A Few for the Win Column!

 Look what my boy did!  His OT presented me with this work sample and I asked, "Did you dictate this to him?  Cover his paper with your hand?"  She said she opened the handwriting pad with the alphabet as a model and he copied it on his own, with little coaching.  I just couldn't believe it.  My son?  Writing in the lines?  On task for an extended period of time?  Wow!  I'm such a teacher nerd, when I said  I'd be sharing this on the blog, the OT remarked that she hated to have marked up the paper.  "No! That makes it better!" I assured her.  Trusty are the marks of a red pen in the hand of a teacher.  I AM SO PROUD.  I just made a "kids' brag folder" in my Dropbox account.  I've got some masterpieces to begin saving. :)

Secondly, we had a major personal victory yesterday.  We've been working on toileting independence for 2 1/2 years with Jay.  It's been a major struggle and to be frank, a tremendous source of stress and even shame for me.  It took me a long time to understand that this would happen later developmentally for Jay, but it would happen.  I'm in the kitchen and I hear the sound of a male child going to the bathroom.  What's significant is that he is going without being told.  I ran in the bathroom, whooped and hollered, got Rachel in on the celebration and called Dad to share.  As I was leaving a voicemail, I almost doubted myself.  Wait... he was throwing bits of paper in the toilet as it flushed.. maybe he was playing... nope, saw him standing, heard the sounds, saw the hiney; he did it!

World, my son is consistently in underwear (Pull-ups, we are never getting back together, like EVER), is night trained, his tummy troubles are much better (not solved completely) and he chose to go the bathroom without Mom's nagging.   JOIN ME IN REJOICING! 

The Lord makes everything beautiful in his time, and this, all joking aside, is beautiful.

My son is beginning to make decisions for himself, because he can.