Duck Pond

These were taken almost 2 weeks ago; I'm trying to catch up.  Mike has taken Ben to a park and duck pond across town several times.  I went along this time.

Ben is too big for our toddler swing but still afraid to hang onto the big swings by himself.  But oh boy does he love swinging with Daddy.

Considering climbing the slide ladder all by himself.

Yeah, that's more like it.

He almost changed his mind but went down the slide once.  Then back to the swing.

Checking out the ducks.  It's not obvious in the photo but part of the pond was still frozen.

Heading home.

This was before we started restricting the pacifier to bedtime.  That went much better than I thought it would.  Every time Ben woke up, we would take his pacifier from him and hide it in another room, telling him that he would have it again when he went to bed next time.  The first couple times were rough.  Then he only cried for a few minutes.  After about three days of this, one time he woke up and just handed me the pacifier.  He hasn't fussed about it since.  As long as he knows that pacifier will be in his crib when he goes to sleep, he's fine.  And he has even started to suck his thumb sometimes.

So Many Appointments

I haven't posted much about all the appointments and evaluations Ben has had in the last few months, and it seems about time to summarize what we've been up to.  When he had his 2-year checkup before Christmas, the pediatrician was concerned about his speech development and referred us to a speech pathologist.  We saw her in January and she was very concerned that his speech had regressed a lot since we came to Germany.  She was also concerned about his personal-social skills.  First, she asked that we make an appointment with a pediatric specialist to evaluate his development more thoroughly.  Second, she put in a referral to the early intervention office.

A special ed preschool teacher from early intervention came to the house to do another evaluation of Ben.  That determined that Ben had enough issues to qualify for the early intervention program.  She and another speech therapist evaluated him again later.  From that, they determined that while he was still within the normal limits for personal-social skills, his communication is quite delayed.  The teacher and speech therapist came back last week to interview me & Mike in order to come up plan for working with him in the next few months.  I am glad to know that they will be helping with issues other than speech, like how unbelievably independent and strong-willed Ben is.

Early on in this process, the early intervention teacher was concerned that Ben never had a proper hearing test and has had a little fluid in his ears every time we've taken him to the doctor since last summer.  So she made it possible for us to make an appointment with an audiologist.

Ben saw the audiologist about a month ago.  She gave him a hearing test, and after she poked around in his ears with some instruments, she said that he had some fluid in his left ear that was preventing the eardrum from vibrating.  This was definitely the reason that he didn't respond to the low tones from the left.  She also said that if he has fluid in his ears he may not be hearing some sounds, specifically consonants.  So this is why he sometimes leaves off the beginning or end of a word.  She scheduled another hearing test (at the beginning of April) and suggested that I go back to the pediatrician if he shows any signs of ear problems.  He has been tugging at his right ear, so I take him on Friday to check for fluid.  I don't know what the chances are of him getting tubes to drain any fluid that might be there, but the audiologist said that if we don't make any progress with the pediatrician that she will try to refer Ben to an ear/nose/throat doctor.

It also took a long time to get an appointment with the pediatric specialist, but we're so glad we saw her.  She evaluated Ben for an hour and a half.  She was awesome.  She said that she understands why Ben's healthcare providers have been concerned that he has "lost" speech since we came here, and that a big concern for a kid like this would be autism, but she doesn't think he's autistic and provided a bazillion reasons why not.  She said that a big move like we made can be really disruptive for little kids, and she emphasized the importance of keeping routines to give him some sense of stability.  But she also talked about how incredibly persistent Ben is, even for a toddler, and how we need to overcome the challenge of providing structure and discipline for him.

Talking to the specialist really motivated me & Mike to try harder to be consistent with Ben.  The specialist suggested we start out with one behavior and add on from there.  We have had a hard time getting Ben to sit in his high chair for meals, so we started with that.  We have been making him sit in his high chair (or the Big Boy chair at the table) any time he eats a meal or snack.  He still resists but understands that if he wants to eat, that's where he'll be doing it.  After about ten days of that, we also took the pacifier from him when he wasn't sleeping.  The pacifier has snuck back into use during the day over the last few months.  Now he only sees it in the crib.  This has brought many tears and tantrums, but he seems to understand that he won't get it if he's not sleeping.  It is really hard for us to be more persistent than Ben is, but we are sticking to our guns.

Sorry for the all-text post...more photos soon.

Bazaar

 

 We were spoiled by a few days of warm weather last week.  Then it snowed again, just in time for the weekend.  We went out anyway on Saturday to a bazaar at one of the local bases.  I had gone to one there in the fall and found a lot of great stuff.

