Talking to myself

Well not me, actually, although I do that, but John now talks to himself. I noticed this last night as he was sitting in front of his bookcase with his mountain of stuff around him. His cup was sitting on a shelf, and whenever he decided that he wanted a drink he would sign 'drink' and then take his cup down, get a drink and put it back on the shelf. I watched for a while, thinking surely I must be seeing things, and yep, next time he wanted a drink there was that sign for 'drink' again before he would take it off the shelf. I asked his speech therapist about this today, wondering if this was a good sign or not, ever the paranoid mommy, and yep, she thought it was fantastic, a great show of comprehension that he's getting it! Woo hoo, so evidently talking to yourself, or signing to yourself in John's case is a good thing!

John has had a great day! Beyond great really, another sure sign that he is growing up and getting stronger. He modeled a new set this morning



Oops, I forgot to show you the last one



Anyway, after that we loaded him up to go to speech therapy. Today's the day that I take him and daddy stays home, well normally. Today, however, Mark was doing a funeral for the neighboring pastor who is gone on vacation, so we left the house and rushed Mark to Marshall for that and then John and I headed to Columbia. We were going early to meet the lady that bought a custom jacket from me at the auction for the Moog school last year, so of course I was worried that this much morning activity was going to poop John out completely. Ah, he's growing up!

Normally when we get to the school he gets excited and 'dances' in his car seat as we pull into the driveway. Today he perked up and got excited when we turned off the main road, onto the side street that we follow for a mile or so and then once we got to the next turn, still not where you could see the school, he started 'dancing' and squealing. I would like to describe this better but really, he looks as if he is trying to dance in his car seat, what with arms and legs waving around, he's got the biggest smile ever on his face and he's non-stop squealing with excitement. It's really hilarious and today I was treated to it on several occasions.

At school I talked to the lady about the jacket and John got to do his normal circuit around the gym 3 times. Well, okay it wasn't his normal circuit, normally he would come in the gym, race across it, down the hall, take a left, down that hallway, through the conference room (unoccupied always, thank goodness), and back into the gym and then he wants to turn and do it again. Well not today. Today once he came through the conference room the first time he headed back up to where the school is. This school is housed in the basement level of a very large church in Columbia, and it has two, one short and one long, wheel chair ramps between the gym and the school area. Well he went right up both ramps completely alone - the first time that I've ever seen him do this. Usually I have to walk behind him to keep him from turning or going backwards. Not today! At the top I turned him around to go back to the gym and so he did this same circuit 3 times total - it was amazing. The last time he needed a teeny tiny bit of help up the long ramp, much less even than the last time that I saw him go up on Friday. Evidently those walks around the neighborhood are working.

During his therapy session he did pretty well. He paid attention and did what was asked of him for the most part and when Amy was telling him which parts of Mr. Potato head that she wanted using sign only, he was fast and accurate!! At the last of it he was being Mr. Stubborn, I don't know where he gets it ;) He was fine getting back in the Jeep, once I told him we were going for lunch and that I knew where they had some ice cream.

He danced and squealed for me again, not pulling into Culver's like normal, but on the road where you can first see it, a couple traffic lights away from it, I was amazed. Just me and John for lunch is not the easiest thing in the world as he misses daddy, and so do I. But we managed pretty well and he even ate, well once he realized that I was serious about the ice cream and he wasn't getting any until he ate his french fries. Then he started porking them down. When the ice cream came he was so excited and was satisfied with me feeding him a bite, for every one of my bites for a while, but then he needed the spoon. Little silly then 'fed' himself ice cream to the very end!

The ride back to get Mark wasn't bad either. John will normally nap off and on, or fuss because he wants out. Not today! Today he rode home with a Culver's cup of ice in his lap that he fed himself all the way to town. He did great holding it right up until we pulled up beside our favorite Chinese place. I thought we could sneak by it, as we normally approach it from the front, but nope, we stopped and he was dancing, squealing and signing 'eat' in the back seat. He had taken his hearing aids out long ago, and nicely gave them to me instead of pitching them, so I signed to him that we were going to get daddy, and well that was okay, but he'd much rather go in and eat.

Needless to say, John was exhausted and ready for a nap when we got home. We got him up for church this evening though and he did pretty well. He play a bit in the pew, and really liked it that his sock feet were slippery and he could slide around on the floor, but well, at least he was quiet while he was doing it. The one time he really decided to chatter was when the Pastor said 'we'll speak the Psalm together' and John just started yap, yap, yap, yap, yap, I have no clue if he understood and was trying to participate or if it was just time to yap, at any rate he shut up when everyone else did.

After the service everyone came by to congratulate him on being so good, he was too tired to care though and gave a few of them 'five' but was mostly interested in coming home. He did great on the walk home, all the way up to the last corner before our house, that's where I had to go back to retrieve his sock!