice a month to teach us new games and fun ways to help Gwyn’s development.
The teacher, E, came out for the first time a few days ago. With her came K, a physical therapist. While playing with him, K determined that Gwyn didn’t need fine motor skills therapy, but needed occupational therapy - that his tendons and muscles were supposedly somewhat tight, which would affect his ability to walk and balance normally. What she saw was “very subtle,” but she said that it merited having an occupational therapist, and that his balance would be adversely effected until we “fixed it.”
As it turned out, K wasn’t even supposed to BE here that day. She “tagged along,” then gave an opinion - based, again, on a very brief assessment - which totally changed the course of what we thought were doing. And, as a result, I feel (once again!) like I have no clue what’s going on, like I shouldn’t listen to my intuition that Gwyn is fine. It’s yet another “expert” telling me blithely that something different is wrong, which I need to fix or I’m failing my child.
I’m most upset because EI was supposed to be an addition to our everyday life, and not supposed to impact our relationship. The way I understood EI was that Kevin and I would remain the experts on Gwyn. We would incorporate new kinds of play, or new kinds of stretches, into our day, but that would be the extent of it. Instead, I find myself going, “Is that normal? Is that normal?” about every behavior Gwyn exhibits. I’m analyzing his behavior instead of celebrating it. It’s an unwelcome element, and I’m not willing to let that attitude color my relationship with my son through his babyhood.
We have another meeting with C, our services coordinator, tomorrow. Hopefully she can tell us why K came in the first place, if she wasn’t authorized to. We also want to know what this means for the two hour evaluation that we went through when beginning with the program. Can its findings really be overturned by a physical therapist with half an hour to kill and no compunction about being “invited” somewhere? If so, what’s the point? How can we trust that the course we’re taking is the right one, if every “expert” they’re affiliated with has a different opinion on what the right course is?
Needless to say, it’s incredibly frustrating. I don’t like feeling unsure about the treatment that we may or may not give Gwyn, especially when I happen to think his balance is just fine:
His love for the kitties is also doing quite well.
Here at the Baker-Ewert household, September has flown by. Suddenly autumn is here. The leaves are changing outside, we’re wearing more layers inside, and Peter Gwydion is a year old! Here is a whirlwind tour of the major highlights of our September 2009:
Birthday Boy!
Peter’s first birthday was September 18! We celebrated that weekend with cupcakes, family and friends. Gwyn immediately went to sleep - I think being the Guest of Honor was a bit much pressure for him.
Cupcakes have nothing over the flavor of nursie milk, apparently…
He also got a lovely long visit (and walk!) with Aunt Lori, Mimi and Grandma afterwards, which he liked quite a lot.
Being pushed by Aunt Lori
Walking with Aunt Lori, Mimi and Grandma
The Outdoorsman in his natural environment (and new birthday hat, which we LOVE).
Snuggles with Mimi
Developmental Clinic visit and Early Intervention
The Monday after Peter’s birthday, Momma and Peter made the trip to Du Bois to visit the Developmental Clinic. It was a long, tearful journey for both of us. Peter has maintained his firm anti-car stance, which makes an hour and a half trip seem much, much longer. The visit to the clinic itself was frankly disappointing. After a much shorter evaluation than we were expecting, their diagnosis was that Peter showed significant developmental delay, which seemed incorrect and was really upsetting! We were referred to the Early Intervention program, whose services we had actually declined when we first came home with Peter. No one at the clinic, though, could tell me exactly what Early Intervention would do when we contacted them (except that they’d do another evaluation - wow, sounds helpful!). They did tell us that Peter would definitely be admitted to the program because he was an early bird, and in their assessment Early Intervention doesn’t adjust his age for his prematurity. Typically, in an evaluation of a premature baby’s development, you have their “chronological age,” which is calculated from their actual birthday (September 18) and “gestational age,” calculated from their due date (December 13). Obviously, you wouldn’t expect a nine month old to be doing the same things that you would from a baby who is a year old, so it’s useful to remember that developmentally Peter is nine months old, although the calendar says he’s a year. We know. It’s confusing. What was more confusing was what would be useful about Early Intervention, if they weren’t going to make this adjustment - without it, he is guaranteed to show “delay.”
After some consultation between Daddy and Momma, we decided a phone call couldn’t hurt to get some information about Early Intervention in their own words. Surprisingly, though, given our expectations from the lack of information at the Clinic, the phone call was very helpful! The program is very family centered - they are as involved, or not involved, as you want them to be. We learned that the reason Early Intervention doesn’t adjust their expectations for prematurity is because the entire purpose of the program is to get premature babies’ development caught up to their chronological age faster. During an evaluation of his skills, though, parents are active participants, and let know where his development is at. So, although he’s a year old, knowing that his development is on track for his adjusted age is reassuring for us and shows there’s no problem. Knowing a few new games to play, though, that will help his chronological age be the same as his gestational age faster certainly won’t hurt!
Since the phone call went well, we scheduled a meeting with a representative of Early Intervention. During the meeting, which happened at home, we filled out a preliminary questionnaire about Peter’s current state of development and found that he is perfect for his gestational age. While I take some issue with the idea of quantifying development in a checklist and then scoring it, his “score” landed him squarely between eight months and a year developmentally, which is perfect (and a far cry from the six months that we were told at the Clinic in Du Bois). Since EI services are free and low-pressure, though, we are continuing on with them to help Peter get caught up to his chronological age faster. Nothing wrong with giving our boy a bit of a head start - although lately he’s showing us that he really doesn’t need it (turn your volume down, because the first noise is a rather high-pitched Mommy voice):
Yeah. He can crawl all over the house now, and loves to walk while holding Mom or Dad’s hands. He also looks for hidden objects, puts everything in his mouth, and bangs toys on the table. He’s experimenting with lots of noises, although “mama” is still the favorite. Developmental delays, my tuckus.
Healing and moving forward (but not “moving on”)
We are still in the middle of doing lots of healing and processing. While we were in Du Bois, Gwyn and I went to visit the NICU. It’s so nice to see our friends there, but this visit was obviously imbued with special significance. Kim and Laurie - the nurses who were there when Gwyn was born - were there for a snuggle, and Dr. Hassan even gave us a small present (because Peter is obviously his favorite baby he’s ever taken care of…I don’t know how he’d feel about me saying that, though..). There is something inherently comforting about being with the people who know as well as I do the path that we walked to get where we are today. We don’t need to say anything about how small he was, or how incredible he is, because I know they see him through the same eyes that I do. I’m sure the image of the two pound twenty-eight-weeker is as strong in their minds as it is in mine, and I know they’re as proud of him as I am. It’s an amazing thing to share.
As we were leaving, we ran into a couple who was coming in to see their daughters. Gwyn smiled at them, and I told them a little about his birth and our journey through the NICU. I hope it helped them to know that things would work out the way it would help me a year ago to meet babies who were NICU veterans. On the way home, while I thought how much he’s been through, I cried quite a bit. The NICU and our experience there is going to continue to be a huge part of our lives for years to come, and that’s okay. I just hope they continue to be okay with us visiting.
Cupcakes have nothing over the flavor of nursie milk, apparently…
Being pushed by Aunt Lori
Walking with Aunt Lori, Mimi and Grandma
The Outdoorsman in his natural environment (and new birthday hat, which we LOVE).
Snuggles with Mimi
