Therapy Olympics

I am on fire recently...back to blogging with a vengeance.  It must be because poor Stephen is in the office until 10 o'clock every night doing tax returns.  Perron had another therapy session today and he is doing so awesome!  I know he is on the verge of crawling.  It makes me so excited, but a little sad at the same time.  I look at him all the time and wonder where the time has gone.  Nancy worked on lots of stuff with him today and left us with a list of homework assignments.  He is starting to get a lot better at sitting up and can really hold his torso up so much better.  We are working on him shifting his weight from side to side.  He needs help doing what they call "load transfer", which is shifting his weight from one side of his body in order to free up his other hand to do activity.  This is an essential step in getting him to crawl.  Nancy said that a lot of pieces were coming in and it was just a matter of getting him to pull every thing together.  I always ask where she thinks he is in comparison to his actual and his adjusted age.  She said he is still a little behind his adjusted age (which is almost 7 months) because of some of the issues he still has with sitting up.  She was however very pleased with how much he had improved in just two weeks.  He wasn't able to pull up to kneeling last time because his upper body wasn't strong enough, but this week he could do it with relative ease.  He also was able to sit on one hip and and hold his weight with one hand while playing with his music table. 

I looked at Nancy this afternoon and I asked her "how do normal babies do all of this".  It makes me a little sad, because I feel like I will never get to experience the way things are normally done.  I told Nancy that I have become fascinated with normal pregnancy and birth experiences.  It is almost impossible for me to imagine just going into the hospital, pushing out a baby, keeping it in the room with me, and then leaving with a baby after my two day stay is over.  I most likely will never experience a true labor contraction in my entire life.  i will never have another pregnancy when I don't spend every day worrying that something could go wrong at any moment.  Certainly I am not the only woman who is scared that something could go wrong in a pregnancy.  I think all women live with a least some degree of fear.  I think the difference with me is I have experienced a lot of what can go wrong and so my fear will be in both the known and the unknown.  I don't know what it is like to have a baby that just "does" the things he is supposed to, when he is supposed to do them.  when I asked Nancy how normal babies did all the things they are supposed to do, she said they just did them.  That is such a foreign concept to me.  That a baby is just able to figure it all out on their own.  It really is a miracle I guess.

However, all is not doom and gloom.  We are so blessed to have so many people that care about Perron and help us make sure that he is okay and help him learn all of the things he needs to learn.  We have wonderful doctors and wonderful therapists that want to help us and make sure that Perron is given all the skills he needs to succeed.  And in a way it is a blessing to have a professional to talk to all the time about what he is and isn't doing and what should and should not be expected.  I really consider Nancy a friend....like a really knowledgeable aunt.  And I have been given the blessing of seeing my little miracle unfold right before my very eyes.  I am so proud of how far he has come and what all he has accomplished.  He has worked for every one of his milestones, but it makes us appreciate each one of them so much more.  It might have taken him over four months to look at me in the eye for the first time, but I'll tell you what, each time I see him look at me I realize what a blessing and a gift it is and I do not take it for granted at all.  Each time he reaches for me or a toy I remember that he couldn't/wouldn't reach for anything for over five months.  And I realize what a blessing the simple things are.  When I see his little face light up with a smile when he sees me, I remember the 3 and a half months or more that it took him to smile at anything, and it makes my heart smile.  He is a miracle, a joy, a delight, and the best thing that has ever happened to Stephen and I.  We might not do things the normal way, but we make it work!