This little guy wants to move.

Our little foster son is almost 16 months.  He has been with us for around six months.  He seems to be developmentally pretty on track for a little guy with Down Syndrome.  That is my mama bear opinion anyway.  He is 9 - 10 kilograms (about 20 pounds).  That is a gain of about 12 - 14 pounds in six months.  People ask how we did it- we just call it the "Chunk him up" diet.  We put extra formula and cereal in his bottle.  The amount was told to us by his doctor.  Putting cereal in his bottle took some getting used to because I used to work with teen parents and that was something we told them not to do!  But because of his poor swallow reflex and aspiration pneumonia, he needed the thickness of the cereal.  Plus the extra calories.  Now we just put in a small amount of cereal with the formula.

We try to make every bite count.  We cook, puree and freeze vegetables, which we include with his cereal. We can get cooked sweet potatoes on the street here- we buy those for about 50 cents!  One lasts through two or three dinners.  The day starts off with oatmeal chopped and bananas.  He snacks on cereal and small crackers.  For dinner, we just grind up whatever we are eating.

Getting healthy means wanting to move.  He can roll.  He can sit by himself if we put him in a sitting position.  Now, he really, really wants to move and is doing everything he can to do it.

He does this a lot-has since the beginning.  He is incredibly flexible, one of the characteristics of Down Syndrome.

Strong at pushing up and schooches a little.

Almost crawling- strong arms, strong legs but coordinating opposite and alternate body movement is not quite there.

Since he can't really crawl yet, he does this to move!  He arches and scooches backwards. It gets him about an inch back but hey!  it's progress!

He likes to look at toys and is beginning to hold them with two hands or pass from one hand to another.

He loves to touch different surfaces and will spent a lot of time touching different things.

This position usually means "Pick me up."