Puzzles

Liam goes for his 3 month re-check for developmental delay next week. At his first check, they thought everything was pretty much within or close to the normal ranges, and we know he has made a lot of progress since then, so we're hoping that everything will be deemed okay and we will be released from the Children's Hospital neruodevelopment department. (Each visit ends up costing about $450 in co-pays, so we really don't want to go unless we have to.)

In the past 3 months we've been trying to introduce a number of things to help Liam develop his skills.

• These puzzles (inexpensive, from Target) encourage the pincher grasp and are good for all around hand/eye coordination. Liam likes the noise they make.


• This book has little holes in the pages where the fish eyes are, and Liam loves to poke at them with his pointer finger. (The Very Hungry Caterpillar works the same way.)


• We got a variety of pull toys and encourage walking forwards and backwards (both of which Liam does well now) and walking over a variety of surfaces and obstacles (no problem).


• Liam goes to "book babies" which is what story hour is now called, at the library.


• We tracked down the nanny-share family and even though the nanny sharing part isn't going to work out (I'll update on that some time in the future), Will has been good about taking Liam over to play one morning a week, so he gets some time playing with a (slightly older and already talking) kid.

So, all in all, like I wrote before, it would be nicer if Liam didn't need to be followed in this way, but we are hoping that next week's visit to the doctor will be reassuring and it sure will be interesting to see how Liam does on the developmental assessment test this time.