A special moment but I was in total shock

I have to write about what Jake did today, even though I’ve already called and wrote emails about it to a tone of people within the last hour. But the reason why I started this blog is to write about Jake’s accomplishments and not his disabilities, and today he accomplished something HUGE.

This afternoon, I sat Jake on a bench against the wall and walked to another room to set up a swing for him, I wanted him to spin on the swing which is something he really enjoys and he laughs out loud when doing it. As I was hooking up the swing, I saw something move in the corner of my eyes, I looked over, what did I see??

I saw Jake walking by himself towards the middle of the room. When I saw him, he was already 4 steps away from the bench, then I watched him take another 4 steps, then it looked like he was going to fall; he reached out both of his arms before he fell on the floor. You may ask why didn’t I run up to him as he was falling, because I was completely in shock I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.

For the first time ever in 5 years, 1 month and 2 days, Jake stood up and walked on his own. This is huge; my friends say that is bigger than huge.

I don’t know when Jake will do it again, (I know he will), but I was there for the very first time that he did it, and it was a special moment that I envisioned, even dreamed about for so long, and now I have that moment.

The Zen master

Here is a picture of Jake doing Yoga with his OT. He looks so cute doing it. His OT started doing simply yoga poses with him about 2 months ago. In the beginning, he couldn’t imitate any movement; she had to do hand over hand with him 100% of the time. I was open minded to her idea of trying Yoga but in my mind, I really questioned whether or not Jake can follow any of her directions. Surprisingly, Jake enjoys Yoga, well only for about 10 minutes. He is actually doing some simple movements on his own, and some with less hand over hand assistance, and of course some he still needs maximum assistance to accomplish. Nonetheless, his OT and I are happy with Jake’s improvements in following directions and imitating movements. Here is another pose called “snake”.

I made some pictures and symbols for Jake, the idea is to place pictures in a sequence such as “mom” “drive” “Jake” “school” on the back of the passenger side headrest where Jake can see while I drive him to school each morning. I can interchange the driver and the destination depending on the situation, for example, I can display “Mom and Dad” “drive” “Jake” “grandma” when we go to my mom’s for dinner on the weekends. I am just trying different ways to communicate with Jake better. I feel strongly language and communication is the area where he needs the most help.