The Little Joys

The rest of John's Sunday was good, including some play time with dad when John was saying "go" and pushing the ball back to dad and catching it too. He ate great and went to bed a little early. So this morning at 7 we heard the chatter start. Someone really needs to invent the baby monitor with a record button because John's early morning chatter is so funny. We let him chatter for a bit and then went to get him up and there he was friends scattered everywhere, huge smile and a finger in his ear. He was ready for the day to begin. We were told while John was in the NICU and we were asking those first parent questions out loud, will he be able to learn to talk, will he be able to learn to walk, will he be able to learn to read - you can tell what is important around here, that the answer was "we don't know" a little disheartening, but then came the encouraging part, the doctors told us that even though he would lag behind developmentally for a while that we should not give up hope on his catching up so long as we saw development every day. And low and behold each and every day of the past 2+ years we've seen something new. Today is no exception and at this point in the day we've already hit 3 for the something-new-count of the day. This morning started out great, and when we got to the sink for the morning bath John was excited and happy to be there as usual. But he wasn't doing his normal, hold his hand in the running faucet and play with the toys a little, he kept sticking his hand under the water and watching it. After I shut the water off then he was sticking it all the way to the bottom of the sink and pulling it up, not sure what he was watching but it was interesting. The first little joy of the morning came when it was time to get out. Normally he stands there in the sink and wants to play with all the stuff in the windowsill, but this morning he bent over and was sticking his finger in the water watching it swirl down the sink, and it was cracking him up, no giggles, but the smile was huge, like when the camera is on. After getting dressed he noticed the picture in our bedroom for the first time that he really looked at it and then had to touch all the people in it before we left the room. This is a big old copy of an oil painting in very subtle colors. Mark had to go and drop his sick and dying computer off with the repair guy this morning so John and I were in the kitchen doing formula, meds and such and when dad pulled up in the driveway John was as excited as he has ever been for getting to school or a bag of M&M's. I'm sure he must have thought dad was gone for the day, but now he wasn't. So we are headed to school, taking our little sweetheart who is very talkative this morning, making new noises that I'm sure he won't make for his teacher, with a smile all the way around for the little joys in life. Sure hope your day is full of little joys too!