My little (TV) star!

Ok just a quick update. No photos but today was such a big day for Alex.
Today Alex had his appointment at the children's hospital to see the speech pathologist. Everything went really well and we got some great advice for his feeding. Good thing Graham took notes because there's so much to remember. I still don't have it all straight in my head.
3 months ago when we got the referral for Alex we were concerned about his speech. He wasn't saying as much as a child his age was supposed to and what he was saying wasn't clear. I know all children develop at their own pace so I wasn't concerned that he wouldn't be able to talk but I thought there might be something I should be doing to teach him that I just didn't know about. Kind of like when he had his 12 month assessment and ranked 8-9 months for fine motor skills because I hadn't been letting him play with small things (I was afraid he would eat them).
Anyway fast forward to this week and he has been babbling none stop and playing games getting me to name everything for him and popping out all sorts of new words (shu for shirt today). So I've been really pleased with his speech. I'm still the only person who can understand everything he says but it's obvious that he is advancing really well. So I didn't think we would get a lot from todays appointment and I guess speech wise we didn't but we get a lot of ideas for food (eating and speech are linked).
Basically he is too young for them to be able to tell if has problems (like with his tongue) that will effect his pronunciation. He needs to be talking more, combining words etc for them to assess that and then we can get help if I'm still the only one who can understand him. At this stage we are already doing all the right things, repeating words for him, showing him simple combinations of words and it's clear that he has a great understanding of what we say and what he is using words for. Apparently if he was drooling a lot it would be a cause for concern, something he was doing a bit today but he only does it when he is holding food in his mouth, which he was today.
We spent about 2 hours looking at the way he eats. Alex doesn't chew his food. He will hold something and nibble on it with his front teeth but once any food is in his mouth he will swallow it whole. Sometimes he just keeps it there and drools for a while until it is soft and then use his fingers to push it back but he isn't using his tongue to move food to the sides to chew. So he has most of his food mashed and if he encounters a lump that he has to gulp to swallow he will then refuse any more for that meal. So today he got to eat all sorts of things to demonstrate this and the speechie did the same sort of things I do trying to show him chewing. We now have a list of foods to try him with that will hopefully get him chewing and we have to try and guide the (finger) foods into the sides of his mouth. Surprisingly a lot of the suggestions are 'junk' type foods I would not normally buy like those round cheese crisp things. The idea being that they are tasty and easy to hold for nibbling on but will dissolve in the mouth. Not sure I can bring myself to give him stuff like that with flavour enhancer 621 (MSG) and 635? and preservatives and colouring etc but we may be able to find similar healthy alternatives. Pieces of raw apple and raw carrot are out even though he will nibble on those. They now have to be slightly cooked. Apparently they can confuse a child learning to chew because they are hard and need chewing but they are also juicy and need more swallowing. I think I understand, the child will get a mouthful of juice and swallow it before the food is chewed enough, find it uncomfortable and then reject the food.
Hmmm what else, we covered his daily food and drink intake, she suggested juice which I haven't been giving him. My idea is he can have fruit but juice is just an unnecessary sweet drink. If he is happy with water and milk then there's no need for juice and he can get more nourishment from the fruit itself. The speechie called the nutritionist who agreed with me (phew nice to know I'm not a mean mom) but we do have a plan in place now to reduce his milk intake which will hopefully increase his food intake but I will have to get him to have more water to keep up his fluids when he is having less milk. He has caught up really well with his growth so we can afford to drop one of his daily bottles completely now and he has been getting better with a cup so once we can move him to just a cup his milk intake should drop naturally because he will drink less from a cup. I don't know if I'm explaining it well enough but it all makes sense in my head and it's really good to have a plan.
As for his habit of sticking his tongue in the cup, no tips for that. It's something he should worked out as he learns that he can move his tongue around for eating.
Overall she was really impressed with Alex. She last saw him when he was about 10 months old (about 7 months corrected) when he was below the 3rd percentile for growth and now he is in the 50th percentile so she showered us with compliments about what a great job we'd done etc. I think we've just been incredibly lucky. Yes I put a lot of time and effort into feeding Alex so he will grow but I know other prem parents go through the same stress but don't have as much success. It doesn't mean we do a better job than them or try any harder, we are just so very very lucky. It's actually rare that I can go to bed at the end of the day feeling happy that Alex has eaten enough.
Anyway she was also impressed with Alex's concentration, his curiosity, socialness etc etc. She said he obviously wants to learn all about the world and is ready to leap ahead with his speech. She had a locked book case there and Alex could see the books and wanted to get to them. He tried quite a few tricks to get to them while we were talking but the cutest thing was when he took the car keys and tried to unlock the book case. It surprised me. Oh and he picked up a chair, turned it on it's back and stood between the legs to push it around making car noises. Something that didn't seem unusual to me but the speechie noticed it and was impressed with his imagination. Must admit no-one has ever shown him how to do that but sometimes I just don't recognise these things he does as developmental progression. My first instinct would have been to stop him before he hit anything and pick the chair up.
We are to go back in 6 months if Alex isn't stringing words together and we will get a report in the mail.
Tonight we put his new food plan into action. Instead of soft scrambled eggs he had an omelet with ham. Cooked firm enough that we could cut it into finger food but still it was soft enough that he could swallow it without chewing. He did well with it. He nibbled bits off with his front teeth but after a while he would take a bite and still be making a chewing motion after the food was in his mouth (just one or two chews). He still needs to get that food to the side of his mouth but he did well. It was a slow process so he only ate half his omelet where as if we had scrambled the eggs he would have had the lot (usually) but afterwards he had some icecream with pieces of biscuit and when we had dinner he some veg off my plate. He usually gets some pieces of whatever we are eating to play with while we eat. Then he had half his milk in a cup, didn't wear too much of it and then he finished it in the bottle.
A good night.
Oh and during dinner he was on TV! Big Brothers Friday Night Live games. During the week they asked people to send in photos wearing masks to look like the hosts. I sent them a photo of Alex with a Mike Goldman mask on and they showed it during the show! So not only was Alex on TV but so was one of my photos.
I wish I'd recorded it.
OK the cats are bolting around playing chasing so it must be time for bed. It's funny how quickly Critchon came out to say hello tonight once Alex was in bed.
hehehe no photos so here's a drawing of Critchon.