Hello! Pictures! and new abilities!

Hello, first off we want to share pictures! Mom and Dad did our new annual tradition of Christmas pictures with all of us. It came out pretty good, of course I think the fella in the red made the picture. I of course may be partial, since that is me! I have been having alot of fun lately. Mom put up this really pretty tree with shiny things on it. Of course I like shiny things so I would love to grab them. There are also stuff under the tree but, they aren't shiny so they don't really interest me. My brothers seem to be interested though.

Mom gets so excited here lately. I discovered my hands and I like to wave. I also like to clap now too. Things are fun, I hope these sparkly and shiny things don't go away. I also enjoy it when my sisters have friends over. Their friends give me so much attention and would rather look at me and talk to me than do what ever with them. Mom says I am an attention hog.

I disagree.

We did go and have fun at the playcenter in teh mall while mom had to take a few things back. I had fun there. Especailly when I was running from my brother Micah. I suppose I shouldn't say running, more like crawling at the speed of light. I am surprised mom got a picture of it.

We did have alot of fun.

Results from Assessment on 11-10-05

Benji had an assessment completed on the 10th of November. The assessment was the Battelle Developmental Inventory and it was done at home by his early intervention teacher. At the time of the assessment Benji was 8 months and 8 days. As you can tell, this is a month old. He has progressed further in some areas already. Our little guy is getting strong and very smart!

Personal Social
Personal social domain test skill related to adult interaction, expression of feeling/affect, self-concept, peer interaction and social role. Benji scored at 7 months, 1 month below his chronological age. He plays peek-a-boo, expresses his emotions, and responds to his name.



Adaptive
Adaptive Domain tests skill related to attention, dressing, eating, personal responsibility and toileting. His total score was 10 months, 2 months above his chronological age. Benji holds his bottle to feed himself, attends to one activity for 3 or more minutes.

Motor
Motor domain includes both fine and gross motor skills. Gross motor skills involve large muscle movements, which include muscle control, body coordination and locomotion. Fine motor skills include the small muscle movements, primarily related to hand use and perceptual motor coordination.

In the area of gross motor, he scored 9 months which is 1 month above his chronological age. Benji stands for 10 seconds while holding on to a solid object, moves from a lying position to a sitting position by himself and pulls up to a standing position without falling.

In the fine motor area, Benji scored at 5 months, 3 months below his chronological age. He can transfer objects from one hand to the other, picks up things in his fist as opposed to index finger and thumb, and he will reach for an object placed before him and touch it.

Communication
Communication domain covers both receptive and expressive language. Receptive language is the ability to respond and to understand spoken language. Expressive language is the ability to respond to a word by using words or gestures.

In the area of receptive language, Benji scored 7 months, 1 month below chronological age. Benji turns his head toward the source of sound outside his field of vision, responds to voice outside of his field of vision and responds to non-speech sound outside his field of vision. His emerging skills are responding to different tones of a person's voice and associating spoken words with familiar objects or actions.

In the expressive communication, he scored 8 months which is his chronological age. He produces one or more vowel sounds, vocalizes sounds to express feelings and produces one or more single syllable consonant-vowel sounds.

Cognitive
Cognitive domain tests skills related to perceptual discrimination, memory, reasoning, academic skills and conceptual development. Benji scored at the 8 month level right at his chronological age. He shows awareness of new situations, feels and explores objects and reaches around a barrier to get a toy.

9 month checkup

So Benji went to the doctor today for his 9 month check up. Hard to believe he is nine months old already. Dr. Baust was sick so we saw Dr. Seethaler. He was very impressed very impressed with Benji and his abilities. So let's start with the stats

Benji is now 29.5 inches tall and 20.13 pounds. He got four shots today. We had to play catch up since the new doctors do their shots a little differently. So he's all caught up there. They did the hemocrit and it came back good too.

So, Benji's milestones:

• Sits very well without assistance. (this started at 7 months)


• Crawls on hands and knees. (started at 7 1/2 months)


• Will scoot around furniture (walk while holding on). (started at 8 1/2 months)


• Pulls up to standing position. (started at 8 months)


• Responds to his name. (He always has it seems)


• Finger Feed self (he's messy but is trying)


• Picks up small objects between thumb and index finger (sometimes, he usually just gets things in his fist.)


• He babbles more, he says ba, baa, da, da da, bu bu, maa

We are still nursing so Dr. Seethaler said we need to put him on Vitamin D drops.

He eats #2 foods very well. He has to stay away from peaches, mangos and the highly acidic fruits like that, they don't agree with his tummy. Benji also enjoys the fruit and veggie puffs, scrambled eggs sometimes, and instant potatoes. He seems to not like many textures.

Benji is sleeping now since he is a bit cranky after those shots. He is doing well though. Next appointment is in March for one year checkup!