 

Mike at the cheese booth, always one of the most popular stands.  We got there early so he didn't have to fight to get free samples.  We ended up buying cheese, beer, jelly, and soap.

Even though Ben never left the stroller at the bazaar, he was tuckered out on the way home.  Sleep has been irregular this week.

Trying to cram himself into his DVD basket.

We got Ben a toy piano around Christmastime.  He had so many toys that we decided to give it to him later...and then forgot about it.  Mike put it together and Ben went to town.  He also likes playing with one of the household cleaning sponges.

Sometimes eggs are the only way to get this kid to eat protein.  He's getting much better about eating with a fork and spoon, but he gets impatient and makes scrambled eggs into a finger food.

This is the glass door to our living room.  Not only can Ben now latch it closed, but he can also reach the door handle and open it again.  In a related story, I just got a baby gate to install at the top of the stairs for when we transition him to a toddler bed.  That will probably happen in the next couple of months.

Letters on the Keyboard

Ben has been saying letters from the alphabet for several months.  He can say most of them in some form now.  He can also locate letters on the keyboard.  His toy laptop has a game where it shows a letter on the screen and he is supposed to press that letter on the keyboard.  Most of the time he gets it.  Sometimes he presses the wrong letter over and over on purpose.  This video is really dark, but I didn't want to turn on the living room light and spook him.  Getting a video of him playing this game or saying letters is like getting a photo of the Loch Ness monster.

Cabin Fever

 

Bad weather has kept us inside much of the last few weeks.  But whenever we did get out, Ben always picked up some germs.  Poor thing has been sick a lot this winter.  I think this pic was from when he got a stomach bug.

  

 Can't remember if he got this popsicle for a sore throat or because he fell and hit his head.  It looks like he's not digging the popsicle...

  

 but he totally is.

  

 This one's from today.  Just when I thought he was getting over a cold, he got a terrible cough yesterday.  He wouldn't take a nap, then had a fitful night's sleep.  Also, he has three pacifiers.

  

 Here's some proof that he has had some good times lately.  He likes pointing to things in his books, especially when Daddy's counting.

  

 I don't remember how he got into this position, but once he did, he wanted to be tickled.

When the Pacifier Was a Constant Friend

 

 Most of these are from early January, when Ben had an all-access pass to his pacifier.  For various reasons (the strongest being his colds and stomach bug this winter), he wanted it all the time.  We let him use it until after he started kindergarten.  Now it's just for sleep.

  

Two peas in a pod.

  

Checking out momma's new boots...

  

and trying to climb into the box they came in.

  

He certainly is an entertainer.  I've faced it - this is his hat now.

  

The bicycle helmet was a Christmas gift from Grandma Fran & Grampy Bill.  We haven't found a bike for him yet, but that won't keep him from wearing the helmet.

  

Hey, no pacifier in sight!

  

Of course.

  

Aww, he made himself a snuggly fort.

  

Hmmm... I promise, that is a brand new toilet brush that he's combing his hair with.

Once Ben had gotten adjusted to preschool, we took the pacifier except during naps & bedtime.  We also only allowed TV during the hour before bed.  At times it seemed like we had a tiny drug-addicted shrieker on our hands.  But he lived to tell the tale.  The pacifier was a tough one at first but he's at the point to now where he wakes up, comes downstairs, and puts the pacifier down voluntarily.  The TV has been tougher.  During the first few days of limited TV he rediscovered every toy in the house.  Then the "new" wore off and he was begging for his DVDs.  We have to be really careful about unplugging any electronics that have monitors attached.  This morning he tried to play Ice Age on this computer.  I gave in and turned on the TV.  I figure it's like Saturday morning cartoons.

Snow, Snow, Snow

 

 It's been an unusually snowy winter for Germany.  Now it's finally starting to melt, but last week we had many inches of snow and took Ben out to the backyard to play in it.

  

 He was excited just to put his snowsuit and boots on.

  

 Daddy knows how to get Ben to smile.

  

 Some snow got into his mittens.

  

 It wasn't easy for him to trek through the yard in those big boots.

  

 He managed, though.  Here he's trying to go up the steep little hill at the edge of the yard.

  

 Checking out the swing that was totally covered with snow.  He gave up on trying to get in it.

When he refused to keep his mittens on but was upset about his hands being cold, we decided to call it quits.  Ben was quite unhappy with this decision and threw one of the biggest tantrums we've seen in awhile.  But we didn't give in, and we didn't give him his pacifier or turn on the TV (those are the fastest ways to calm him down).  He eventually got over it.  I think all of us have been making a lot of progress in the past few weeks.