Making headway

There you go Arabella! Way to use both hands 😏

I sure love seeing her do these little tremendous things. It's every parent's pride and joy to see their child flourishing.

We had someone from Infant and Child Development (ICD) come to see Arabella today. ICD is an early intervention and prevention program for families with children experiencing (or at risk for) developmental delays. It's a free program funded by the Ministry of Child and Youth Services, and best of all - they drive out to you! Pretty sweet, right? 

So now we have a pro tracking Belle's developmental progress 😊. It means another set of eyes to assist mom and dad. We can be sure we're doing everything possible to help Arabella move forward.

The developmental consultants observe, report, and recommend. Their job is to monitor Arabella's progress, track her milestones, and provide us with practical strategies moving forward.  

Today was simply an introductory session, but the lady that came to see Arabella was quite impressed with her. Kiera and I were thrilled!

We basically went over everything that Arabella has been doing lately (this is straight from the lady's notes):

• Social smiles
• Follows objects and people with her eyes
• Very alert
• Likes to kick
• Grasps onto toys for a short time
• Swats at toys, bats at toys
• Holds soother in mouth
• Brings hands together to mouth
• Brings a toy to mouth
• Found her tongue, playing with it, clicking her tongue

And these are things we should continue doing with her:

• Continue tummy time 
• Look at books with mom + dad
• Talk and sing to Arabella and celebrate her new skills

In the next two to three months we should see Arabella hold and grasp toys for longer periods of time. As she gains practice and dexterity, she will eventually be able to transfer objects from one hand to another. Things like head control will continue to get better as she gets stronger. She'll start to babble more, too. Oh boy!

So many fun and awesome milestones await.

Without a doubt, these early years shape brain development and influence lifelong learning more than any other years. Kiera and I know how important this time is (and always has been) for Arabella. We've worked hard on promoting developmental growth since she was born. 

Ah yes, the old incubator days. 

That's why we were always cuddling her, talking to her, reading, singing, hand-hugging, and even massaging her. No plastic container was going to keep us away from our little girl. We wanted to show her all the love we had for her, and at the same time enhance her development as much as possible.

It feels really good to hear people tell us that they're surprised with Arabella's progress. It makes me think back to all those countless hours we spent just hanging out in the hospital. 

We devoted ourselves for a reason. We knew how disruptive a premature birth was to a child's development, and we wanted to make sure we gave Arabella all we could. 

The least we could do was give her the most of ourselves...and I'm so glad we did 💗