Life Is A Vapor

As part of my Bible reading plan this year, I am currently reading through the book of Ecclesiastes.  I have read this book of the Bible before, but this time my perspective as a mom of a son with special needs has significantly impacted how I have responded to each passage.

Now, when I read Solomon's statement that "all is vanity (a vapor)", I agree with him in a way that I never did before. The pleasures and joys of this life truly are a vapor.  They will one day pass away.  The ESV Study Bible puts it beautifully when it says, "The fact that all is vanity (a vapor) should drive people to take refuge in God, whose work endures forever and who is a rock for those who take shelter in him."

One particular passage that God has opened my eyes to see in a new light is Ecclesiastes 2:14-16.  I know that it refers to the foolish and the wise, but as I read it I thought of Wesley.  It seems to me that this verse would equally apply to people with and without disabilities.

"The wise person has eyes in his head, but the fool walks in darkness.  And yet I perceived that the same event happens to all of them.  Then I said in my heart, "What happens to the fool will happen to me also.  Why then have I been so very wise?"  And I said in my heart that this also is vanity.  For of the wise as of the fool there is no enduring remembrance, seeing that in the days to come all will have been long forgotten.  How the wise dies just like the fool!"

The ESV Study Bible explains that "wisdom, though infinitely better than folly, does not grant immortality to those who possess it:  the same event (death) happens to both the wise and the foolish.  To make matters still worse, even the wise are typically forgotten after their death and receive no enduring remembrance by others."  The same applies to disabilities. Whether God has created a person with many areas of gifting or with a disability, in the end that person will face death.  All of their successes in this life (or lack thereof) will be forgotten on earth and meaningless in light of eternity.

The only thing that will matter when we face death is whether or not we trusted in Jesus as our Savior while on earth.  Just as the treasures and accomplishments that I store up here on earth will be meaningless on that day, so also the lack of treasures and accomplishments that Wesley is able to store up will be equally meaningless.  It may seem disheartening to many that the wise and the foolish face the same fate, but to me these verses are of great comfort. While on this earth Wesley will never have many grand achievements, in the end the same thing will happen to him as will happen to me.  Our lives here are just a vapor, but our hope is in the promise of the forgiveness of our sins and an eternity with our Savior as children of God.

My Cross - My Present Glory

"My God, I have never thanked Thee for my thorn.  I have thanked Thee a thousand times for my roses, but not once for my thorn.  I have been looking forward to a world where I shall get compensation for my cross; but I have never thought of my cross as itself a present glory. Teach me the glory of my cross; teach me the value of my thorn.  Show me that I have climbed to Thee by the path of pain.  Show me that my tears have made my rainbows."

George Matheson (blind preacher of Scotland)

Operation Bunk Bed

After much anticipation, our latest project arrived mid-afternoon last Friday.  Zach watched with eager expectation as the delivery-men assembled it, which led me to believe that at least one of our boys would make the transition well.

Transitioning Wesley out of his crib and into a big boy bed was not a decision we made lightly. In addition to the normal concern that parents have of whether or not their child will stay in bed, we were also concerned with Wesley's general safety.  Wesley still doesn't grasp the general concepts of fear or safety, which means that falling head first over the guardrail, or not watching placement of his body and sitting down off of the bed, resulting in falling into the ladder, are not events that would surprise us in the least.

Also, unlike most children who transition from a crib to a bed, Wesley does not understand what is happening to him or why.  This is not an exciting event for him where he gets to be a big boy and share a room with his brother.  He is unaware of why we would ever remove him from the comfortable confines of his crib.  Over the past two and a half years, his crib has become his comfort zone, where he can unwind after a long day of sensory overstimulation. And now, without any warning, his place of comfort has been removed.

As a result, we decided to take it slow.  Wesley is still sleeping overnight in his crib, while we use nap time to train him to sleep in his bed.  In the meantime, Zach is napping in our room and enjoying every moment of sleeping on the top bunk at night.  To help with the transition, during nap time we lay down on the floor next to the bunk bed to monitor Wesley and make sure he doesn't stand up, jump while holding onto the guard rail, climb out of bed, or fall in some way, shape or form.  Until today, one of us also stayed in his room as he slept, to make sure he did not stand up or climb out of bed after waking up.  After three days of him waking up and just sitting up and crying until we retrieved him from his bed, I put the baby monitor in their room today and am ready to make a run for it as soon as I hear him cry out.

So far the transition has gone much better than we expected.  Below is the breakdown of our experience so far:

Day 1:  Wesley learns that Mama means business!  He cried for thirty minutes while sitting, sucking his thumb, and holding his comfort burp cloth.  Then, he lay down and fell asleep. After forty-five minutes, he bumped into his guard rail, woke up, and cried for another twenty minutes before Mama determined he was not going to fall asleep again and just got him up. Wesley never attempted to get out of the bed on his own.  Overall, we considered day 1 a success.

