I don't even know where to start, so much has changed from last year. The biggest changes from 2 to 3 years old is the walking and the talking. David walks everywhere, he still wears shoe inserts (smo's). He does not run or jump. He says he is running and walks really fast with his arms held out behind him. His talking is huge for him, he can do two word combinations like "bye daddy", "woody on", "daddy 'ome (home)". He mimics anything you say. He does not speak very clearly but we understand. He says words spontaneously now, which is a big deal for him. He knows his colors. He knows some letters. He still signs a lot which helps when I can't understand what he is saying he pairs the sign with the word.
David is still very social. He says hi to everyone when we are out. He is very drawn to adults. He loves to get peoples attention and make them smile. He does not like it when other kids cry or scream, it upsets him greatly.
Zachary is still the best big brother ever. He loves David, he is starting to understand what Down Syndrome means. He has decided he will do all of David's homework when he starts school so David will never be behind. He helps David and keeps him from getting into trouble (such as running across the street or escaping out the doggy door).
David's favorite people are Daddy, Zachary, and then maybe mommy. He loves the dogs but is often seen pulling out their hair or kicking them or hitting them with a bat.
David still sleeps in a crib. This is mostly to contain him. He often wakes during the night. He still takes a 2 hour nap every day.
David is still 100% tube fed. Hoping to be in intensive therapy by June. The goal is just to get him swallowing. It will be a long road until he can eat by mouth. We are still hopeful, although some days I get discouraged.
David does what most kids do. He likes the park. He likes to catch and throw a ball. He likes to swing and go down the slide. He likes to be silly. He loves to help clean things and helping with laundry. He loves to climb (I still don't know how he does that so well). He just takes longer to learn things. He has to be taught how to kick and jump and then we have to wait for the muscle strength and control to be at a point where it can all come together and he makes it happen.
David appears to be healthy. His heart is fine, his lungs are fine. He has some swallowing issues, some of that is medical. He sees quite a few specialists, more than everyone combined in the family. He does not go to the dentist. Between his oral aversion and his slowness at teething we have not attempted this yet. He finally has all of his top teeth, last one is coming through right now. On the bottom some are still missing and they look terribly strange and arrived in a haphazard order.
This upcoming year will be busy with intensive feeding therapy this summer followed by pre-school in August.
He will be attending the same school as Zachary, the local elementary school. We are in a well known school district for special needs, Deer Valley Unified. That is just luck we have lived in this house for 10 years. His preschool teacher just happens to have a daughter that use to be fed by g-tube. They have a knew program that includes a sign language interpreter and a teacher from the school of deaf and blind. There will be 18 children, 4 of those are typically developing (siblings of the others), most of the others are delayed in one area primarily speech. The program has 5 adults. This may not sound like a great ratio to you, but right now he has two adults and 22 kids in his class. He will continue to spend half the day at his daycare he goes to right now where he is the only special needs student.
We have not started potty training due to the g-tube. Because of the tube he still wears a onesie under his shirt (so he won't mess with his tube). Kind of hard to practice sitting on the potty with a shirt hanging down. He also cannot pull up and down his own pants yet. He is getting better at this and hopefully we will be working on this in the next year too.
