In Which Connor Gains Some Skills!

As you may or may not know, Connor used to be tongue-tied.  Ankyloglossia is the technical term for this, if you'd like to look it up.  Basically the little band of tissue, called the frenulum, under his tongue was too tight: so tight that he couldn't even stick his tongue out of his mouth.  Due to the wide variety of other medical issues we were dealing with at the time, we waited until after he was two years old before we had it corrected, so he wasn't able to really move his tongue around his mouth at all until he was two.

That just makes his new habit all the more adorable. 

Whenever Connor is concentrating very hard on doing something now, he sticks his tongue out.  And not just a little bit out, but way out.  Think Michael Jordon.  Anyway, it's really, really cute and it makes me giggle every time I see it. 

And we've been seeing it a lot recently, because the little guy has been picking up some new skills!  One of the things that's new is that awesome torso twist in the picture above.  Think about all of the coordination this involves; he has to see and focus on the toy, twist his torso, reach across midline, and push the yellow button (the green one only sounds one note, and he wants the toy to play music) to get the toy to play.  He's pretty accurate!  The torso twisting is his newest skill, and it's really exciting because it means he's really getting comfortable coordinating his movements!  He much more confident about twisting to the left and using his right hand than he is about twisting to the right and using his left, but maybe that skill will also come in time.

He's also making some big jumps on the sensory front!  Check out this video-- and that adorable tongue once again-- of him playing with a vibrating pig toy while sitting on a swing at physical therapy today!  He hadn't quite figured out how to activate it yet; he knew exactly where the button was but he kept trying to grab it and pull instead of pushing it so he needed a little help initially.  By the end of the PT session he was really jamming on that button, though!  He also very quickly figured out that if the pig giggled before it started vibrating, than it wouldn't be playing music and he needed to hit it again.  This is extremely encouraging not just because he's allowing both hands, including that super-sensitive left hand, to rest on the pig (a task that would have caused a total, teary-eyed meltdown a year ago) but also because it demonstrates that he's problem solving.  In the past it's usually taken him a couple of weeks to figure out how to activate a new toy even with coaching and reinforcement, but today it only took him about forty minutes! 

I can't wait to see what he's sticking his tongue out about next!

~Jess