Friday, March 23, 2007

John is walking

Yesterday was John's big day! It has been so interesting to me to observe the developmental paths of 3 kids the exact same age. John was baby A. He was always the biggest during the pregnancy and was the first to come home by 4 weeks.

At 4 months they were all evaluated to determine if they met the qualifications of Georgia's early intervention program, Babies Can't Wait. He was the only one that didn't qualify. He was actually ahead of where he needed to be when you adjusted by his "due date". At 11 weeks early, he was doing great.

It has been really hard for me not to compare their skill sets. So far it's been easy to see their personality differences and appreciate them as individuals. Since John didn't get physical therapy (PT) in the beginning, he slipped behind Lauren and Tyler. Having so many little ones at once puts individual time in jeopardy. And since most parents aren't trained in developmental issues, doing the right things to advance them is hit or miss.

Being a 29 weeker puts you behind the curve a bit. Everything we have read indicates that they should be caught up by age 2. I'm pretty confident that will be the case for all three. But for a while John slipped in his gross motor skills. We had him evaluated again, he qualified for the program and has been getting therapy. Wow what a difference!

Yesterday was therapy day. We were waiting on Marla (physical therapist) to arrive and big brother Austin decided to give John a big bear hug from behind and stand him up. John got this huge grin on his face and just took off. He took about 6 good steps!

In the blink of an eye, we went from three crawlers to three beginning walkers and it won't be long at all before we'll have them running through the grass in the back yard. In anticipation of some backyard play, we're in the market for a swing set.

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5 comments:

Casey's trio said...

Found your blog and wanted to stop and say hello. I have triplet girls who are 19 months old and so much fun! My girls were born at 25.1 weeks and luckily doing fantastic. I love finding other triplet family blogs to read!

All the best,
Casey

Ruby said...

Congratulations, yay John!

In my opinion it doesn't matter what age (early or late) they start to walk. Once they learn, they don't forget:)

The McNulty Family said...

thanks for your note Lynne, love your site!!!

Anonymous said...

WTG John
look out now Mummy LOL

Stacie said...

Yay for John!!