No news is good news

Well, let’s see, I haven’t updated much lately, probably it is because there hasn’t been much going on. Jake has been doing so so, nothing too exciting to report. He is finally recognizing numbers 1-10 with fair to good consistency, however, the concept of one to one association with real objects he does not yet grasp. The same thing with the alphabet, he knows the alphabet pretty well, but he doesn’t recognize any words. He also is recognizing all the basic shapes. But how does this knowledge translate into real like skills I haven’t figured it out. But no matter, whatever knowledge he is able to retain is better than not having the knowledge. This is my position and I am sticking to it. He also has finally mastered turning his walker, which makes it much more functional because otherwise, he can only go in a straight line. I sometimes ask him to walk with the walker at home just so he can learn to turn in tighter corners. God help the floor and the walls, they will probably get damaged during the process.

We are enjoying our new house and all the extra space, however I am desperately trying to keep up with the cleaning because I hate seeing dust balls on the floor. That is all for now, until next time…

Happy Mother's Day

Good news, Jake’s “bad” leg seems to be getting better. I hope I am not jinxing myself by writing this, but he is not limping anymore!

Tonight we had dinner with an older couple and their adult son who is severely disabled. I met them by chance about two years ago, and instantly we became friends. There is an unspoken understanding between our families because everything we are going through, they have been through, and everything they are going through, we will probably go through.

Last year for mother’s day, I bought a bouquet of flowers for Mrs. Pan. This year I bought a cake and wanted to have coffee and cake with her, but instead she invited us over for dinner, and then we had coffee and cake. Their unconditional love for their son is truly an inspiration to me because after almost 30 years, they are as dedicated to the care of this son as the day he was born; and everything they do they do it for him, and every moment they live they live to take care of him. What do they get in return? Nothing really if you look at it from a traditional sense, their son will not get a college degree, he will never have a job and make a living for himself, he will never marry and give them grandchildren. But none of these matters, they take care of their son day after day, and year after year.

I often think if Jake is our only child and if he is still totally dependent on us for his daily care when he is older and we are old and gray, isn’t their today our tomorrow? I try to visit Mr. and Mrs. Pan as often as I can, because if their today is indeed our tomorrow, I would like it if someone visits me, someone who takes time to show that she/he cares, and bring me flowers on Mother’s day on behalf of my son who can not. I would like it.

Happy Mother's Day Mrs. Pan.

Back to Normal

Life is finally back to the old routine after almost 5 weeks of “out of routine”.

Jake is back in school, we pick him up every day at 1:30pm and then he goes to his after school therapies. We get home around 5pm, then bath, dinner, a little table top activities, then watch a little bit TV together, then around 7:30pm, Jake is off to bed. By the way, his intensive crying and screaming at bed time has stopped, mainly because we are now back on the routine, and I think by the end of the day he is too tired to scream and cry.

Jake’s walking has still not fully recovered. He has a few doctors’ appointments coming up. The first one up will be a dental appointment; I am not looking forward to that one knowing his behavior history at the dental office. Then he has an orthopedic appointment. This one I am really eager to go to because we need to find out the exact degree of his hip subluxation, scoliosis, as well as the cause of his leg discrepancies. All these factors are contributing to his lack of progress in independent walking. I just hope that we will get some good news from the doctor and not that he needs surgery. The third appointment will be with an urologist, that will just be a consultation.

Jake’s birthday is also coming up; we will have another birthday party for him. Last night, my husband and I assembled some patio furniture from IKEA. It was rather quick to assemble them thank GOD, because every time after we assemble something, I say I will never want to buy anther piece of furniture that requires self assembly. But last night, the job was really easy and fast. So I am hoping by Jake’s birthday, the weather will be nice enough we can sit outside on the patio.