Day 33: It's an 'R' Mom!

I'm sure if John could tell me in so many words I would have been told this last week or so when I was watching him work so hard to learn to cross his fingers. It never dawned on me that he wasn't crossing his fingers, after all that would be such a normal little kid thing to learn, until Julie came to visit and said something to him about making such a good 'r'. Well yesterday I thought about it again and asked him if he would make an 'r' for me and sure enough he looked right at me, crossed his fingers and held them up for me to see. Duh, no wonder the kid kept looking at me like I was an idiot when I asked him to cross his fingers please, poor kid, I'm sure he thinks I'm the one with a communication issue.

So here he is Mr.-I'm-Making-An-R-Himself



He does a lot of posturing to get it when he's sitting down, but standing up he doesn't. So we went through the alphabet this morning and he can make an a, b, c, d, e, f, a decent try at a g, not so hot on the h, still can't do an i, j, k, l, but isn't too bad at m, n, and o, has the right hand position but the fingers still aren't right for a p and q, is a great r maker, he makes an s that is perfect, he's been doing a t for a long time, and has trouble with u, v, w although I was watching him work on this one in the hallway earlier, and still has problems with x, y and z. All in all I thought it was pretty darn cool!

Lot's of things are changing and they are changing lightening fast. Two days ago I could walk around the corner on the 1st floor of the hospital and watch him in the mirror and even though he wanted to go the other way he would stop, think a minute and then turn around to come and get me or go my way. Not now! Yesterday I stood in my usual place watching him and he stood in his usual place around the corner and thought, then he backed up nice and straight until he could see me, smiled the biggest I'm-doing-it-my-way-see-ya smile I've ever seen on the kid, and took off down the hall. He has gotten fast enough it was probably a good 30 feet before I could catch him. He now stops here and there along the hospital route to tell me about the pictures and statues, insists that his cup is filled at every water fountain whether he is thirsty or not, wants to push, ram or in some other way man-handle anything that he can get his gait trainer up against. He has no fear of going down new halls and will actually slip onto any open elevator and run through any open door if he thinks I'm the least bit distracted. Needless to say I don't let him wander as far ahead of me any more and I don't chat on the phone while he is loose anymore.

John has always been a smart kid, whether he looks it or not to strangers those who have worked with him are always amazed at just how much horse power is in his head. Let me tell you the horses are on high-octane feed and running for the back fence. He is figuring out stuff at rates that I've never seen him do before and is getting more social all the time. He is waving more, smiling more, and just in general more interested in the people around him. He is now fascinated with the kids and has walked into more than one wall, post, etc., because he was turned around looking at what the kids were doing. At the same time he is eating more, it's still cereal and half the time he has to either have Tiger taste it or feed it to him, but still he's eating more. The whole thing with Tiger is all new and fascinating and changing too, this morning it was cool that we left Tiger when we were headed to church but when we came back and got ready to leave for the cafeteria he was almost out the door and then told me Tiger and ran back to get him before we left.

I am so thankful that Mark is coming on Tuesday evening so that he can enjoy this wonderful little boy who is becoming so much more little boy every minute. Surgery is coming on Friday and while I don't expect that John will go backwards, he never has, not even when he was septic, near death and intubated for a month, but I don't think that he'll progress much and most of his energy is surely going to be spent on healing for a while. For the moment his energy is being spent on growing and running and learning and playing and being silly oh, and impressing his mommy at every turn.

So I can't resist one more picture, it's the same outfit as this morning, his very first time in a couple years to have a real button down shirt and he was so impressed. Omi, Mark's mom, told him that every man and boy needed a good white shirt and tie, well we don't have the tie and since his dad doesn't wear one I'm not sure how John would like it, and the shirt's not straight white but it sure was making me think of Omi this morning when John was sitting there all spiffy and smiling.