Standing Tall

Jake is standing on his own for up to 30 seconds more and more consistently now. That is something he has never been able to do before and I am hopeful that he can improve to a minute, then longer and longer after that. To many people, this may sound so insignificant; but to Jake, to us, and to Kevin (his physical therapist), this is a huge milestone.

He is also getting the idea of putting letters together to form words, not exactly spelling them yet, but conceptually, he understands the idea of putting several letters together to make a word. Jake is also identifying many action words; he not only identifies objects by their names, but also by their functions. For example, when asked “where is the umbrella?” he picks out the picture of umbrella. When asked “what do we use when it is raining?” he can also pick out the picture of umbrella amongst other pictures. While his receptive language seems to be improving, his express language remains severely impaired. For whatever reason, he just can not produce sounds other than “b”, “p”, “m”, “o” and recently he started to make the “f” sounds, but those are all the sounds he can make after 3 ½ years of speech therapy. Well, we can’t have everything, can we?! But Dear GOD, we really do want everything, we really really do...

It is almost Christmas

We went to Boston this past weekend to see some friends I met online. They also have a child with specialneeds, so the bond between us was instantaneous. Jake has really mastered using his chopsticks; he even picks up peas with them. The workers at a Chinese restaurant we went to have dinner at, thought it was hilarious just how focused he was while trying to eat with chopsticks.

It is almost Christmas; Jake’s speech therapists had a party at the office yesterday. At first, I hesitated bring him there because I knew he gets very overwhelmed in crowded settings like that. But I decide to bring him anyways even just for a short time. Melanie, Jake’s new respite worker came with us and she was a great help. Jake was overwhelmed at first, so we took him to a small room just us, and he had his pizza there and read some books. Then we went into the party room where he saw all the kids were coloring, and he did some coloring as well. Shortly after that, Santa arrived! HO HO HO! Jake got presents from his speech therapists and a goody bag from Santa.

Merry Christmas from our family to yours. We wish 2007 will bring more progress, health and good fortune to Jake and all the children like him.

Let's push theose wheels

Here is a picture of Jake when he was 6 months old. You know, the one between the bear and the frog.

This week the weather is exceptionally warm in NY, which is great and I am taking full advantages of it. Here is how: Jake got his new walker about a week ago. I started to have him walk with his walker from our apartment out to the car, which is parked on the street, and also from the car into the apartment. He did great; no complain no whining, just needed occasional help with turning. Today I took it up a notch; I had him to walk with the walker from where I parked on the street all the way into his classroom, which is about 2 city blocks in distance. We did that twice today. He did awesome, just a tiny little complain at the end of the second trip.

I don’t really care when strangers on the streets walk by and look at us, look at Jake walking with his walker, in fact, I am so proud of the fact that he is walking with the walker. I am ecstatic over the fact that he is gaining independence and confidence. Actually, in the past 4 days that we have been practicing walking outdoors, Jake has gotten “thumbs up” from many people; the porter in our building, the school bus drivers and girls that help out on the bus, the classroom aids, his after school speech therapist was ecstatic when she saw Jake walked into her building by himself using the walker.

My mom is coming back from Shanghai at the end of January, I am thinking if Jake can walk from our apartment to hers wouldn’t that save us some gas money? Just kidding.

Chopsticks, chopsticks

This afternoon, Jake ate his snack with “chopsticks”. I know, even snack time is therapy time, poor Jake! Jake’s OT gave him the chopsticks not long ago. As much as he was motivated by the food in front of him, he couldn’t use the chopsticks at all in the beginning, because he had a hard time controlling his fingers.

I practiced with him a few times, and his OT practiced with him a few times. He slowly gained some control but it wasn’t until this afternoon that he interpedently ate with these chopsticks. They are made in Korea and are sold at a Korean supermarket for approximately $4. Apparently, they are common household objects in Korea. But I think whoever invented this is a genius; I hope he/she is rich from the invention.