Day 2:  Wesley finds Daddy's soft spot.  After crying for an hour, Wesley broke Daddy's heart, and Daddy got him up.

Day 3:  Wesley naps spectacularly!  Wesley cried for ten minutes or so, and then lay down and slept for two hours.  Upon waking up, he sat up, sucked his thumb, cried, and waited for me to get him up.

Day 4:  Wesley learns that when Mama says "no", she means it!  Wesley insisted on jumping while holding on to his guardrail and standing up to poke at the posts on the bunk bed.  For thirty minutes, he would stand up, I would say "no", lay him back down again, and then he would stand up again.  Finally, he was so frustrated with me that he cried angrily, lay down to suck his thumb and comfort himself, and fell asleep.  Again, he slept for two hours and sat up and cried for me when he woke up.  This time though, he stood up next to the rail when I went to pull him out of bed.  We'll have to work on that.

Day 5:  Exhaustion leads to success!  We got home from a doctor's appointment at three o'clock, so after one reminder to not jump, Wesley lay down, sucked his thumb, and fell asleep.  He did learn, though, that if you lie perpendicular to the bed rail with your legs up in the air and then roll over to where the bed rail ends, it is very difficult to get back on the bed again.  Thankfully he figured it out himself without my needing to get involved.  So far, two-and-a-half hours later, he's still sleeping....

While we still have a long way to go and a lot of things to work out before we'll be ready to transition Wesley to the bed overnight, we are currently very encouraged with how well the transition is going.

Look At Me Go!

This morning was one of those mornings.  I saw it coming a mile away, but unfortunately there was no way to avoid the tornado of wrath headed in my direction.

Wesley has had a very difficult time adjusting to Zach being back at school, which has resulted in many tearful and mopey mornings around here.  Any time Wesley is required to do anything he considers unpleasant while Zach is gone, it tends to tip him over the edge.  Which brings us to this morning, when Wesley decided to throw a gigantic temper tantrum after returning from dropping Zach off at preschool, because I DARED to change his poopy diaper while his best friend was gone and unable to entertain him.  Poor boy was so furious that he continue to kick and scream through the first half hour of physical therapy.

By God's mercy, Wesley had a change of heart half way through therapy after angrily marching upstairs to get his comfort burp cloth.  From then on, he was such a sweet little delight.  We have been working on riding his ride-on toy for months now, and today it finally clicked for him!  As he grasped all of the intricate details of the motor plan required to maneuver his ride-on toy around the house, his joyful laugh was music to my ears.

Check out this video of my boy so proudly navigating his way across the room!

Whate'er My God Ordains Is Right

Whate’er my God ordains is right:
His holy will abideth;
I will be still whate’er He doth,
And follow where He guideth.
He is my God; though dark my road,
He holds me that I shall not fall:
Wherefore to Him I leave it all.

Whate’er my God ordains is right:
He never will deceive me;
He leads me by the proper path;
I know He will not leave me.
I take, content, what He hath sent;
His hand can turn my griefs away,
And patiently I wait His day.

Whate’er my God ordains is right:
His loving thought attends me;
No poison can be in the cup
That my Physician sends me.
My God is true; each morn anew
I’ll trust His grace unending,
My life to Him commending.

Whate’er my God ordains is right:
He is my Friend and Father;
He suffers naught to do me harm,
Though many storms may gather.
Now I may know both joy and woe,
Some day I shall see clearly
That He hath loved me dearly.

Whate’er my God ordains is right:
Though now this cup, in drinking,
May bitter seem to my faint heart,
I take it, all unshrinking.
My God is true; each morn anew
Sweet comfort yet shall fill my heart,
And pain and sorrow shall depart.

Whate’er my God ordains is right:
Here shall my stand be taken;
Though sorrow, need, or death be mine,
Yet I am not forsaken.
My Father’s care is round me there;
He holds me that I shall not fall:
And so to Him I leave it all.

Jumping, Etc...

This week Wesley discovered the art of jumping.  His jumps are not the most graceful movements I have ever seen, but I can assure you that I have never seen anyone enjoy jumping as much as he does.  He giggles as he bends his whole body and then launches it back up off the ground.  Then he is so amused by himself that he tips his head back and laughs again with a full belly laugh.  Sometimes his delight intensifies to the point that he can contain himself no longer and he screams with glee.

In fact, screaming seems to be Wesley's new found way to express his joy in life.  He loves to run through the house while screaming and laughing, or dance and scream, or smile at himself in the mirror and scream.  While his screams reach piercing decibels, it is difficult for me to do anything but smile and shake my head as I watch my boy run around enjoying life to the fullest.  (On the other hand, I do try to curtail his older brother's encouragement of his screaming.  One boy screaming, I can tolerate.  Two boys screaming is two too many.)

