Lots to report…

We’ve had a busy, fun, trying, scary, exciting, happy, worrisome week.

First off came Ethan’s four year check up. He is now 40 inches tall and weighs 44 pounds. I don’t recall how tall he was last year, but he gained twelve pounds since his three year check up. Twelve. What is it with this kid and twelve pounds? His doctor and I were concerned enough to put a call into his neurologist. The neuro felt that the big gain was alarming enough that he wants to see Ethan soon. We have an appointment scheduled for August 26th. I’m guessing that the neuro will want E to have an MRI done. I want the MRI done. I want to know what, if anything, is going on in E’s brain. I dread the procedure, though. He’ll have to be sedated for it and he’s old enough to be scared and to remember it. He was one at the time of his last MRI and doesn’t remember it. I do, though. It was torture to see him be put to sleep. I can’t imagine how it will be for him when he’s much more aware of what’s going on. Anyhow, I’m trying my best not to freak out.

Tuesday, we took the kids to an amusement park. Not a huge one, but one that can easily be done in a day (or less). Lots of fun stuff for little kids and big kids. Will and Abby were both finally tall enough to go on the good rides and had a blast on the roller coasters. Ethan was in kid heaven with all of the spinning rides. He just kept going and going. Got off one ride, went to the next, then the next, and so on. He was far more daring than I’ve ever seen him and that was just fabulous to watch. He had a huge grin on his face all day long with one exception. He did try one ride that didn’t spin. It went up, up, up, then dropped fast. He giggled all the way up the first time, but as soon as it dropped, he flipped out. It was over quick and he didn’t suffer any lasting trauma from it, but man, he freaked! He’s still talking about it. “I don’t like the up and down ride. It’s scary. I like the boats, and the planes, and the turtles, and the cars. I don’t like the up and down ride.”. It was a really great day and we had perfect weather which is a miracle around here these days.

Then we had a huge first here yesterday. E’s always been a bit (OK, quite a bit) cautious around playgrounds and slides in particular. Yesterday, we went to the playground and the first thing E did was climb up to the big, tall, “dizzy slide” as he calls it, and went down it. By himself. No hand holding or prompting by Mom or Dad. Just did it all by himself. Multiple times. I was (and am still) so proud and just a bit shocked. I’m guessing doing all of the rides the day before had something to do with this bold behavior… Whatever it was, I’ll take it.

Today brought some good news. Back in March, Ethan’s physical therapist (M) was taken off of his case by the agency. It wasn’t anything personal. They were just rearranging her clients to keep them all in the same general area. I understood the reason, but was devastated. She was perfect for E. They have some sort of magical connection that I can’t describe. The new PT (S) is great. Very nice and I like her very much. E does, too. But he just doesn’t work with her the way he did with M. M could get him to do hard work without him even realizing he was doing work at all. The initial transition from M to S was not fun at all. Ethan wouldn’t do anything for S. It was awful for a couple of weeks, then became bearable, then got better, but still not great. I found out today that we will get M back on Ethan’s case at the start of school. I am positively giddy over this news. I knew it was a possibility about 3 weeks ago, but didn’t get the confirmation until today. So, yay!!!

Other random yays for the boy… he now says three (with a perfect th) instead of free. He now says animal instead of aminal, he’s recalling information from stories more and more, he’s drawing people, he’s making shapes. Not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but beautiful to my eyes.