Time is slipping away...

Oh my gosh. Looking at the date of my last post is shocking! I can't believe it has been that long. The truly shocking part is that December 18th (last post) was probably the last minute of sanity we have had! It has been a crazy last month!

Since I don't have time to do it all justice I will try to just hit the high points.


Christmas

We traveled a couple hours away to be with family. It was a really nice holiday. JP was so much fun. This was the first year that he was excited about the presents. Last year he would open them if we cooerced him but he didn't seem to get much joy from what was inside them. This year he was all over them. He was opening my presents, he was opening T's presents. He was even swindling Grandma out of opening her presents.

He is so into reading right now and once he realized that all the presents have name tags on them he was fascinated with reading them. So he read every present before opening it and told the entire room, "To JP, From Mommy and Daddy". It was really neat. He even helped deliver the presents along with an older cousin! It was beautiful because he was interacting with everyone and enjoying the holiday excitement.

T had a great Christmas as well. He enjoyed his new toys and seemed to enjoy all the new faces around us for the long weekend. I can't say that he showed much interest in unwrapping his own gifts...he didn't get much chance with his big brother around. All I can say is that it is good that we have the van. Otherwise we might have had to rent a Uhaul to get all of their loot home!

Oh and it was a successful year with Santa Claus. I think between all the visits at our various therapies and such we met up atleast 5 times. By the end, JP was cautious but tolerant of the old guy. T was still a little skeptical.

Birthday party

We got home from Christmas in time to have JP's 5th birthday party. I debated including peers from school but with 17 kids in the class I would have had to hand pick a few and that just didn't seem right. And since this was his first party with children I thought I should keep it as comfortable as possible. I decided to invite his peers from his speech preschool at the local university. I also invited a couple of friends from some of our other services. We ended up with 7 party goers. But I really must admit that it felt like no more than 27. After the party I had to look at the list of names again. I couldn't believe that there hadn't been more in attendence! There was so much activity there must have been atleast 3 of each child.

But it went amazing! JP did awesome. I wanted this to be a "practice" birthday party for everyone. Most of these children are going to be the ones left out of parties. I know this because we are already being excluded from the parties of JP's peers in his "integrated" preschool. I have heard the other kids on the van talk about so and so's birthday party. I just hope JP doesn't realize that he is being excluded.

So I made a scavenger hunt of letters, shapes, and numbers for them when they first arrived. Then we played pin the tail on the donkey. No one wore a blindfold and it was okay! It was difficult to even get a couple to touch the tail and it was okay! It truly was a success because each child was able to go at their own speed. Then we had pizza, cake and ice cream. JP allowed us to sing "Happy Birthday" quietly. He covered his ears but still smiled the whole time. Then a big surprise--he blew out the candle!!!

We finished off the chaos playing with the parachute and bouncing balls around on it. This was truly magical because up until last year JP was terrified of the parachute. We bought one for therapy but found that when alone with it he was fine. It was the sensory experience of all the other participants shaking it. At his party he was right there with the others shrieking and shaking it! He even took his turn at running under it! He has never gone under it!!!

It was truly the most magical day of my life. I was so proud of him! He opened his presents and tolerated the attention. He played the games and had fun doing it! I am not sure if I teared up mostly because of my happiness or because I could truly see his happiness on his face!

Day after his birthday

We are all sick. JP and I are starting to get better but T now has RSV. Fortunately, he does seems to be getting better so there might be a light at the end of the tunnel. I am just thankful he is okay and I look forward to much more happiness--once we are all healthy!