We decided to visit Wilcox. I've mentioned it before in the blog. We go every year in the fall to get pumpkins and apples and apple pie and apple ice cream. It's a tradition.
So off we went...
(I made this one extra large so you can see his little eye peaking out from underneath his baseball cap. It's so stinkin cute and he's such a little snuggler that even though he weighs close to 30 pounds I will carry him, back hurting, bad posture, just to hold his cozy little body next to me.)
That's my mom to the left and my kids...I'm very proud of my kids.
My boy, Christian, I can say I'm proud of. But I had a kind of revelation of sorts over this Labor Day weekend. I mean I would always say I was proud of Christian for what he's gone through and what he's accomplished. Of course, I'm proud of him.
But sometimes underneath that there is a restlessness. I'm restless sometimes with the rate of progress. There are times when it catapults us into the next awaiting stage and we're all happy and excited. But there are plateaus with stagnant air that causes some...restlessness.
So I'm watching Christian this weekend and I'm rolling him across the floor. I used to roll him across the floor like a rag doll, because he surely was not going to lift a finger to participate. He didn't move a muscle. He just flopped where I put him and ended up where he landed.
And because I believe in him so much I would think - Why won't you just move! You know you can! You have two legs and two arms and a perfectly good body. What is the problem?
It's his not quite perfect brain. We all know that, it's nothing new. But as I watched him this weekend, he's grown to start participating. Even though he cannot roll all the way across that carpet floor by himself, he's now leaning into the roll, moving his leg with it, swinging his arms over, turning his head, positioning his arms where his brain thinks it might be conducive to aid in this torturous roll his mother is putting him through.
His arms go where his brain thinks they should go.
There is so much profundity in that. Because what this looks like isn't pretty. His arms don't end up over his head or pushing him off the ground. His brain tells them to pull back and stiffen next to his sides. This is how his brain thinks he should roll.
His little legs shake just trying to lift off the ground and move, but they try and they try hard.
So I have a deeper level of pride for my boy because he is trying, it's just not in the way that I recognize it. But when I saw him during rolling exercises, he squirmed and tweaked and twisted himself into movement that was what he knew how to do. He was trying so hard that parts of his legs would quiver. It is so hard for him to simply move...but he tries in the only way his brain and body know how.
I am really so proud of him. Because he continues to try even when I don't understand his movements and even when his brain might not even understand his own movements. It is hard. It is work.
Christian labors every day. So today, we decided not to labor. On Labor Day we decided to hang out with family and eat peach crumb pie.
And just for Labor Day, I didn't make him roll.
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3 comments:
Love you sweetie!
He DOES labor so very hard! I gotta tell ya, his try and try again attitude is so inspirational to me. He is really my hero!
He amazes me more and more every single day. The tiny little things that you see (and we hear and read about) are huge accomplishments in his developing brain. So many of us often think and wonder to ourselves "What IS a miracle? What does it look like?" Well, it looks a little something like an adorable boy named Christian. He is truly a miracle disguised in a little toddler body. We're lucky. Lucky because we've all gotten the opportunity to witness a true miracle in the making and continue to be witness to God's love. He is AWESOME! XOXO
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