Sam is now 1 year old!

He’s still not crawling or walking, but he’s sitting up on his own. He managed that skill at 11 months, which is very good for a 29-week preemie that had a grade 4 IVH which was then complicated by hydrocephalus. His PT, neurologist, neurosurgeon, ophthalmologist, and pediatrician are quite happy with him. Side note – an infant should not have so many doctors, but I digress.

PT thinks he’ll soon be army crawling. The main hold up for that and sitting up on his own seems to be that he’s weak on the right side, which is likely a direct result of the brain bleed.

He’s also behind on speech and some fine motor skills but we’re working with him on that along with everything else – Shandy stays quite busy with him. The OT evaluator thinks he probably does have some of the fine motor skills but he’s too busy focusing on gross motor control to show them off – an odd paradox in a way.

One of the first things we had to work with him on was getting him to track and follow objects with his eyes and head and to reach for things. We found out about five months ago that part of the problem is he’s extremely far sighted, even for a baby and his eyes were crossing,

We got him glasses, but they also recommend bright objects, things that light up and thing that flash and which are, therefore, easier to see. As it happens, infants share an affinity for shiny objects with cats.

If I hold up a coin, he’ll consistently look at it take it from me. He seems to quite like them. If I give him just one, he’ll take it and switch it between his hands, work it between his fingers and manipulate it with both hands. It seems like this should be good for fine motor development and he seems to find them interesting. They also seem like a good shape for making him practice a pincer grasp, which is something OT says he needs to work on. If he gets one in each hand, he’ll bang them together.

My wife watches all this and says, “He’s definitely yours.”

I’m the only one that gives him coins. She, meanwhile, insists on being boring, and gives him baby toys.

Here are some of his 1^st birthday and cake smash photos:

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 Nope. I don’t like the little bugger at all. 😊