I promised an update on Max’s medical appointments this week, so here you go! On Wednesday we had Maxwell’s physical therapy evaluation. They evaluated both his fine and his gross motor skills. He did great on the fine motor assessment, which involved doing things like putting Cheerios in a small container (of course some went in his mouth), “coloring” with a crayon, and turning the pages of a book. He was 13.5 months on the day of testing and his fine motor skills were at a 15 month level. Gross motor was a different story, as we expected. The physical therapist warned me before she scored the test that his gross motor would be really low, just because he isn’t doing any crawling. Sure enough, he scored at a 7 month level, or a 40% delay. This qualifies him for Early Intervention services, so a physical therapist will be coming to our home and working with Max probably once a week, and also coaching us on things to work on with him. The good news was the therapist said she didn’t see any red flags that this would be a long-term problem. She said she could see that Max knew what he needed to do, he just doesn’t have the strength to do it. He has low muscle tone, so he starts to do something, it feels unstable, and then he stops and relies on his charm to get us to reach whatever he wants. So we need to work on encouraging him to get things on his own and helping him to get to what he wants. She also showed me a few things to do with him to work on building his strength. After the appointment my mom took Max home again and I went back to work. Mom called me shortly and said that Max was in his crib for naptime, repeatedly pulling himself to a stand and flopping down, which he hadn’t done yet. So I guess the eval gave him a little motivation!

Yesterday was our pediatric ophthamology appointment to assess Max’s slight bit of lazy eye. This runs in my family so we wanted to be extra cautious about getting it checked out. We had to drive almost an hour to and from the office and then were there for almost two hours, and Max was a champ. He was examined by the nurse, then examined by the doctor, then the nurse came back and put drops in to dilate his eyes, then we waited for the drops to take effect, then he had another exam from the doctor. Quite the afternoon! We got good news; the eye doctor said that Max’s eyes are very healthy, look great, and he does not need glasses. He thinks that the condition will most likely correct itself. Max will go back in a couple of months to have the nurse check him, and they will continue to monitor him for the next year. If it gets worse, then we will need to intervene, but otherwise it should just get better and better. That was great to hear. Max also got lots of admiration for his cuteness while we were there, which is always fun.

Here’s a few random pictures from the last month that I haven’t shared yet. In honor of Mother’s Day coming up, a couple of Max with Grandma. This was out to lunch at a local spot that has a train that runs around above the tables, a definite hit.

Here’s Grandma saying “Choo choo!” as the train comes around the corner:

On the way home that day Max was reading one of his all-time favorite books, “Hippos Go Berserk” in the car. First upside-down, then right-side up:

Getting ready to do some Costco shopping and tasting of free samples:

For his birthday, Max’s Oma and Opa got him a little table and chairs. Here he is checking it out and demonstrating his “scrunchy face:”