We had a positive, educational, uneventful trip to the eye doctor last week. We went to see Dr. Stone at A New Vision. She’s an optometrist who has specialized in helping children learn to see better. That’s right, learn! She has therapy and exercises for kids to strengthen muscles, improve coordination and eye-brain understanding. Awesome. Not only that, but when we met her, we learned that she has experience with children with Down Syndrome and also with children from orphanages.
She said that children under 18 months tend to have a vertical stigmatism and be far-sighted. With activity (who knew!) and using your eyes while moving and looking at far and close things, these things decrease. She said that children from orphanages almost always had these conditions when they were adopted, even when much older, because of probable limited mobility and environment. She said Jordan’s eyes were actually much better than she anticipated considering his background. She’d like to see us back in four months to make sure his eyes really are changing with activity and encouraged me to encourage him to look up at me now and then even when I’m across the room.
It was pretty impressive how she checked his eyes! We didn’t dialate his eyes this time – will do that next time. But she shined her little hand held light to his eyes, held a few lenses in front of his eyes while encouraging him to look at her, watched his crawling (he crawled very fast and coordinated for her – go Jordan!) because crawling coordination has something important to do with eye coordination, and even felt his eyes briefly while they were closed. She was very patient and positive. Sooooo glad to have met her.
So that’s that! Nothing big to report! Just one cute kid doing well!
Jordan Skills Watch:
He is GRABBING puffs (like cheerios but dissolve faster) and PUTTING them in his mouth! He has a hard time getting the right part of his hand to his mouth, but this is HUGE progress! I’m so excited that he’s putting things in his mouth!
He is tolerating more texture in his food… i don’t puree the oatmeal before mixing it with yogurt for breakfast.
He is moving food in his mouth better – if there is a chunk, he doesn’t necessarily try to push it down his throat with his fingers… sometimes he moves it to his teeth with his tongue, sometimes swallows it. He hasn’t choked for over a week. 🙂
He is standing ALL the time. Well, not all, but if you look at him, there is as good a chance he’ll be standing against the couch as sitting.
He is getting into trouble – he’s either got to learn not to keep getting into the woodpile or I’m going to have to initiate positive interaction more, because right now, I am more likely to be spanking his hand than playing with him. He is a little troublemaker! (yay! argh! yay! lol)
He is imitating sometimes! You can take turns patting the pillow… him obviously imitating you. I am soooooo happy that he is learning to communicate. He will be very happy when he can too!
Well, that’s all for now! I’m sure there’s more he can do. Like reach really far out of his crib and knock the radio onto the floor, almost crawl out of the cart seat, and Mommy had a two day break where he fell asleep on his own in his crib. Whew! Back to rocking last night though. 🙂
Pray for me – morning sickness is all day right now and I am feeling rather yucky! I’ll have an ultrasound to figure out my due date on Feb 2nd – two weeks from tomorrow. Looking forward to that! I think I am about 6 weeks right now.
Jordan playing with his favorite rug.
May God bless you with abundant endurance through these days of “morning” sickness. It always annoyed me that they call it morning sickness when it really means feeling yucky all day and all night. Glad to hear Jordan’s eyes got such a good report and that you have such a wonderful optometrist to work with him! So fun how he is becoming comfortable enough to push the boundaries and be a real little boy although it must make dynamics more challenging, especially when you feel yucky. I know when I had all-day sickness, often I just wanted to crawl into a hole somewhere. Initiating positive interactions was not always on the top of my to-do list. My list was more one item entitled – Survive! Survival is defined as the children having something on their bodies (pajamas will do) and something in their tummies (granola bars will do) and myself counting down the minutes until hubbie can help take over with things. Likely you are a much stronger person than me, but that’s how pregnancy looked around here… 🙂
O that thrills me. I have taken my oldest to a similar Dr in Eugene. Such good help and input. (I had students years ago that did the same stuff – it works!!)
I will pray about your wood pile and morning sickness. I have been spending a lot of time with positive reinforcement here too… 🙂
Wow! So impressed with how well he’s doing! Good job Jordan! And good luck sicky-Mama! You can do it 🙂
Isn’t Dr Stone awesome!