This weekend was quite a success. We didn't stay as long as planned, but we felt that it was extremely important for this trip to be a positive experience for the boys. It was supposed to begin raining sometime in the early morning hours Saturday morning, so we stayed as late as possible Friday night and then came home. We had a big tent set up as a play area and sleeping area for the kids. Manny and I slept in the camper and Jake and Daddy slept in the tent. Pictures can be found on this page. I also shot a quick silent video of Jake running around the festival. He would run like for almost that the entire time that we were down at the stage. Notice the hand-flapping and circling.
Now that we're rested up I will be spending this week trying to get materials together for the special education department for the school system. I'm hoping to get Jake some therapy before August. I just can't sit around and do nothing, although I would much rather be spending the beautiful spring days with my boys instead of running around getting paperwork together. I'm also worried about the hearing screening, since Jake won't sit in an office situation, let alone let someone touch him with instruments. I am confident that he has no hearing or sight problems, so we'll see how it goes.
Meanwhile, Jake still makes leaps with his speech. He absorbs more and more signs every day. This morning he handed Manny his sippy cup and said "Baby drink." Then look ate me and said, "He's thirsty." It may not sound like much, but any time Jake uses appropriate speech it is a very big deal to us.
Here's a slightly gruesome tale to illustrate how he uses sign and speech together: The other day he was playing outside accompanied by our dog, Bree, with one of his favorite playthings, a caterpillar. His dad and I were just inside the door, so we did not see what happened, but suddenly heard Jake crying hysterically. We ran out to find him yelling "Bree! Caterpillar! Bree! Bree! Caterpillar" He was also signing the word "eat." Ahhh.. well, Bree had eaten his caterpillar. We comforted him and found another caterpillar for him to play with, however the fact that he had been able to portray what had happened to us was just huge.
Hopefully with speech therapy, we can learn more about whats oh his mind.
