Shelby Updates

It has been a while since we've written about Shelby.  So much has changed with her in the past few months so this post is past-due.

She has been sitting up from a lying position without assistance for a few weeks now.  I had been thinking she would start doing this for a while now, but she seems hesitant to do anything until she really knows she has mastered it.  Now it seems effortless.

Her PT has been going really well, and she has been spending a lot of time on her hands and knees, and can even pull up to that position from lying as well.  I really feel like she will be crawling soon.  She's also getting better at standing (while supported) and can pull up to standing pretty much on her own.

One of our biggest concerns of late has been her feeding.  She has never been one to eat much, and she has always thrown up at the slightest hint of texture or because of new flavors.  Well, I don't want to jinx ourselves, but we have seen some good improvement in this area as well.  We have been doing these mouth exercises with her twice a day for a couple months now.  Also, we have been steadily increasing the thickness of her baby food over the last two weeks.  I think all this has helped tremendously - she is now eating a pretty thick mix of food (one which even a month ago would have been unthinkable) and she hasn't thrown up in weeks.  Her appetite seems to have increased in the last few week too.

Shelby is also becoming a bit of a chatter box lately.  While she still does a lot of the baby sounds, she has a quite a few words as well - mom (ma), dady (da da), baby (ba), milk (mi), bop, papa, and a few others I am forgetting.  She also knows a lot of words that she can't verbalize yet such as body parts, her brothers name, her grandparent, etc.

So, in short, Shelby keeps amazing us and we are very proud of her.