With flying colors...

...Charlie passed his Early Steps evaluation last week.  It's an amazing program in Florida (and other states) for early developmental intervention, and we've suspected for a while that Charlie has delays in speech (for various reasons). So I made an appointment and took him in.

While the therapists acknowledged delays in the speech department, they believe the delays are totally expected given his background and the short time he's been home with us. They want him to have at least a year to catch up before considering intervention services.

Charlie passed in every other area, too. He was so cute during the evaluation, and I loved watching him interact with four therapists at once. He knows how to work the room!  They had bubbles in their possession, so he was pretty thrilled to play with them.

There were a couple of times when Charlie became uncomfortable and began to cry, so I scooped him up on my lap, kissed him a hundred times, and gave him the reassurance he needed. After that, he was fine and resumed his evaluation. I was a very proud Mommy.

Even though Charlie was denied services, I am so glad that I took him in. It definitely gave us some peace of mind about his development, especially his speech. And we were given some great tips for helping him use words. One of them is the "delayed response" technique in which I need to hold out on what he wants until he stops crying/screaming and actually uses a word. Yikes. That's usually when I cave!