Evalynn at 11 Months

Evalynn has done really well this month meeting some new developmental goals. At the beginning of August we had Early Childhood Intervention out to our home. I should probably back up and explain Evalynn has never been strong. When we brought her home from the hospital after two weeks in the NICU, Evalynn was the weakest baby I'd ever held. She was so flimsy. There was no strength to her at all. It took her months to learn to hold her head up well. It took weeks and weeks for her to even try and move her head on her own. As time as marched on, she's still stayed very baby like and hasn't hit her milestones. While I wasn't overly worried, and neither was her pediatrician, at almost 9 months we took her in for her 6 month well child (we went without insurance for a few months) and at that time, her doctor said it was now time to have her evaluated. The pediatrician said that if something is wrong, such as cerebral palsy or chromosomal abnormalities, we needed to know. If there wasn't anything technically wrong and she just had a rough start, it was also time to get some therapy and get her muscles to strengthen. She still wasn't bearing any weight on her legs, wasn't rolling over on hard surfaces or to travel, struggling to use eating utensils and not liking baby food, not baby talking much at all. When you are close up with her, she will look you in the eyes, but then she won't hold eye contact after the initial eye lock although she continues to interact with you. She is very very strongly opposed to anyone other than Mom and Dad. She tolerates strangers better than familiar faces. Probably because they haven't tried to take her from her parents yet. She won't help get dress, won't put anything in her mouth except the two fingers she sucks, she won't hold anything with both her hands at the same time. She is no where near crawling, sitting herself up or any of the more age appropriate milestones she "should" be accomplishing. That is why she was referred to ECI. It took a bit of waiting, both on my procrastination and waiting for an available appointment. Which leads us to her first appointment at the beginning of the month...
Evie was evaluated over the course of two hours in six different categories. Self Help (eating, dressing, etc), Social, Communication, Gross Motor, Fine Motor and Cognitive. At the end of the evaluation, the two workers told me that in two of the categories, Evalynn ranked as a newborn. In another category, she ranked at 6 months and another 6.5 months. I couldn't remember the other two rankings and I couldn't remember what categories went with which ranking. However, on their second time out, they told me different numbers. In self help, she ranked 6 months. In social, she ranked 5 months. In communication, she ranked 2 months. In gross motor, she ranked 5 months and in fine motor, she ranked 6 months. Lastly, in cognitive, she was 6.5 months. To be clear, the rankings were done when she was 10 months and 11 days....so just about 10.5 months old. She was very behind and qualified for services. At her initial appointment, the two technicians who came out put my not so worried mind at rest by saying that a lot of what they suspect is going on is sensory issues because of being a NICU baby. However on her second appointment, which she was 11 months, 1 day old for, the technicians seemed more concerned after consulting with their fellow ECI technicians. All of her issues do not fall into sensory issues, and for that matter, don't fall all nice and neat into any category. Evalynn was described as "quite the anomaly" and her second appointment was not really even an official evaluation or therapy. New technicians were sent out just to watch her and get a feel for her and her personality and delays. They wanted to know what her pediatrician had said about her evaluation, but we haven't been in to see her yet as all the well child visits have been booked with the back to school busy season. So, that small worry in the back of my mind is still there a little bit, but for the most part, I'm still just sticking to her rough start being the underlying problem.
Since her initial eval, she has developed some. Here is a list of more of the things she is doing at 11 months.

1. She know grabs our features on our face. 
2. She is "talking" a little more. 
3. She did eat one whole container of baby food in one sitting. There was still a bit of wrestling with her to do so. Mostly, I've just given up on baby food though and moved to table food. She is much happier and loving eating food she can chew. 
4. She's also started to push up on her arms when she's on her tummy. I didn't mention that above, but while she had no problem with tummy time...even preferred it, she never bore any weight on her arms. She has since started and now props herself up on her forearms and elbows. 
5. She just cut her 8th tooth. It's the first one she's cut in 4 months. She was much more miserable this time around.
6. She isn't sleeping quite as much. She is hovering between 1 and 2 naps a day. It just depends on how long and early the first one was. Her first nap has settled into a pretty consistent 2-2.5 hour nap. The second is about 45 minutes-1 hour.
7. She rolls in her sleep now. She is not used to it and this combined with the teething, means she rarely sleeps through the night now. 
8. She prefers Mom and Dad still. It's actually gotten much worse. If we put her on the ground with her sisters, she usually freaks out immediately. If we put her down and get down on the ground with her, she is much more likely to stay. 
9. She loves toys.
10. She still loves to suck her two middle fingers on her right hand. 
11. She's grown to love Daddy even more lately. She gets so excited when he gets home.
12. She doesn't reach for people in a traditional way of holding her arms out, extended towards the person she wants, but she does hold her arms up slightly and leans towards the person slightly. It's enough that Curt and I can tell, and since we are the only people holding her or being requested by her, that's all that matters, I guess. 
13. She loves when her sisters show her videos on my phone. She also likes the TV being on.
14. She hates screaming kids/parents. 
15. She's getting more and more ticklish and more and more tolerant of being tickled. 
16. She's a pro at grabbing everything in arms reach...small or large. She still has yet to put a single thing in her mouth though.