Five Years

Dear Zach,

I promise, I haven't forgotten your birthday.  How could I ever forget about the birth of my firstborn son?  Things have been crazy around here as I work through pages of to-do lists to get ready for the birth of your brother, and somehow my birthday letter to you was pushed down to page two on one of those lists.  Please forgive me for my tardiness!  When you're my age and have kids of your own, maybe you'll understand.  On the other hand, as it seems that you have your father's gift for timeliness, maybe you'll just need the gift of understanding others in their weakness.

Zach, every time I look at you, I am amazed at how quickly the past five years have gone by. How can it be that just five years ago I was holding a newborn baby in my arms for the first time and trying to figure out what being a mom was all about?  Now I look into your eyes and see a boy who is so very grown up.

I love our conversations together, when you talk about your day at school or your interactions with others.  You still see the world in black and white, and sometimes it is hard to not laugh as you use words such as "steal" and "lie" for activities that would better be characterized as accidentally taking something and intending to return it or misunderstandings between two individuals.

Your vocabulary is growing by leaps and bounds, and I am amazed at your logic skills at such a young age.  Your ability to distinguish between specific word choices based on their precise meanings reminds me very much of your father.  I can tell that by the time you are a teenager I will just have to acknowledge the fact that you are smarter than me and able to use reasoning skills far surpassing my own to explain why my instructions to you are not correct or accurate.  Despite this, God will still call you to honor your mother.

Since Wesley joined you in your room, it has been a delight to watch you quietly come out every morning at six-thirty to read your Bible story books in our closet.  It amazes me that you are able to read every word by yourself and then discuss what you read with me.  This morning, after reading about Solomon's wives worshiping idols, you were quick to tell me that at one time Solomon loved and followed God but then over time his heart became proud.  I pray that as you continue to read about God and His word, that God will gently but firmly draw you to Himself and a saving knowledge of His Son Jesus.

You have never had a huge interest in music, but just recently I have heard you singing both songs you've heard and also songs you make up on the spot.  It was music to my ears last week when I heard you singing a song about how Jesus did not want to die on the cross but He did it anyway because He loves us so much.  Oh how I pray that God will cause these words to sink deep into your soul and that you will grasp the depth of God's love for you as expressed by the death of His Son for your sins.

As Wesley has grown older, it has been a joy to watch how you have taken him under your wing.  Your patient voice as you teach him his shapes or help him with a puzzle is just precious to watch.  I love listening as you play with him and encourage him to try new things.  And at night, as you are supposed to be sleeping, it is difficult to drag myself into your room to ask you to be quiet when I hear you practicing sounds with him and encouraging him to imitate you.  When I hear the two of you laughing together, it is music to my ears.  As I think about it, it is so very evident that God perfectly placed both of you into our family.  You are the perfect big brother for Wesley.  You are patient with him but yet faithful to keep encouraging him and reminding him to do what is right.  I am often grateful for your black and white perspective on things when you remind me that Wesley is licking something or engaging in a behavior we are seeking to curtail.  Many times I am tired and would prefer to just ignore Wesley's behavior for a minute or two, but your faithfulness to point it out and remind me that he is "NEVER allowed to do that" is very helpful.

One of my favorite things to watch you do these days is build with your LEGOs.  You love to follow instructions, and your new favorite thing to do is pull out a set of LEGOs, grab the instructions, and follow them exactly until you have completed what it is that you are building.  Truly, I am amazed at your ability to follow the instructions without messing anything up.  And I love seeing your huge smile as you show me what you have built.  It is fun to see you succeeding at something that you love so much but that is also challenging to you.  And I am so proud of you for working hard at building things rather than getting frustrated and angry when things aren't going right.  I know that is just another sign that you are growing up.

I love you so much Zach, and I am looking forward to enjoying this next year with you.  You are becoming my companion, and I am praying that together we will enjoy year five tremendously!

