Too many great things happened on the trip to even begin to describe so instead I will provide an update on how Malcolm is doing. He will turn five on September 13 which is hard to believe!
Malcolm is learning to spell his name in capital letters. This was a big focus of OT over the past several months and they gave me several great tools to help Malcolm accomplish this goal. He is getting close. He recognizes and can name most of the letters in his name. We are playing games that help reinforce how to order those letters in the correct order, and we are working on how to actually print the letters. He can consistently print M, O and L. He still needs a bit of prompting for A and C but we are getting very close!
Perhaps the highlight of our trip was that Malcolm has learned how to ride a bike (a three-wheeler)!!! We took his little bike with us to Ontario because my parents have a great cement pad right by their front porch. However, after many days of moving his feet on the pedals and trying to get him to move on it by himself I had just about given up and was starting to resign myself to the fact that it would likely be next year before he would learn. Then one day his Dad came out and was working with him and all of a sudden it just clicked - he was riding. You can view a bit of footage from the very first day of biking independence here but I really like the video below that was taken a few days later....
Malcolm's speech continues to slowly emerge. He now consistently says Daddy and Mommy (or some close variant - often da-da and me-me) which is music to my ears. Just last year I was wondering if I would ever hear his little voice say my name and I do not get tired of hearing it.
Malcolm seems to understand that he is going to "Big School" in the fall. He has a nice book that the learning centre teacher made for him that has several pictures of the school and his teachers and several photos of him in his classroom, etc. We are still trying to sort out how much support he will get and things like that but I think it will all fall into place soon.
Malcolm does not, on the other hand, understand that he will soon have a new brother or sister. He thinks it's funny when we tell him there's a baby in my tummy and shakes his head no - he just doesn't believe it! But we talk about a baby quite a bit so hopefully it won't be too much of a shock for him...hopefully just a few more weeks to wait...
Malcolm had his tonsils out on Friday. He also had the tubes in his ears removed - we were surprised they were still in there! There were over three years old and the doctor said the tissue around them was quite irritated - he had so much wax buildup in his ears that, despite having his ears looked at by various doctors on a regular basis, no one had been able to see them in well over a year! So good thing he got that cleared up as well. Malcolm did really well initially in recovery, taking his medicine and drinking a bit. They were almost ready to send us home but decided we should wait a bit longer. Then Malcolm stopped drinking and absolutely refused to drink anything else for the next four hours! So we ended up staying overnight in hospital to make sure he stayed hydrated. Just before bedtime he decided to drink so that was great - we were able to go home the following morning. Today he seemed to feel really well and his eating greatly improved so I think he is pretty much recovered. I am supposed to keep him fairly quiet for the next few days so that the wound does not reopen so that will be a challenge but it is supposed to rain tomorrow so it will be easier to keep him contained inside...
We are having a great summer and enjoying being back at home in Halifax. The weather has been quite hot so we have been keeping cool and enjoying the outdoors as much as possible. I am not returning to work until next year so am really determined to enjoy this time with my boys before I get busy with the new baby. Today I was brave and took the boys by myself to a small local beach near our house for a couple of hours. It went really well and was a good activity. It was a perfect beach day - sunny and hot but not too hot with a nice breeze. Hopefully there are many more such days to come before summer ends...
Mary Ellen
