Crayons and Spoons

Ah, the small milestones. Do you remember when your child first fed themselves with a spoon? When they first started to scribble with crayons? If you are the parent of a typical child, then you might have a general idea. If you are the parent of a special needs child, you bet you write that stuff down in their baby book!

After months and months and months of Rachel's EI therapist trying to get Rachel to activly participate in scribbling, she finally did it. And it was Christmas morning. She received some new palm held crayons and a book of paper from my cousin as a gift. I took one out, put it in her hand and something clicked. "Hey, this IS fun!" She wouldn't let me take them away and kept picking up the paper and running around the house with it to sit and "draw". She now loves to decorate the bathroom with her bath crayons. This picture doesn't do her art justice. She had every surface up to her head covered in red, orange, green, blue and purple. I opened the door to yell down to Stephen to grab the camera and when I turned back I saw that Rachel decided to taste the crayon. She didn't like it one bit and hasn't done it since!

We've also been working on the spoon with Rachel for what seems like forever. Two nights ago, I gave her a bowl of sticky cheesy pasta and a spoon. She took that spoon and carefully put it in the bowl, scooped it up against the side of the dish, and put it in her mouth. She has never done that before. And here she just does it like she's been doing it for years. Rachel, welcome to big girl land! Next up, the fork and drinking from an open cup!

Charlie wanted to say hello, too.

Last but not least, I want to thank my friend and fellow blogger over at Hurdles of Life, Love & Family. She designed my new blog look! Feel free to stop by her blog and say hello!