Block Tower

Today I sat Callie at the counter in our kitchen while I prepared her lunch.  She was holding wooden blocks when I lifted her up and then she signed "more".  I grabbed a few more, set them in front of her, and turned my back while I got her food ready.  She makes a specific grunting-like sound when she wants to get my attention, so when I heard this I turned around.  This is what I saw:

She built her first real block tower!!  To many this will not seem like much, but this is huge for Callie!  For well over a year now her OT therapists have encouraged and helped her build towers.  It has always been difficult for her and she usually doesn't make it past about 2 blocks.  One of her preschool IEP goals is to build a 7 block tower this year.  She made it to 6 today!  I am so proud of her.  I tried to video her rebuilding the tower, but you can see from the video how the task is challenging for her:

One additional note... Did you notice her teeth look terrible??  Actually it is mostly one tooth.  One of her front teeth is now very dark gray.  :-(  Back in August she had a terrible fall that pushed back both front teeth.  Luckily we were out [at Target] and only 5 minutes away from her dentist.  She was crying and bleeding and I called them in a panic.  They were wonderful and told me to bring her right in.  They examined and x-rayed her, and then basically said we have to just wait and see what happens.  There is a chance they could fall out.  Everything seemed to be going okay until last week when she fell again!  Her same teeth were hit, one worse than the other, and once again started bleeding.  So now we are holding our breath again and praying they stay.  Although it is bad either way -- the tooth will be gray the next few years until it falls out, or it will fall out sooner and there will be a space there for a few years.  It makes me sad, but I am keeping this in perspective.  She obviously could have a lot worse problems.  But anyway, going forward you may notice Callie's smile is not as white as it used to be and this is why.