Rex - Thirty-Nine Weeks Home

I am so behind due to travel, but Thursday marked forty-one weeks out of the orphanage and thirty nine weeks home for Rex.  The last two weeks have been full of ups and downs with wonderful progress in Rex's development coupled with the resurfacing of some Rex-rage.

So I'll start with all of the good. Rex is learning so much. One day I decided that I wanted him to be able to drink out of an open cup unassisted before he started preschool, so I prepared for a mess and began giving him his cup.  To my great surprise, there wasn't ever really any mess and Rex mastered this skill in about two days.  Now I only have to hand him his cup from the counter and he drinks as much as he wants, then returns the cup into my hands.  He's also working very hard on the sign for drink, so once he's reliable with it, getting a drink may no longer involve pulling a parent to the kitchen and reaching his arms up toward the cup.

Rex has also learned to jump.  He's been getting a lot of practice on the trampoline, but one afternoon, he just started jumping in the middle of the living room, holding on to nothing, which, in turn, made Craig and me jump off the couch with pride.  Now it's so cute to watch him jump when he gets excited, for example when Craig comes home from work.

 I have told him a hundred times

no climbing on the banister.

The child is a magnet for danger.

With Rex, nothing is really safe, even the things you have child-proofed.  Recently Rex figured out that he can open the fridge and freezer doors, so now we need to secure them in some way.  Rex mostly just wants to try to climb into the fridge and inspect everything.  He's not really looking for eats.  But speaking of eats, we have kind of a food snob on our hands who knows what he likes and what not.  Recently Rex enjoyed two legs of smoked duck at our friends' house.  Since Rex otherwise really only eats beef, this very much speaks to their famous smoking skills.

Look at how much confidence he has gained 

in just ten short months with a Daddy & Mama. 

Rex has also learned how to give high fives.  They still need a little oomph, but it's so nice to be able to tell him to give someone a high five as a way to greet each other.  And Rex has been babbling a lot more lately.  We are hearing syllables that had disappeared since the palate repair (such as dada) and syllables we have never heard before (such as yaya).  There has even been a tiny bit of oral motor imitation where Rex has been able to reproduce the sounds we are making.  For children with Rex's syndrome, the first word on average comes at 38 months, Rex's current age, and can occur as late as 60 months.  And of course, this data is for children who are not cleft-affected and did not spend over two years in an orphanage.  So, we are hopeful that Rex is on his way to acquiring a few verbal skills.

At "his desk" which is really our TV stand.

And now for the bad:  we're dealing with a bit of toddler rage again, usually around two longer episodes a day.  I know our ABA therapists want us to chart what happens exactly before a tantrum, but I don't need to write it down. It's always the same reason of Rex not getting his way in some form or fashion.  It might be him being told no more outside for the day or to sit at the table for dinner or a toy is broken or realizing that the Lego simply isn't going to fit through the funnel.  I think his getting upset and frustrated is very normal for his developmental age, but the intensity of his reaction is fueled by his past and his current limitations.  I have faith that these behaviors will eventually go away as Rex gains more communication skills and independence.

Our Armenian-American with a sprinkling of German (he does love potato cakes) is definitely moving in the right direction, growing, exploring, learning new skills and working so hard to overcome the things that complicate just about everything he tackles.  We're proud of you, love, you rock!