Better school days

Micah with friends Madeline and Lillian ( friends' Ryan and Marian's girls)

Micah and Olivia on Easter Sunday (Olivia is 4 month old daughter of friends Stacey & Elijah)

The boy sure loves bath time!

Sporting his shirt that friends living in India sent.

If you read the last post, you know that Micah was having a hard time adjusting to school. Thankfully, he is doing so much better at school. In fact, his teacher called me last week to say that Micah had a great week. He said he was engaged in what was going on, was grabbing books and pointing to pictures in them (pointing is very new, and he doesn’t do it a lot), and that he had laughed some too. He still gets a little upset when he first gets into the classroom, but they have a little routine for him now. There’s a cow puppet in the classroom he’s attached to that they give him and they put on some classical music. He sits in a certain place for a few minutes and then he’s fine. So, thank you for praying for this!

Another note of encouraging news is that Micah is learning to do some things on his own. He has started to feed himself with a spoon and fork. I went to his class for an open house two weeks ago and the parents were to have snack with their kids. So, I started feeding Micah his yogurt like we always do at home. One of the teacher’s aides looks at me and says, “Oh, Micah had been feeding himself the yogurt.” I was so surprised and said “You mean he knows how to dip the spoon in, get some out and everything?” To which she replied “Yes, it isn’t always pretty, and doesn’t always completely make it to his mouth, but he’s getting it, he understands the concept.” So, we have been so excited and have let him feed himself more and more. He still isn’t great with the mechanics and coordination, but that will come!

He is also understanding how to help us when we are putting his clothes on. He isn’t quite coordinated to pull his pants up yet, but likes to try and thinks it’s funny. He also understands what it means to brush his teeth though it will be a while before he can do it by himself.

All these things are very encouraging and hopeful to us. I think Wayne and I have both wondered how long it would be before Micah could have some self-care skills, just like we wonder how long it will be before he can talk. What I’m learning is to be thankful for little bits of advances and progression. I have to say, I think him being in this half-day school has been great for him. It’s been since he started that we have seen all these new developments. I was also reminded recently of what one mom said in a book called ‘The Elephant in the Playroom’. It’s a great book about raising kids with special needs. She said “I need to remember that my son didn’t ask for this. I need to remind myself that it is harder to be a child who struggles with a disability than it is to be that child’s parent.”