Love,
Mom

The Least of These

With baby #3's impending arrival, it has been easy to focus on the new addition to our family and forget about the burden for orphans with special needs that God has placed on my heart.  But in the past week, God has used several blog posts to overwhelmingly remind me of the plight of orphans with special needs around the world.  Just today I watched a video about older boys in Eastern Europe, most of whom cannot speak or even walk, who have been neglected for far too long.  As I watched this video, I melted into tears for the second time in as many days as I thought of my dear Wesley.  My adorable and delightful son who is God's precious gift to our family could easily be one of those boys someday if he had been born in a different part of the world.

Speaking is such an incredible struggle for him that I could easily picture him never speaking without significant intervention.  Without the numerous hours we have invested in feeding therapy, it is very likely that he would be unable to eat solid foods.  If he were in an orphanage right now, he would be a non-verbal boy transferred to a mental institution at the age of five to live out the rest of his life alone.  He would spend far too many hours of each day just lying in a crib and staring up at the ceiling - lost and forgotten; forsaken by the rest of the world.

As I imagine my son, whom I love with my whole heart, enduring such horrific conditions, my heart breaks for the countless children who will live out the rest of their lives in these very situations.  I think of the joy that Wesley exudes and the delight that he brings to all those around him, and then I realize that because of sin and depravity in this world, countless other boys and girls like him will never be given the opportunity to enjoy life and bring joy to those around them.  Because they are not seen as created in the image of God, they are instead given just a shell of a life as if they are unworthy of being honored as creations of a holy and righteous and loving God.

In truth, Wesley, and all people who have any sort of disability, were created by God's sovereign hand and are infinitely loved by Him.  Therefore, how we treat them, both through our action and inaction, clearly shows whether or not we believe God's word to be true and whether or not we value what He values.  More than that, how we treat the least of these is directly related to our love for our Savior.  For Jesus Himself says in Matthew 25 that as we do (or do not do) to the least of these, so we also do to Him.

When we face Jesus on the last day, may we all be able to say, "when I saw people with disabilities, I saw them as created in Your image.  I loved them and I reached out to them and cared for them, for in them I saw the face of God."

F is for Fish

The past two days I have seen a whole different side of Wesley.  While reading a book to Wesley yesterday morning, we came to a page with a fish on it.  Wesley immediately climbed out of his cube chair, ran to the other room, threw all the toys out of his toy box, and came back with a little blue plastic fish he had received as a prize from the dentist a few weeks back.  I didn't even realize he knew this fish existed, much less that he was able to make the connection that it was a fish, just like the fish in the book.

For the rest of the day yesterday (and continuing into this morning), Wesley would run up to me every five minutes or so, tug on my arm, show me his fish, and say "fff".  When I responded with, "Yes, Wesley, that is a fish!", he would give me a huge smile, say "fff" several more times, and run off to play again.  Other times, he would run up to me, put his arms in the air for me to pick him up, say "up" after a verbal prompt, and once in my arms show me his fish so that we could say "fish" (or "fff") back and forth a few times before he would squirm back down again.

Watching Wesley's joyous grin and seeing the twinkle in his eye as he would exuberantly run up to me to tell me about his fish has been delightful.  How I pray that this is the beginning of him seeking to initiate verbal communication with us rather than just speaking words when prompted.  Maybe as he realizes how much fun it is to tell Mama about his fish, it will click with him that he can tell me about other things too.

Please join us in praying that this will be the case!

Autumn Memories

Our family has always enjoyed Saturday outings the Fall.  We love to go to parks, play in the leaves, throw sticks and pine cones over bridges and watch them float down the river, chase squirrels, and go for long walks.  Of course Wesley also loves water and desperately tries to climb out of his stroller to play in the fountains even though the weather has turned chilly.

This slide thing is lots of fun now that I've got the hang of it!

Did you see that Dad?  I chased the squirrel right up into that tree!

