He is so easy to look after,

this boy of mine -

easy going, interested in the world, lovable

but at the end of June the pre school teacher pulled me aside and voiced her concerns

about Noah’s fine motor skills.

He was struggling with puzzles and with buttons and couldn’t write his name or draw basic people figures.

On top of that, she said,

he was having trouble with balance too.

The truth is, I had not given Noah’s development much thought until that day.

To me

he was just a normal child,

a normal boy child.

I knew that he had little interest in the same things that Ivy did.

I knew he had still not made up his mind as to whether he was left or right handed

and that sometimes he could be incredibly clumsy

but his vocabulary was amazing and his ability to soak up information and then feed it back to me, equally so.

I didn’t think he was delayed,

you know,

for a boy who was born at 30 weeks.

I said that I would talk with the paed and have him assess Noah

but in between that conversation and actually doing something about it,

Ivy became unwell and

everybody had to wait,

not just the boy.

When I asked though people made suggestions and reached out with ideas and things that we could try at home to help Noah

and we set about making special time for the boy.

We had puzzle play (which he aced fairly quickly)

and lots of time practicing name writing,

scissor work and playdough too.

Still he could not define which hand he wanted to use -

he showed alot of confidence with his right hand but always reverted to the toddler style grip,

whereas when he used his left, he held the pencil properly

and used his left hand for scissors and to feed himself most of the time.

We practiced sorting and finding and screwing and unscrewing of nuts and bolts,

and lots of threading (and making pasta neclaces).

which Noah really loved and would spend a lot of time on

and Dave brought his childhood lego out too, for building and manipulating small parts

and he got better,

everyone could notice a difference

but true to my word, I finally took him to the paed last week

and while there is improvement, he has a tremor

and he will need occupational therapy to combat some weaknesses.

He also has another eye examination scheduled,

because, once again, there is concern that his eyesight is not what it should be.

I’m hoping with time, it will be okay

and he will catch up

and then I won’t feel so bad for missing the signs

that my little guy was lagging behind.