Development Journal ( 2 ½ Years Old)

Aiya continues to fill us with joy every day, a little smile or a cheeky grin melts my heart. Some parents might worry that big milestones aren’t being achieved, but for me the main thing is that she is happy and healthy. This little girl has come a long way considering what was predicted for her and if you were told your child would never be, every moment is a blessing.

In the past few weeks Aiya has started to show excitement when she sees me, she gives me a beautiful smile and rocks her whole body indicating she wants me to pick her up. She babbles a lot more and makes lots of deliberate sounds that are early signs of communication. She may not be able to speak but she’s able to get our attention and somehow let us know what she wants.

People have commented on how much bigger she looks yet physically she’s not grown much in the past 6 months, however she is stronger and consequently sits upright more, observing people around her. Aiya is not rolling, crawling or walking yet and I think I’ve said this before but she has no desire to move. If I leave her on the floor she just cries and as I’m such a soft touch I pick her up. Some would say I should leave her to cry and see what she does but neither me nor my husband are inclined to upset her more than she needs to be. Life is hard enough for her as it is, I don’t intend to make it harder for her by denying her the physical contact she craves. My parenting style with both my children has been to concentrate on their strengths. Aiya loves people making eye contact with her and talking and singing to her, so we do a lot of intensive interaction and we’ve seen some big steps in her interaction with others. She’s started to clap too, but she doesn’t see what all the fuss is about, and will only do it when she thinks no one is around. She’s much more interested in making me the dancing monkey who claps for her, which gets more of a laugh than her doing it herself.

Aiya is thriving at nursery and it’s been great for her social development although not so good for her health. She’s been ill on and off since the start of September and we’ve had precautionary visits to A&E to make sure nothing grave was happening. However there is a fine balance between making sure she is getting the correct level of stimulation and protecting her from infections. Aiya’s immunologist has decided to start her on immunoglobulin therapy to give her the boost she needs over the winter period.  We’re hoping this will give her a little more resilience when she’s ill and help us all live as normal a life as possible given the everyday challenges we face.