Often Imitated, Part 2

1. More great David-imitation: (a) From watching brother coughing into his elbow, David has learned to fake-cough into his elbow. Doubly funny because Simon is usually fake-coughing to start with. (b) Hilarious: fake snoring. Simon used to fake snore when we put David to bed, when he was having a hard time transitioning from crib to toddler bed. I have no idea why he started this, but he believed it helped/distracted David so he could settle down, and after awhile we were inclined to agree. Now David will dive onto a pillow or blanket on the floor, close his eyes, and snore.

2. Covering his mouth with his hands while he’s giggling. This is something his speech therapist started with him, and it’s really cute. He also seems, in the last month or so, to have rediscovered that he has this belly – often pulling up his shirt, checking to make sure his belly button is still there (I guess). He loves everyone else’s belly button too, especially brother's.

3. Dance moves have improved – now whenever he hears music, he begins waving his arms back and forth as if he is at a concert. He also uses above-mentioned belly as a drum, and kicks his feet.

4. New goals: more active physical and verbal participation in songs/fingerplay. He has a book of a lot of action songs (Wheels on the Bus, If You’re Happy and You Know It) and he brings it to me at least once a day. His favorite for a long time was “Itsy-Bitsy Spider” but he seems to have moved on to “Open, Shut Them.” He is happy for me to do the motions and the singing all day long, I guess, but we’re working on getting him to do it himself. His home-based teacher lent us a big shatter-proof mirror so he can watch himself doing it; the mirror is leaning against a wall in the living room and so far he has mostly used it to try on hats. But we’ll get there.

5. A couple of times in the past few days, he’s brought me a pair of his shoes, and I, thinking we are just playing Shoes, put them on. He, however, goes straight over to the door and tries to open it (fortunately he’s not quite tall enough yet, and we have a security chain). He has recently expressed a new interest in his tricycle – it’s still a little too big but he does now at least enjoy sitting on it, which is an improvement. If my keys or Matt’s happen to be in the floor, he’ll pick them up and head to the door, choosing one key or another and trying to stab it into the doorknob. Pretty great, I think.

Trust me, when you have a kid with a developmental delay/disability, all these little things become really important.