PIZZA!

Too busy to eat during the party...eating on the way home. :)

Birthday Par-tay!

Chuck E Cheese!!!

Speech for Socialization!

Jack is becoming more and more social! Yesterday, at Wal-Mart, he ran up to a little kid (probably 3 or 4 years old) and did just as they taught him at school. He tapped the boy on the arm, then stood in front of him and said, "Hi!" And then Jack instructed the little boy, "Say hi!" The boy kept giggling and Jack instructed again, "Say hi!" LOL!

And Jack is making observations. He is talking just to socialize NOT just to get his needs or wants met!!! Last night, he told me he could hear our cats downstairs and then talked about the things we did that day!

This is HUGE!!! Of course it was all in "Jack-ese" but it's the start of something wonderful. I firmly believe that his social development is THE KEY to future success. When he interacts with people, they will realize he is intelligent and quite capable of learning and doing anything.

AND the more he interacts with people the more he learns! I'm so excited about these new developments!!! I just had to share. Hope u all have a great Memorial Day weekend. Ours is awesome so far!

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1-2-3 balls!

Told you it was educational!

You say ball pit...

...we say therapy. Physical therapy in the form of getting in and out and crawling or walking around. Fine motor work manipulating the balls. Color identification, counting, comparing sizes, matching, sorting...all sorts of learning and fun!

You say we need more balls....we agree!

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Happy Birthday to You, We'll Take You to the Emergency Room

What? Oh, is that not how that song goes? Everyone doesn't spend their 5th birthday in the emergency room with their parents hovering over them just about scared out of their minds?

Long story short...Saturday night Jack threw up but that was after a day of fun in the sun swimming and fishing. He ran a low grade fever Sunday and his left ear drained a tiny bit. We started his antibiotic drops. Fast forward to Wednesday and he's still throwing up at night and the fluid coming from his ear has increased NOT decreased. The fluid is thin and watery with a very slight yellow tinge much like cerebrospinal fluid (CSF)--the stuff that cushions your brain and spinal cord.

You can't leak CSF through your ear, right? No...no...um, turns out yeah, you can.

Thursday (birthday) morning arrives and we consult with the family doc. He reminds us that he is not the expert in this area and says let Jack have his school birthday party then take him to Children's Hospital for shunt x-rays.

We smile and sing and play with the kids for Jack's birthday and then head to Children's. On the way, we put a call in to the neurosurgeon to let her know what's going on. She calls while we are at Children's and tells us to go to the ER for a full evaluation.

After spending the afternoon sick with worry we were relieved to have the ER doctors tell us that his left ear had a whole bunch of junk in it that was not allowing the medicine to get in and clear up the infection. The fluid coming out was thin because that's what could get around the bacterial debris. They cleaned out the ears a bit and sent us home with oral antibiotics and new ear drops.

Happy Birthday Jack and hallelujah for nasty ear infections!
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Happy Birthday Jack!

Fishing Rodeo

Thanks to AAPVI (Alabama Association of Parents of Children with Visual Impairment), Jack had his first fishing trip on Saturday. It was sweltering hot and Jack was having a difficult "allergy" day but we still had a blast!

Oaky.... so he really wasn't all that interested in fishing but he humored me for a bit and sat with me.

Uncle Noah WAS all about the fishing. This is just one of the many fish that Noah caught that day. Unfortunately the lighting, the lake, and the color of the fish did not combine to make great pictures so it was hard to see the fish in most of the pictures we got of Noah and his fish.

Jack and I caught our first fish when we had put our cane pole down to get a picture of Noah with his fish. Here I am trying to get Jack to pose with the fish. That poor fish had the misfortune to be spinning around when I put it in front of Jack so Jack gave it a whack with his hand and sent it spinning some more! LOL!

Oma and Opa took Jack for a walk and look what I did!

Jack's favorite parts of the trip were the interesting brick tiles in the stable, the drain in the stable, just generally running to and fro and eating hot dogs and COOKIES!!! All in all it was awesome. Each of these little adventures helps Jack to see how much fun it is to hang out with other people and try new things.

Two fisted hamburger eater!!!

Jack's appetite has recovered too! Can you say ham-buh-guh?

Morning concert

Jack appears to be recovered from his recent bout with strep. This morning, before school, he delighted us with an impromptu concert.

Thank YOU!

Thank you all our sweet bloggy friends!! Your prayers have helped to sustain us through this time. We had a lovely memorial service for Nana last Saturday. The love that she spread to so many was so clearly evident in the room filled with people who came to share her memory. I do think think Jack remembers and will continue to remember her. He frequently mentions Nana and that is a great comfort to my heart.

Things have been very busy here and I hope to return to blogging soon to share our latest adventures with all of you. But for now I'll share a sweet conversation I had with Jack about Nana not too long after she died. I was having difficulty explaining that we would not see Nana anymore.

Jack: Let's go Nana's house.
Me: Nana lives in heaven with Jesus now.
Jack: Let's go church.

Nana took me to church when I was a little girl. She showed me first how very much she loved me then she took me to church and taught me that there is a God who loves me infinitely more than she is able. I'm trying to pass both the love and knowledge down to Jack.