“I Love My Mommy Because…”

I want to tell you all about the different kind of joy I have experienced lately–the joy of seeing Evy hit milestones that not so long ago, we had wondered if he ever even would. What sorts of milestones would be be able to reach? A year or so ago, we really didn’t know…and it was so deeply sad for us.

Of course, as parents/caregivers we’re pretty elated when ANY of our children hit major milestones in their lives, be it: crawling, walking, joining a team for the first time, graduating junior high, going off to post-secondary education or start down their own career path….and so on & so forth it goes. However, for me, I’m finding that there is something very unique about seeing your child who faces neurological challenges in life progress to new levels. Levels that not long ago seemed quite possibly out of reach he is now conquering, and I quite literally cry happy tears every time.

For well over a year, Evy had been strongly disinterested in books. But a couple of weeks ago, he found an old book of Cody’s called “Why I Love My Mommy”, and he was immediately quite intrigued with it! He wanted us to read it to him all the time, identifying the different animals on each page, and making the appropriate animal sounds along with it. He would squeal with delight every time, and my heart would feel all warm & fuzzy. One day last week, rather than simply sticking to the animals, I pointed to the words on each page (every left page predictably says “I love my mommy because…” and the right page completes that sentence every time-so it kept him interested)…I wondered if he might shut the book at that point, as he hadn’t been in to words before….but he kept listening, giggling more and more! 🙂

Reading with my Bug, what could be better?!

I’ll tell you what could be better–a few days ago, Evy started READING!!! I’m sh*# you not!

On November 14th, my darling Bug read to ME! (Yes, I noted the exact date. I want to create a journal for him, so that one day in the future he can look at it and see how very far he has come!!) He brought me the book while I was sitting on the couch one day around lunchtime, and pushed his brain and mouth muscles to say the words “I love my mommy because…”. I did a double-take! He had to work so hard to coordinate all of the functions needed to get those new words out, but he did it! He didn’t get discouraged even though it wasn’t crystal clear coming out of his mouth, he simply kept trying. That’s one of the most admirable and sweetest things about Evrett, he doesn’t get frustrated, he just perseveres.

Multiple times a day now, we read that book. Evy reads the title page, the left pages, and we read the right-hand pages. And there’s even more reading fun to be had-because we had the “Why I Love My Daddy” book to go with it, and yesterday he discovered that one! One day soon, he will be reading that one too, we have no doubt. Our sweet little guy, READING!! We can hardly believe it! Reading by rote memory, of course, he isn’t sounding words out, but this is how we ALL begin to read.

Keep reading my sweet little Bug. Books hold so many worlds to discover!!

Keep conquering your mountains one step at a time little one, you’re teaching all of us as you go. And we’re blessed to be alongside you as you go, cheering you on.