 Watching sticks float down the river (or in Wesley's case, just watching the rippling water)

This kid has quite a sense of humor.  He's always making us laugh these days.

Must. Get. That. Water.

I just love his delightful smile!

Brothers having fun together.

Wesley peacefully stood on the water's edge for quite a while with Daddy and just took in the scenery.

Meanwhile, Zach was busy saving the world!

Our recent Saturday outings have been such delightful family times.  I have enjoyed watching our boys play together and investigate God's creation.  Even more than that, it has been a joy to see their unique and very different personalities and yet watch how well they play together and how much they enjoy being with each other.  God's perfect plan is so evident in how He created them and placed them each into our family at the perfect time.  They are wonderful companions and are both so good for each other.  I look forward to seeing how our third little guy will fit in and complete the puzzle.

Shapes & Colors

Recently I have been discouraged with Wesley's development, finding myself comparing him to other children with special needs and then concluding in my mind that he is lagging behind.  For example, when I read about children with Down syndrome who head off to preschool already knowing their letters, numbers and colors, it is easy to sit there and think, "Wow! I'm not even sure Wesley will know these things by the time he goes to kindergarten".

Wesley's sensory issues and struggles with motor planning have played a huge part in his delays in other areas. He still struggles to sit still and concentrate for longer than a few minutes at a time, and it is very difficult for him to learn motor plans for vocalizing sounds and forming hand movements, which has led to delayed communication.

Because we have been working so much to help Wesley regulate his body and communicate his basic needs, working on things like letters, colors, numbers and shapes have fallen by the wayside.  I just started labeling shapes for Wesley a few months ago, and we only added color labeling into the mix of activities in the past two weeks.

 

Knowing how long it has taken Wesley to learn new things in the past, I fully expected to continue to work on shapes and colors for months if not years before seeing him really begin to pick up on these concepts.  So when I pulled out Wesley's shape sorter and pegboard yesterday to work with him, my expectations were quite low.  Much to my surprise, when I gave him a choice of two shapes, 3 out of 4 times he chose the correct one.  He made excellent eye contact, closely examining each shape before making his choices, so I knew his correct choices were not accidental.  Then, when we moved on to colors, he again chose the correct color 3 out of 4 times when I gave him a choice of two colors.  I kept giving him color choices, using two pegboard pieces that were different colors but the same shape, thinking that surely he hadn't learned his colors this well after only a few weeks.  Each time I gave him a choice, he only confirmed that indeed he did know which color to choose.

As we were working on colors, Daddy walked in the door from work, and just to confirm that this was no fluke, Wesley showed off his new color identification skills to Daddy too.  To say that we were astounded would be an understatement.  In fact, Daddy had no idea that Wesley even had the concept of color matching, much less color identification.

I was grateful for the reminder from the Lord that He is indeed at work in Wesley's life.  Just because Wesley is struggling to communicate does not mean that he is not learning.  The fact that he is learning his colors and shapes so quickly shows that his receptive language is developing quite well.

On top of this, over the past few days Wesley has been trying to imitate words more often.  He still has very few consonants and not all of his vowels, and he attempts to speak on inhalation rather than exhalation, so we have a long way to go with working on airflow.  But he is TRYING, and that is a huge step when the motor plan for speaking is so very difficult for him.

Wesley, your Mama and Daddy are so very proud of you!  You continue to amaze us with all that you are learning and doing.  We can't thank God enough for blessing us with such a wonderful son!

