Monday, August 11, 2014

Learning Battleship

Robin Williams died. I feel obligated to mention that. Honestly, I wasn't much of a fan, I didn't understand his jokes half the time. I always perceived him as full speed ahead, unable to stop & too nervous to try. I'm sure there are many that felt they understood him inside & out. Everybody loved him it seemed. His death was undoubtedly hard news for a big piece of the world to take in.

We had 2 different helpers today. The first one stayed for an hour, basically so we could meet her & she could meet J. She will be our main worker. The second one stayed for four hours. In the middle of these visits was 30 minutes of massage from R. When R left J said, "Bye.. mrry", which would be "bye Rosemary". Nobody told him to. His behavior & speech today has been nothing short of astounding. I can't even count how many times I was blown away by him today.. hand him the opportunity and he was very likely to take it. Initiating things on his own seemed to be no problem as well - it's just the words, the damn words. But best day ever for J Blue.. I can be across the room and say, "Hey Judah.." and he'll look over at me.. and listen. He repeated so much today. He sat patiently with the 2nd helper and played with her one-on-one for over an hour at least. He had more one-on-one time today than he has had in a long time. His sibs did okay with that. The helpers were laid back, 20s, students, females.. very kid-friendly & eager to help. The main lady is so eager to make a schedule. The 2nd lady told me that we most likely will be able to let Judah go on outings with them. And both ladies are very eager to do so - both clearly understood how important it was to give him freedom into the world & explore!!

I'm elated. I haven't met the second main lady - she'll be here on Friday. But the first two send a pretty great picture of opportunity, change & growth for Judah. Tomorrow we will have someone for 4 hours.. another new lady. Our main lady is just on vacation this week. Susan is here to help as well.

Confused? Main lady came to meet us this morning for an hour. She'll be back after vacation and will work Mon-Th. Another lady will cover Fridays. These two ladies will be our regular helpers. The others helping right now are filling in the gaps until the schedule starts rolling.

Susan was here all day. That helped so much. It wouldn't have been as relaxed around here had her help & presence not been there. It would have been a lot harder. There aren't any dishes in our sink!!!!!!! :) She's an amazing lady.. over & over again, patient & amazing. The kids are so lucky to have her.

Tummy pain was awful yesterday. This morning it was so bad I was calling the doctor. His office wasn't open for another hour and a half so I curled up on the bed & waited it out. Pain today was there, but mostly tolerable. My mind was definitely elsewhere, which I'm sure helped a lot. And then Sebastian would ask me to play badminton with him.. and I would suddenly be 100 years old once again...

I was able to sit down & play Battleship with Sebastian today. That is incredible. Sounds small, like many things, but not at all.. it's huge. He learned how to  chart the letters & numbers as we went along. Give him a few days & he'll have that game down pat. We don't have the uninterrupted, one-on-one, mother/son time like that often enough at all. We'll play again tomorrow. ;)

The TV was off nearly the entire day. It was really quiet. The kids never once (that I heard) asked to have it on. Near the end of the 2nd lady's shift we did turn on SpongeBob for a bit. Judah never once begged me to play Angry Birds. It was a very different day. These kids are open to this change - they are curious & really want to try. I can tell.

Meemaw was surprised how well Sebastian is at the Pogo stick. He knows that practice gets him there - he's learned that one for sure. I've never met anyone that can jump on that thing as long as he can. He just got it last month!

I'm so excited about having helpers here... so excited! The kids so deserve this.

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