Rex - Seventeen Weeks Home

Yesterday marked seventeen weeks home and nineteen weeks out of the orphanage for Rex.

The last two weeks have been really hard; hard on Rex and hard on us as his parents. Rex is being the super squeaky wheel here and requiring a lot of grease. The major change of becoming a big brother has thrown him off kilter and brought back some of Rex’s auto-aggressive behaviors. We’re not seeing rages, but there’s plenty of slapping and hitting his own head and face and some screaming, too. He is insecure and easily frustrated. So, we have been doing what we know worked in the past: holding and re-directing, lots of attention, lots of snuggles. After three weeks of this regression, it seems that the corner we need to turn as a family is in sight.

Developmentally, I think Rex is taking a little hiatus. I don’t blame him. He has a lot to process as it is and hey, it’s the holidays. He re-took the Denver II developmental assessment this week (of course, not showing off his skills to the therapist) and is now at 18 months gross motor, 11 months fine motor, 11 months language, and 12 months social-emotional. That’s progress in all areas, slow but steady. I don’t know if he will ever catch up to his peers, but if so, I expect it will be years down the road. We are going to take it easy for the rest of this month, just working on helping Rex find his footing again, and then start focusing heavily on speech and fine motor skills in January. Rex continues to reap wonderful benefits from his OT and also receives ABA therapy in-home.

After doing some research and hearing from other parents whose children have Rex’s syndrome, we are experimenting with a creatine supplement for Rex. Some parents have found a great increase in muscle tone and, therefore, motor development and some positive effects on cognitive function once their children started taking creatine. We’ve only been using it for a week, every other day, and I am not yet noticing any changes, but there’s a lot going on, too, so I might be missing it. I am also going to start adding fish oil and B vitamins to Rex’s diet as this seems to aid some children with speech development.

Rex does love the good times and enjoys tickles, music, kisses, and rough-housing with his daddy very much now. He is joyful and likes to have fun. I believe that this is truly who Rex is meant to be and if we can keep chipping away at the hurt, disappointments, and frustrations, more and more of his wondrous personality will emerge.