Toy Time

One of the hardest parts of Christian’s developmental delay for me to deal with is the fact that he has been unable to play on his own.  Because he has low muscle tone in his trunk he is still not sitting up all alone.  This leads to me carrying him everywhere.  At our parties and gatherings there are always tons of children underfoot.  The kids in our group of friends have all grown up with a built in group of buddies.  For Christian this has never quite been the case because he simply couldn’t play with them. 

It’s also been an issue when we are home alone.  Since he is only able to play when I am sitting with him in my lap and handing him things my choice is to either ignore everything I need to get done so he can play or prop him up in the corner of the couch and put a movie on so I can do the dishes.  Well since I don’t have a maid, sadly, my son has spent a lot of time on the couch.

Recently I have been making Christian sitting independently my main priority.  We have a family goal of getting him to sit and be able to play all on his own by his second birthday which is in less than a month.  It’s amazing to me that I took for granted that my daughter achieved this same goal at the age of five months.  Since I am back at home with the kids now I have a lot more time to spend working with Christian.  He has improved tremendously in the past couple of months and has been able to sit while propped on his hands like a tripod for longer and longer periods of time.  Although this has been so rewarding, he still falls over when he tries to reach for something or even if his attention shifts.

Today we had a major break through.  Christian sat in his room at a little bench and played, I mean really played, independently for a good thirty minutes.  He would fall over occasionally and I helped him sit back up but for the most part he was on his own.  I watched him organize his little collection of animals and make them dance and talk to each other.  He and Tessie even played together a little and had a very short lived picnic.  Christian ended up hoarding all the food and so Tes moved on to princesses, but it was nice while it lasted. 

Christian looked overjoyed to be playing with his toys all by himself and I just adored watching him.  I will say that towards the end of all of this mushy celebration he took a big fall and whacked his head with an audible thud on the tile which resulted in much needed snuggle time and guilt on my part for not having surrounded my non-sitter with cushions, but what can I say, these things happen.  We ended on a high note, however, and Christian did some excellent sitting again while I read him a book before nap time.  I can honestly say that, to date, I have never witnessed a more beautiful sight than that of Christian playing with his toys like the big boy he really is.