About a month ago, I was complaining about being deep in the motherhood trenches. Caught in a stagnant stretch where things seemed far too difficult and taxing than I had the resources for.
I’m now safely free of it.
I’ve always heard mothers say, “Oh it just seemed like he [fillintheblank] overnight!” And I always laughed politely because that’s the kind of thing that every mother everywhere says like it’s the most profound statement in the world, But I never really thought they meant literally overnight.
A week ago Thursday Atticus went to bed the same little kid he’s been for months. Still not sitting up, not crawling, not eating, communicating with a system of claps and giggles, and then he woke up Friday morning a kid with a whole new set of skills.
For months we’ve been working on his eating skills. The cerebral palsy makes controlling his tongue and mouth movements difficult, so it’s been interesting to learn just how much work goes into something that comes so naturally for most of us. He’s 14 months old and he still gets all of his nutrition from a bottle because he just doesn’t have the control to make the food do what it’s supposed to do. Until Friday morning. When he suddenly started eating his food from a spoon three times a day, and chewing up little pieces of Cheerios or cooked peas. For a solid week now he only uses his bottle for drinks and eats everything else like a real boy.
Lobo is less than thrilled at Atti’s newfound skill with the spoon. He has to work a lot harder to mooch now.
He’s starting to respond with actual words, he’ll sit up in his high chair for an hour at a time, he’s starting to get a knee underneath him when he’s on his tummy. The other day Bear fed him a dinner of nectarines and green beans and made the mistake of giving the nectarines first. Atti spit out the green beans, clammed his little mouth shut, tossed his head all around, until I finally caved. I didn’t want to start fighting over food when he was just now starting to be positive about it. No sooner did the words, “Fine, let’s give him some more nectarines.” exit my mouth than he started grinning and let out a chuckle of self-satisfaction so perfectly timed that it seemed like a sitcom. Maybe tomorrow he’ll work on developing a poker face.
His therapists are overjoyed, we hugged and cried together, just amazed at the iron will of this little guy. He’s taking his own time about things, but he’s doing it.