"For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother's womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them."
Psalm 139:13-16

Our Faithful God

"And David said in his heart, I shall now perish one day by the hand of Saul."  1 Samuel 27:1

The thought of David's heart at this time was a false thought, because he certainly had no ground for thinking that God's anointing him by Samuel was intended to be left as an empty unmeaning act. On no one occasion had the Lord deserted His servant; he had been placed in perilous positions very often, but not one instance had occurred in which divine interposition had not delivered him. The trials to which he had been exposed had been varied; they had not assumed one form only, but many—yet in every case He who sent the trial had also graciously ordained a way of escape. David could not put his finger upon any entry in his diary, and say of it, "Here is evidence that the Lord will forsake me," for the entire tenor of his past life proved the very reverse. He should have argued from what God had done for him, that God would be his defender still. But is it not just in the same way that we doubt God's help? Is it not mistrust without a cause? Have we ever had the shadow of a reason to doubt our Father's goodness? Have not His lovingkindnesses been marvelous? Has He once failed to justify our trust? Ah, no! our God has not left us at any time. We have had dark nights, but the star of love has shone forth amid the blackness; we have been in stern conflicts, but over our head He has held aloft the shield of our defense. We have gone through many trials, but never to our detriment, always to our advantage; and the conclusion from our past experience is, that He who has been with us in six troubles, will not forsake us in the seventh. What we have known of our faithful God, proves that He will keep us to the end. Let us not, then, reason contrary to evidence.

Charles Spurgeon, Morning & Evening, October 17

This quote has been very helpful to my soul as we are beginning the process of transitioning Wesley to preschool.  Up until now, we have never had a shadow of a reason to doubt God's goodness toward us or toward Wesley.  His lovingkindnesses toward Wesley truly have been marvelous.  He has not once failed to justify our trust!  So now we can trust that He who has been faithful and has been with us up until now will not forsake us as Wesley heads off to school.  He will keep us to the end!

Remembering

About a year ago, when I brought Wesley in to see his GI specialist, I asked on a whim if he knew of a feeding therapist who might be able to help my sweet boy.  At the time, Wesley was only eating baby food, and we were desperate to find someone who could help him. Much to my surprise, Wesley's doctor DID have a therapist that he highly recommended.  He warned me, though, that it was unlikely that I would be able to get in to see her.

I called the clinic where she worked and found out that, as Wesley's doctor had thought, she had no openings.  But, she did still have availability for evaluations.  Since Wesley had just received an annual feeding evaluation with Early Intervention, we went ahead and set everything up for the evaluation to be billed to our private insurance (which, praise the Lord, covered feeding evaluations!)

During Wesley's evaluation, the feeding therapist commented multiple times on his struggles with swallowing and the many issues he had with his tongue movements.  She ruefully stated that it was too bad we hadn't come much sooner, since now it would be necessary to correct many things that could have been taught properly the first time.  As she finished up his evaluation, she told me that with a lot of work she could have him eating everything before he aged out of Early Intervention.  When I asked about her full schedule, she said that it was very important that these things be addressed right away, and that she wanted to personally take him on as a client and help him.

As we left her office, I was struck by two things - both the seriousness of the situation that she would be so quick to make a way to fit Wesley into her schedule and start seeing him immediately, and the fact that God had so wondrously provided for Wesley's needs even when we didn't think it was possible.

Fast forward to a year later, Wesley saw his GI specialist again this month.  Much to my surprise, he remembered our conversation from a year ago and asked about how Wesley was progressing with feeding.  As I recounted our story and thanked him for recommending this therapist, he expressed surprise both that Wesley was able to receive services from her and that his accomplishments with feeding were so significant.  I had to fight back tears as I so clearly saw the hand of God on Wesley's life, providing abundantly for him.  God has blessed Wesley with a wonderful GI specialist, who has not only treated him with great skill and wisdom over the past two and half years, but also took a personal interest in him and sought to help him with his feeding issues.  Then God provided us with a spectacular feeding therapist with a heart to help my struggling boy, whose skills He has used to do a radical work in Wesley.  The fact that Wesley is now able to eat most things and is accepting of new foods is truly a magnificent transformation.

I am so grateful for this reminder of how God is mightily at work in my little guy's life.  God truly does love Wesley and is faithful to provide for all of his needs.

"I will give thanks to the Lord with my whole heart; I will recount all of your wonderful deeds." Psalm 9:1