As I sat on the couch, watching Henry play on the floor, I saw him patting his cheek while playing with his Leapfrog activity table. Nothing new; he absently does that often whether to himself or to my face or hands.
But this time was different. Allow me to preface one thing, however.
Henry and I have a little game of sorts. It started early but whenever he is vocalizing with his mouth open, I'll pat his mouth with my hand to make that stereotype-Indian "ababababababa" sound. At first, when he was really young and had no idea what anything was, he was confused and displeased by what I was doing. But it was a funny noise so I kept doing it for my own amusement.
But as he gained more awareness of the world, and he grew amused by sounds, he started enjoying it because of the funny noise. It has gotten to the point where he'll either draw my hand to his mouth himself so he can make the noise, or if I just start patting his lips, he'll vocalize:
Back to present day.
He started patting his own mouth. I immediately started doing the same thing, patting my mouth and making the noise so that I was making the "abababababa" sound in the hopes of encouraging him to do it again and to correlate the hand-on-mouth-while-making-a-noise = funny noise.
He repeated it!
Three times! This wasn't coincidence. This was deliberate.
The other accomplishment is that he's slowly gaining strength and coordination to pull himself up on his own. I had him standing while my arms encircled him but not making contact, to ensure that he'd stand on his own power while still having the safety net of not landing face first on the carpet.
He lost his balance and tumbled onto my lap and over my arm, but then he made the effort to right himself back up vertically. It wasn't pretty, and he wasn't 100% successful, but he made the effort to stand by grabbing my hands and my arms and giving it everything he had to haul himself up.
This tells me that his mind is acknowledging what needs to be done, but his body hasn't quite caught up to his brain yet.
This is a good sign, and something we need to keep practicing.
I truly admire the position you, Lori & Obaa-chan are taking with the monumental responsibility that you have. I believe your children will exceed all expectations because of your diligence.
ReplyDeleteI've never heard of this condition before, but have been doing some reading. I know you're both strong and capable and will succeed, though it won't be easy. You've already made decisions to prove that. Best wishes (& good mojo) to all of you.