Wesley is also surprising us with his receptive and expressive language skills.  He has not been adding very many new words lately, but he HAS been attempting to communicate more with us and is showing that he is increasing in his understanding of what we are saying to him.  For example, on Wednesday he cried and stormed around the house all morning while Zach was at school.  There was nothing that I or his occupational therapist could do to console him. But then when it was time to leave and pick Zach up, I said to Wesley, "It's time to go get Zach from school."  He immediately stopped crying, said "Dak", and ran for the front door.  It was such a precious moment to see both how much he adores his older brother as well as how clearly he understood what I said - even with no gestures or pictures to explain myself to him.

Wesley is also a frequent user of the word "gak" to express his desire for more coke!  In fact, "gak" is one of the few words he will use without prompting.  While I wish his tastebuds preferred water to soda, I am humored by the fact that my little guy might singlehandedly change our family's word choice for carbonated beverages.  I laugh just thinking about my husband breaking down and using the generic word coke rather than soda after nine years of mocking me (and other Texans) for using the confusing term coke.  Well hubby, welcome to the club.  You can blame your son if you want to, but I love hearing that word come out of your mouth. :)

In other news,  fine motor skills have long been a missing part of Wesley's skill set.  Of course this also has a lot to do with his short attention span.  In the past few weeks, though, he seems to be taking off in these areas, and his accomplishments are impressive.  He is now consistently using his pincer grasp to take a piece of food out of a bowl (pretzels, goldfish, etc...), although he still uses a full hand grasp to reach for things that are by themselves and do not require a more advanced grasp (such as food spread out on his tray).  He has also started maneuvering puzzle pieces so that he can not only identify where they go but also fit them into their correct spot.  It is so encouraging to watch him study a puzzle and look at each spot before selecting where to place his puzzle piece.  Wesley even surprised his developmental therapist with his ability to use use his pincer grasp to manipulate puzzle pieces with small handles.  Until two weeks ago, he had only been attempting to place puzzle pieces with large wooden handles on them.  Then today, for the first time, he played with his pegboard and successfully placed pegs both into the holes on the board as well as stacked on top of each other.  This was a huge feat for him!

Keep up the good work Wesley!  We're so proud of you, little buddy!

Back to School

Monday was Zach's first day back in preschool.  To say he was excited would be an understatement.  He was all smiles in the morning as he came into my room at seven - already dressed and in the process of making his bed.  (He needed a bit of help, as he was concerned with how Daddy had tucked the bottom of his sheet in the night before when changing his sheets.  Of course, he wanted me to fix it.)

I was thrilled that my boy obliged me with a smile when I took his picture.  His only request was that I take a silly picture too.  Once we arrived at school, he excitedly walked in and hung his backpack up on his hook.  Then he told me he needed to use the bathroom, but he wanted me to wait outside because he could do it all by himself.  When I dropped him off at his classroom, his teacher was holding a girl who was clinging to her while also comforting other kids who were crying.  But my boy was so brave.  He gave me a kiss and a hug and then went and sat down in his seat, waiting patiently for class to start.  As I walked away, I was amazed at how much my Zachy-poo has grown up.  (Apparently this name is still permissible sometimes, as he informed me he thought it would be hilarious to introduce himself as Zachy-poo to his classmates.  He said the other kids thought he was pretty funny and laughed and laughed.) My Zach - always the entertainer.

I pray that this year will be a wonderful year of school for Zach - that he will learn to share with his classmates and respond to unkindness with kindness, that he will respect his teacher, and most of all that he will learn more about Jesus and grow in his love for God and His word.  I pray that this will be the year that Zach will place his trust in Jesus as his Savior.

I am much less concerned with his actual classwork, as evidenced by the following story:

On Sunday afternoon we were enjoying family time together in the living room before naps. Mike and I were playing with Wesley while Zach was looking at his new Big Backyard magazine, which had just come in the mail.  As we played, I suddenly looked at Mike in shock as I heard the following come out of the lips of my four year old:  "Animals move in lots of different ways.  Take a look at how they go, go, go!  A kangaroo cannot move its back legs one at a time.  So a kangaroo must hop to get from one place to another.  A kangaroo can hop forward, but not backward."  I immediately asked Mike if he had read the magazine to Zach yet, and he said no.  Apparently my son can read even better than I thought.  Wow!

God has blessed my son with a gift, and it is a joy to watch him delight in reading at such an early age.  I am so very proud of him!  But I pray that he will always know that his gifts come from the Lord.  May his boast always be in his Creator and Savior and never in himself.