A Normal Life

Jacob goes to daycare tomorrow with some congestion and a diaper rash. He has fallen several times since he has been home with me for the past week. Twice he walked into the doorway leaving an egg on his forehead and twice I watched as his right leg or knee went out from under him and he fell forward. He now has bruises on his forehead, his chest, and his right knee. He is refusing to nap unless he is exhausted so I think fatigue has something to do with him falling as well as his right visual field loss because I have not seen any other neurological signs. In fact, he is pushing up on us to stand in our bed which he has never attempted before because our bodies don't offer much height or support for him to stand and the bed is not a sturdy surface. This is great because he is working on standing from a sitting position on the floor without pulling up during PT. Speech is great too. He is saying goot (good) and whoa and mamme (grammy). For sure, if you are not trained in Jacob-speak, you wouldn't know what he was saying some of the time but you would know that he was trying to say something. Jacob's incision is completely healed now and we are getting ready for Constraint Therapy III to begin next Monday. I feel like this will be the last time because it is so expensive and as Jacob gets older I can't use the "he won't remember" excuse. The therapy is not painful or anything and he adapts without his left hand which is the point but it restricts his overall activity. I guess it will all depend on the gains he makes this time around. A month of therapy for a lifetime of functional use is definitely worth missing swimming lessons or letting Mommy and Daddy help with eating and drinking. We are so close to having a normal life, not without therapy, but without having to choose extreme or radical or experimental measures. Last night we booked our plane tickets for August to see Uncle Jeff and Uncle Chris and Auntie Dianne in Seattle and Auntie Allie, Uncle Lyle, and Cousin Cole from San Diego are going to join us there. A normal life - making memories for our own children and establishing a new sense of family because we are adults now even though we remember eachother as children.