Micah tolerates Poppy

This is Micah’s newest form of therapy, therapeutic riding. We have been going out to this place called Halleck Creek ranch. It’s a non-profit organization that provides horseback riding for mentally and/or physically disabled people. They allow people from ages 2 to 62 and they offer trail rides on Saturdays which is the day most people go, and then they have individual sessions for others on other days of the week. The trail rides are an hour and a half long, which would be way too long for Micah. So, we go on Wednesday afternoons for half an hour. It’s out in West Marin in a town called Nicasio. It’s a beautiful drive out there and the ranch is literally out in the boonies. Micah rides Poppy, a 6 year old Shetland pony. She was too big to be a show horse, so her owners donated her to Halleck Creek ranch. Micah is getting used to the riding. He probably tolerates it at best. He is annoyed by the helmet and usually doesn’t want to get on the pony. Once Poppy starts moving, things are better. Micah generally loves being outside and loves movement, so eventually I think he will enjoy it more.

As for other news, Micah had an EEG on Tuesday. It revealed no seizure activity, which is great news! The last one he had in June had shown 2 seizures. We haven’t noticed any physical manifestations of seizures either. Micah is not yet saying any words, but is making a lot of different sounds, consonants and vowel sounds and putting some of those together. He now has some type of appointment every day with Speech, Physical Therapy, Occupational Therapy, his weekly program for developmentally delayed kids, and one appt. with a man who comes from Easter Seals every week to do interactive play. Micah deals with some of those appointments better than others. I think he realizes when he gets to Speech and OT that they are going to make him work and then he gets upset. He cries and reaches toward me. His Occ. Therapist said to me about 2 months ago, “I’m going to politely kick you out…go get a coffee or something.” To which I replied, “Hey, no problem. I’d love to do that.” So, now I go run errands or sit and read while Micah has OT. It is much more successful when I am not in there.

I’ll attempt to post the link about Halleck Creek in case any of you want to read more about it.

Childlike Praise

This photo was taken by a friend at church. It's actually old, from back in December, but I think it's a beautiful picture of Micah. I saw it for the first time a couple of months ago during our worship service. It was a Sunday in which there was a focus on the children of our church. There were several photos of kids posted on the large screen as we sang. Micah's picture was behind the words to the song "Let My Words Be Few" by Matt Redman. The first verse goes like this:

You are God in heaven
And here am I on earth
So I'll let my words be few
Jesus, I am so in love with you

Chorus:
And I'll stand in awe of you
Yes, I'll stand in awe of you
And I'll let my words be few
Jesus, I am so in love with you

It was a sweet surprise to see this photo as we were worshipping. Micah looks like he is in a posture of praise to me. We pray that Micah will understand and know who Jesus is in this lifetime; we will do our best to teach him how wonderful He is. In the meantime, he already praises him with his sweet little life, the way he explores the world, his laughter, and his precious smile.

Back from the blog break

Well, I guess I’ve taken a little vacation, or rather, long vacation from blogging. It wasn’t intentional, I suppose we had a lot going on. The last time I posted on the 14th we left that day for a visit to our families. We went to Arkansas to see my family for a week and then down to Mississippi for a Womack family reunion. It was good to see every one although a bit strange in Arkansas because two of my aunts whom I loved dearly had passed away in the two months before. They had always been a part of my visits to Arkansas and for them to not be there was so strange. We enjoyed seeing Mom and Dad and my brother Gary and having some of Mom’s great cooking as always.

The weekend in MS was fun. We were glad that Wayne's Mom and Dad and sister Janel were there. We stayed with Aunt Nora and Uncle Taylor and had lots of good ol’ southern cooking and plenty of vegetables from Aunt Nora’s garden. I had only met a few of Wayne’s aunts and uncles at our wedding 6 years ago, and you can’t get to know people at a wedding. So, it was good to get acquainted with some of the Womack family. I absolutely love Aunt Nora! She has a similar personality of my Mom Johnson (my grandmother who passed away 17 years ago); so funny, says whatever is on her mind, and loves people. I felt so welcomed by the Womack side of the family. Many of them I had never met and some of them acted as if they had known me all my life! I think it was especially good for many of those folks to meet Micah since they have been praying for him for so long and had only seen pictures. Of course, he was still fairly new at walking, but he had a great time walking around outside in the grass. We were in TX for a very short few days. I had the shortest visit ever with my sister, later in the week spent the night at Janel’s house and surprised Paula (she didn’t know Micah and I would be there), and lastly, I spent one day with my dear friend Betty.

Changing the subject, but to keep folks updated on our quest to move to TX, OK, AR or somewhere closer to family and those of y’all who are like family…we’re still no closer! We found out that UT Tyler hired someone else. So, we continue searching.

Micah is doing well; still no seizures as far as we can tell. He has started a new seizure med and we’ll be slowly weaning him off of Vigabatrin in about a month. He’s walking really well and even trying to jog/run with a few quick steps here and there. He’s mastered climbing on the couch and is especially good at this whenever Wayne or I have some food. He used to stand in front of us and lean in. Now he’s usually sitting next to us on the couch with his face about half an inch away from our plate, as if we don’t know he wants whatever it is that we have!

I took the last picture of Micah because he just decided to crawl in the laundry basket one day!
For some reason, I guess he thinks it's fun to hang out in there! He also enjoys taking things out and throwing them on the floor one by one, dirty or clean!

I’ll write again soon…gotta tell you about his new therapy on Wednesdays, but I need a good picture first!