"Baby Steps"

As most of our family and friends know, Joey has a lot of sensory & oral-motor challenges. He has been in an early intervention program for almost ten months now...and has improved in so many areas! And one HUGE milestone happened over the weekend. Joey finally knows how to drink from a straw! Huge! Gives me goosebumps every time I think about it. We are such the proud parents! 

Approaching the weekend, we knew we had to wean Joey off the sippy cup. Because he is speech delayed, drinking from a sippy cup delays the process of using certain parts of your mouth to develop a particular 'consonant'.  Joey hasn't perfected the skill of drinking from a cup just yet...although it's definitely emerging. Up until this point, his occupational therapist has been working closely with using tools to help him to chew (Joey has never developed the natural ability to chew), blow, suck, providing (pureed) food with different temperatures & textures...basically, anything that will improve his ability to process sensory/oral information. We weren't sure exactly how weaning him off the sippy cup would play out since we didn't have a lot of options to choose from other than a straw or some type of sports bottle. Either way, we had to wean him off. So, if you know a thing or two about 'feeding tools' -- Joey's OT advised us to try the honey bear . 

As parents of a special needs child, we have learned to 'slow down' in everything that we do. "Baby Steps" is something we were told from day 1 when we had Joey evaluated from the regional center. Baby Steps in regards to our expectations of Joey, his progress...  So times like these, just makes it so much more rewarding and fulfilling. It validates all the hard work put forth from Joey, us and his therapists! 

Cheers!

(photo taken by Daddy on his cellphone, we needed a camera fast!)