A Brief Update

Well, another year has passed, and I've had to take another break from blogging. 2012-2013 have had their share of ups and downs for us, but I won't go into much detail as we'd be here for a while. But, I will give you an update on Peyton.

Let's see, when last I wrote, Peyton was turning 3 and was in Early Intervention, Speech Therapy, Occupational Therapy, and ABA - sound familiar? Peyton turned 3 and we enrolled him in an inclusive preschool in Palo Alto, Milestones Preschool which is part of the Abilities United non-profit agency which helps people with physical, neurological and developmental delays and disabilities from birth to adulthood. It's an amazing organization and I'm so happy that we chose to send Peyton to their preschool.

Peyton has shown tremendous progress over the past year! He's made many friends and loves to play with other kids, he's become extremely social! And his language has just exploded! We can hold conversations! It's amazing! This May, Peyton was ready to move to the Milestones Pre-K program and he has just flourished over the past three months in that class!

Besides Milestones, Peyton also qualified for a twice-weekly social skills group and 30 minutes of speech therapy. He had so much fun in his groups which just helped get him to where he is today. He'll go back in September; I'm just waiting for the letter from the School District letting us know when his services will take place.

And, we also enrolled him in a weekly social skills group through the Abilities United Therapy Clinic. He started out in the group for 3-4 year olds and mastered his goals enough to move up to the 4-5 year old group in May.

We're just thrilled with all the progress Peyton has made over the past year. And are so thankful to all of the providers and teachers and friends!

He also continues to swim every week and was deemed "water safe" two weeks ago! I wasn't sure that he'd ever be able to swim but he can now swim across the pool, taking breaths, and can float on his back! He's my little fish!

This summer, Milestones preschool has decided to take a "trip around the world", each week studying about a different continent and the cultures of the countries. So far, they've learned about the U.S., South America, Europe, China and India, Australia, and are learning about Africa this week. Peyton has been fascinated by geography and can now build the U.S. puzzle and can name and recognize 42 states (New England is grouped into one puzzle piece as well as PA, NJ, DE, MD so those are harder for him to identify). I also found a great map set at Coscto (for under $15!) of a laminated World map and a laminated US map. He loves them! 

AND, he's getting great at spelling and reading!!

So, that's what Peyton has been up to. He loves his room in our new house (we moved in January) and now has the family room all to himself for his train table and toys and books and puzzles and other activities; we've dubbed it PeytonLand.

Thanks for stopping by!

Trains and Spelling

Life has been crazy at the Stafford house recently, so I apologize for not posting any new updates lately.

Peyton is doing very well! He started his school district classes in September. He attends a social skills group two mornings a week and has 30 minutes of speech therapy prior to his social skills group one day. The group that he's currently in is comprised of 5 kids all with some language delays which are causing delays in socialization. Last week, I met with his teacher and she told me that Peyton's language skills are above what she's teaching in his current group, so she will be creating a new group for him and one of his classmates starting in November, that will focus exclusively on applying his language to socialization. James and I are very pleased that the teacher is willing to make this change so early in the school year!

The three other days of the week, he continues to go to his inclusion preschool at Milestones, part of Abilities United. He loves it there! He's made some great friends. Our little guy is growing up; he now calls me "Mom" and James "Dad". Rarely, he'll call us Mommy and Daddy, but he's definitely not a little baby any more!

Potty training has derailed - up through last week, he was able to pee and poo on the potty, but just wouldn't tell us when he had to go. Then on Sunday, he refused to go to the potty AND refused to get his diaper dirty. This caused big messes at night. :-( So, I've had to beg him to go in his diaper and we'll revisit the potty another time. (He'll go at school, sometimes, so it's definitely a control issue on his part - my little Taurus).

But, I'm happy to tell you that Peyton has started to SPELL! He can tell you what letter words start with, and has learned to spell his own name. We are so proud of him!