Take This Job and Shove It
Note: new pictures are up, finally. And he now weighs 20 lbs.
Hey. Remember me? I'm the one that brought the Y chromosome to this party. OK, so I've been a little derelict in my posting duties. To say that school's been a little consuming would be a monumental understatement. But that's all done now - my undergraduate degree is complete. Whew!
But hey, that's boring news. You came to hear about Jeffrey, right? Of course you did.
Last week we met with Judy, an occupational therapist. Despite the fancy job title, she will not be helping us to find gainful employment for Jeffrey. That's too bad, it would sure be nice to have two steady paychecks again. In fact, an occupational therapist works with developing fine motor skills. Jeffrey may carry cuteness in spades, but his cup does not necessarily overfloweth with fine motor acuity. We met at RIT because it was convenient for all of us. In one of the meeting rooms, Judy conducted a series of tests to evaluate how well Jeffrey could perform certain tasks with his hands, feet and... get this... his tongue. Yup. Who knew being able to roll your tongue at 12 months is an important milestone? He can, by the way. According to the evaluation, she was supposed to stop after Jeffrey was unable to perform more than 3 tasks. It was a good thing that she didn't, because he surprised us by showing us more advanced skills. Overall, Jeffrey scored just shy of being age appropriate. That's nothing to be concerned about, though. He's not going to catch up overnight, or over... year. Most preemies catch up between the ages of 2 and 5.
The end result of all this is that Jeffrey will be seeing an occupational therapist bi-monthly, just like he's currently doing with his physical therapist, Monica. And speaking of Monica, she came to visit Jeffrey this week. It's always funny when see works with him. We could be working diligently with him all week on some new exercise to no avail, but the moment she shows up he turns on the performance art. She asked us if he's making any deliberative sounds that correspond with an action. We turned to Jeffrey as he tries to place a puzzle piece into the wrong shape... and he replied, "uh oh!". Well, maybe it was more like "UUUUHhhhh..... ahhhhhhh". "How's he doing with standing?" she asks. From his stool, he stands up and then leans forward to the couch. Previously he had been doing that in the wrong order.
By this point, I'm convinced that she could ask us, "So, how's he doing with riding a unicycle while spinning dictionaries on poles and singing the French national anthem?" and he would dutifully perform it with a smile. He's such a flirt.
Today's post title is a triple-entendre. Now that my studies at RIT are drawing to a close, it's time for me to rejoin the work force. I mean, if Jeffrey's not getting a job then it's probably up to me. So today I attended the Digital Rochester job fair. Rather, I mean "we attended". Jeffrey was sent home from daycare yesterday with a low grade fever, and that means he's not allowed back until he's been fever free for 24 hours. While he was busy waiting out his sentence, he rode front seat in a Baby Bjorn at the job fair. "I'm looking for 1.5 full time positions." All the recruiters got a kick out of it. Let's hope that he brings me some luck. There's another career fair at the end of next month at RIT. If I can't land a job between the two of them, then I'm just not trying hard enough.
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