Little Things

Well, to finish my last post.
John laid his head down to sleep at 530am.
At approximately 535am, Kathleen stumbled out of the bedroom and jumped on the boys bed waking up Nathan.
So that was the end of that.
I kept John home as there was no point sending him to school when he had been up most of the night.
It happens.

I was talking to my friends this morning at the coffee shop.
My one friend who spends a lot of time over at my house had come over yesterday morning to watch over the children while I went to bed.
She was extolling the virtues of John and saying how much improved he was socially and what a pleasure he was to look after.
She was so impressed with his behaviour and interaction that when she couldn't sleep this morning at 2am, she emailed me about it.
So, I guess she was impressed.
I myself have seen significant improvements in John over the last several months.
He is more social. His flapping continues but he tries to control it in public.
I took him to a birthday party for two of the boys in his class a couple of weeks ago.
He was phenomenal!
He played the games with the other children and when the noise got too much for him, he took himself off to a corner of the room and looked at something for a few minutes and when he felt more in control, he came back and joined the group.
We left 15 mins early because of the weather, otherwise he would have been there for two hours like the rest of the children.
I was so proud of him.
His reading has just taken off in leaps and bounds and he loves to read books. He will sit himself down in his favourite chair and surround himself with books and just sit and read for ages.
This weekend I was telling my friends, I just saw so many amazing things.
Nathan was sitting at the computer doing a Clifford program that the speech teacher had given us, knowing that John absolutely adores Clifford.
(John has already completed the program several times).
Nathan was doing his favourite portion where Clifford gets dunked when you click on a balloon that has the word that they ask for.
He was clicking on words such as next, light, farm, want, sister. Proving without a doubt that he could read or identify words which is as far as I am concerned pretty much the same thing as he had to choose from three or four balloons in the same cluster.
When he didn't know the word, he would click all the balloons but those times were few and far between.
His speech is clearer. It is so much easier to understand him when he chooses to speak or is prompted.
Kathleen surprised us this weekend.
On Saturday, Rachel and I were sitting down together doing some school homework and Katy came over, touched my arm and said "outside".
Well, knock me down with a feather.
It was even more impressive because Rachel turned to me and said "she said outside, yay, Katy can talk".
So of course, Katy went outside after receiving lots of hugs and kisses for her speech.
We were very happy. And last night, Rachel took Kathleen's hand when they were playing racing across the dining room and loungeroom and told everyone that Kathleen was on her team.
I am real proud of Rachel.
As my friend commented, she is a real big sister. She is concerned about every one of her brothers and sisters.
She mediates, she helps, she supervises them at times.
She helps mop up their tears and hugs them when they need it.
She is also one of their biggest fans and will cheer them exuberantly when she sees that they are doing great things.
She is a neat kid.
It is the little things that add up to momentous occasions.
A word here, a look there. It is all adding up.
They have all advanced so far so fast.
It is truly a magical journey and one heck of an adventure.
It has taught me a lot about tolerance and sometimes just sitting back and enjoying the moment.
Small things like examining leaves and not worrying about doing the dishes right away so you can cuddle with the kids and read them a book or turn the dining room table into a cave for a dragon or a castle for a princess by draping it with as many duvets as you can find in the house.
It all has it's moment in time.
Later.