Weary Wanderings

Reading a book with Uncle Ick

The dreary weather, sinus problems and fatigue from a fun, but busy weekend have left me a little weary today...make that super weary. All day I have just wanted to crawl back into bed and give myself a sick day. I was even kind of hoping I had a fever so I could justify that. I thought I would take a quick break from work to remind myself of some positive things that I saw Isaiah do over the weekend. I often think of myself as on a roller coaster with special needs parenting. There are days when I am at the peak of a summit excited about something new Isaiah is doing, but I can quickly plunge down when I think about what he “should” be doing. Today I am plunging, but that’s not surprising considering I’m not too enthusiastic about anything except how comfy my bed looks today.

This weekend most of my moms’ family came to STL for the Thanksgiving weekend. I say “most” because we missed Kristen and her fiancé Jeff. We had family come in from Indiana, Florida and Texas. Too bad our 75 degree record breaking temperatures from last Monday did not stick around for them. Isaiah impressed everyone with his expanded vocabulary. I appreciated my family’s words of encouragement and care for Isaiah this weekend. He loved saying “Keith,” “Katie,” “Eddie,” and “GaGa” (for Grandad). He attempted “David,” “Eric” (which sounded like ick) and “Momo.” Momo’s name really shows his motor planning issues. Isaiah’s first instinct is to call her “Bobo” which is what he used to call her before acquiring the “m” sound this summer. Last night, he called her “Bobo,” but after I corrected him he walked off trying to say the “m” sound and eventually getting “Momo” out even though he was now nowhere in the vicinity of Momo. Isaiah didn’t attempt to say harder names like “Alejandra” and “Sigourney,” but those can be goals for next time, right?

I was also encouraged to watch him sit and look at books and play with toys some of the time. He used to be in constant motion, never lighting on anything for more than a second. Actually, last night he was back in constant motion again, but he was just trying to keep himself awake as he was super tired. I also noticed him trying to figure out if he could make it from one piece of furniture to the next like babies do when they are first trying to figure out walking. His stability was not great last night so it made me pretty nervous, but it is a good step that he is trying to figure this out.

This morning we were standing outside waiting for the bus and he saw a lighted Santa and snowman at the end of our street. Before his glasses he never would have seen those things. He pointed to them and then put his hands out to the side as if to ask “what is that?” I can only imagine that being able to see will help his speech.