PT

[I was tempted to title this blog entry, "Let's Get Physical", but I just couldn't do it. Sorry, Olivia Newton John!]

Matthew had his six-month pediatrician checkup today, and she said he looks great. Mattie was 13 lbs, 7 oz, and James was 12 lbs, 7 oz, so they're both doing well with their weight gain. Both boys got their Synagis shots and their seasonal flu shots, and Matthew got some of his six-month shots. James goes in for his checkup on Wednesday (I know, I know, we would have been happier if they'd been able to get us in on the same day), and they'll get the rest of their six-month shots then. I learned my lesson from last time and stepped out of the room when they were giving the injections. Just like last time, the babies screamed when they first got the shots, and by five minutes (or less) later, they were fine.

In the afternoon, the physical therapist from Early Intervention came to the house to do their evaluation. (Again, this was not the ideal scheduling, but it was the best we could do with making schedules match up before the new year.) It ended being pretty good timing for James, because he fell asleep in his car seat on the way home from the doctor's office, and slept until just a little while before the PT arrived. She got there just a few minutes after he'd finished a bottle, so he was awake and well-fed.

Matthew, on the other hand, didn't get much of a nap, so he was not at his best during his evaluation -- not too fussy or anything, but clearly a little tired and just not quite his normal self. It didn't really matter, though, since he still did fine. (It was interesting, though, because it was unusual to see him like that. I'm sure this will change as he gets older, but right now, when he's tired, he usually just goes to sleep; he doesn't have to stay up and interact with people.)

She was evaluating them based on their adjusted age, so she was looking for skills that three and a half months olds should be doing. She looked at their eye tracking, head control, what they were doing with their hands, supporting weight on their legs, whether they were favoring one side of their body or the other, and so on. Overall, she said they were doing a lot of good things, their muscle tone was good, and they were generally on track for their adjusted age. The only area that she thought could use improvement (for both of them) is developing strength in their arms with more tummy time. (Oops, we haven't been as good with that as we should be!) She gave us suggestions for other activities to do to help develop some of those skills, such as pulling them up by their arms to a sitting position.

We were very happy to hear that their progress looks good, and it was also really helpful to have suggestions of what else we can do to encourage their development. For instance, when she was assessing Matthew's hearing, she asked if he was more interested in musical or noise-making toys than other toys, and we looked at each other and realized we hadn't really given them many musical or noisy toys yet! I'm sure we have some -- Grandma keeps us well-supplied with baby toys -- but we haven't gone through them recently to see which ones they might have grown into in the past few weeks.

Based on her assessment, Matthew does not qualify for Early Intervention services at this point, which is fine with us, and what we expected to hear. (They can always do another evaluation later on if we start to have concerns about anything.) She also didn't think James needed any physical therapy (yay!), but she'll come back in a month or two to check in and make sure he's continuing to make good progress.