He's almost walking ;)

Mendele is onto a one finger hold these days. He walked a block and a half to visit his Bubby! He did do a couple of plops along the way, laughed, got up and continued.

We're very proud.

Have u ever heard that people with DS are good imitators? Well we get to see it first hand. He copies the other kids at his playgroup. Sometimes it's a good thing, and sometimes.....

Mendele is repeating every type of word that he can pronounce. He just mastered the "ee" and "ay" sounds. Until now it has been Mama, Tata, Baba... Now we have a very well stressed MoMEE, ToTEE, BuBEE, ZayDEE. He's loving it! (and so are we, of course)

On Thursday he pointed to a picture and said "Torah." We both took a double look and said what?! He said it again "Torah." Until now it's only been "To"

I'm not even going to try to write down all the words he is saying. Right now we are working on him saying the full word especially the first syllable (for ex: "Baruch' instead of "Ruch") We are also trying to add 2 words together ex: "more juice" instead of just "more."

Cup drinking is still a disaster. Sippy cup is out, because it encourages his tongue to stick out. We are using a sports bottle now, which so far has been doing the trick. He can drink on his own with his tongue in and no spilling!

Spoon feeding is going slow. He knows how and tries, but gets frustrated if the food falls off before the spoon gets to his mouth. (wouldn't that frustrate anyone?) So he still prefers to be fed because of that.

We are also working on getting him to use 2 hands while eating, ie: holding the bowl while he dips the spoon in, or holding the plate while he stabs the fork into food.

Mendele is a real charmer! He has a great sense of humor and we just have so much fun with him!

That's the basic latest for now. All the best!

Happy Purim!!