Some more good things have happened over the past few days. Natalie (aged 5) has had her first school
report and it is brilliant. She has
‘excellent’ next to every subject. I
had to smile as they ask the children what they would like to be able to
improve on and Natalie had said she would like to be able to draw better! I am so proud of her.
I am also proud of Jessica who is continuing to make the
right progress. She is now seriously
attempting to crawl and did actually crawl backwards just the other day for a
short distance. She also managed to go
forwards briefly ‘commando style’ to her Nanny Joan. We are still practicing the ‘four point kneeling’ position with
her and I have to say that there have been times over the last few days when
she has almost done this herself.
She can now get from a sitting position onto her tummy with
control and lifts her arms up straight in front of her and her head up. Of course any parent would get excited at
this stage of their child’s development but in Jessica’s case it is even more
exciting as not so long ago she could not even sit up unaided.
This brings me to another ‘magic moment’ that happened just
this afternoon. I was reading the rhyme
‘Twinkle Twinkle Little Star’ to Jessica who was sitting next to me on the
sofa. The book she has breaks the rhyme
into a verse for each page (I did not realise there was more than one verse!)
with a colourful picture each one featuring the star. There are also corresponding pictures down the side which when
pressed play part of the tune. Jess
loves it; it is her favourite rhyme, especially when you do the actions with
her. I decided to try and get her to
point to the star as each page was turned.
I stopped reading the rhyme and just asked her to point to the star
(also pointing to it myself). I had to
repeat this over and over again but I felt sure that she understood what I
meant as I could see her eyes focusing on the picture. After what seemed like quite a long time my
patience finally paid off and after asking her to point to the star for the
umpteenth time she slowly lifted her little arm and leant forward and touched
the star! I could not stop the tears
from rolling down my cheeks as I shouted ‘well done Jess, well done’ and gave
her a clap (which she loves), she gave me a big grin and looked so pleased with
herself. To the casual observer this
may seem such a small thing to get emotional over but when you are involved
with a child with developmental delay it is like the most wonderful thing in
the world.
I am ashamed to say that I am probably not known for my
patience, but helping to look after Jess has taught me so many things, patience
being one of them. I think it is also
teaching me humility and an appreciation of the good things in life, which can
sometimes be as simple as the action mentioned above. Yes I would be lying if I was to say I would not like to win the
lottery, or be able to buy clothes without having to check the price tag first,
but I am slowly coming to the realisation that everything I REALLY NEED is right here all around
me. The love of a family, the support
of true friends, sometimes in the hustle and bustle of society today and the
stresses and strains people are under, it is easy to become blind to these
simple pleasures. It is true that I
seem to cry more nowadays, but they are mostly tears of happiness or joy when
something as simple as pointing to a picture is achieved or tears of raw
emotion when seeing a video or reading another blog by someone who is in the
same situation. I can now relate to so
much more than I ever could before and it is an empowering experience.
