Let Me Hand it to You

When it comes to gross motor skills, Elijah is basically on schedule. He’s walking, running and jumping all over the place. At first glance, he looks like any other 23 month old – something that causes us to rejoice each and every day.

He’s doing so well in his gross motor skills, in fact, that he’s not doing any physical therapy at this time. According to his therapists, Elijah is doing everything he should be doing at this age. That doesn’t mean he doesn’t still have gross motor delays. He’s doing everything he should be when you take into consideration his vision and fine motor issues, i.e. it’d be hard to climb playground equipment if you can’t really see it; it’d be hard to throw a ball (a gross motor skill) if you can’t hold onto a ball (a fine motor skill).

This brings me to one of Elijah’s biggest challenges: the proper use of his hands.

Looking back, Elijah has always been reluctant to use his hands. He’d prefer to use his feet or let his abs do the work instead of his fingers. Once Elijah could hold up his head, he wasn’t willing to lie down. He’d attempt to sit up without using his hands (do you have any idea how much work that takes?! Go ahead – try it – hold your head off of the ground for a few minutes at a time, you’ll have a six-pack in no time).

Recently Elijah has been using his hands much, much more. If you don’t understand what a struggle it has been for him, you won’t understand how significant this next statement is…

Elijah is picking things up from the floor.

That sentence is profound. We’ve been waiting for so long to see Elijah simply pick something up and now he’s doing it. It may not seem like much, but this has really been a breakthrough. I love seeing him walking around the house with various items. Rings, rattles, towels, a cloth book, his shoe. I even rejoice when he pulls down the curtains…well...maybe not

All I know is that things are changing in Elijahland and we couldn’t be more thrilled.

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