Thanks for all the prayers and support for Jonathan's food challenges. We've had a lot of progress in the past couple of weeks and he is now eating much better than he was. Yesterday was Veteran's Day and we all had a day off. It was so nice! I was able to get Jonathan to sit at the breakfast table to eat, and he finally was able to understand that he had to sit there until he was finished eating. We enjoyed our first family breakfast together.
School is going well. Buddy is literally the teacher's pet...and just about all the other teachers at the school as well! They all think he's amazing...which he is! Jonathan is still slowly bonding. Some days I see a lot of progress-days when he'll give me the tethering strap because he wants to go somewhere, or days, like yesterday, when I watched him straddle Buddy like a horse and lay down on his back (Buddy stood there very still and just let his boy lay on him-I wish I'd had my camera!)
We still keep locks on all the doors, but I have hope that one day that won't be necessary because Buddy is starting to alert us when Jonathan leaves the house. (He's also alerting the teacher at school if Jonathan leaves the room without him!)
Jonathan is continuing to respond more and more to sign language. He is using a comunication book at school that has pictures of different things for him to request. All of the things that we've been trying and failing at for years are finally starting to work for him, and it's so encouraging!
On a different note...we just had our first IEP meeting for our youngest son, Aaron. He is in kindergarten again this year, and is having difficulty processing receptive language. That means that anything that is said to him without some sort of visual cue is not getting processed in his brain. He's had an initial test to see if he also falls into the autism spectrum. We've had him tested before, but don't have a diagnosis for him yet. It's been difficult to discern whether he was having developmental issues during his early years, or just imitating Jonathan. More testing is scheduled in the next couple of weeks, and we have started speech services to work on his receptive language skills.
I'm trying to focus on the positives. He is at the top of his class in letter recognition and sounds. He just started counting to 100, and seems to have a good grasp of one-to-one correspondence with numbers. With the right helps in place, I think Aaron will be okay.
It's a lot to digest that I have two children with disabilities. I'm currently reading an excellent book by Dee Brestin called "The God of All Comfort". It's actually about her journey when she lost her husband to cancer, but it has a lot of good things for anyone who is walking a difficult road. I highly recommend it to any of you-because the reality is that we all experience pain in life. And the longer I've been on this road, I realize that you can't compare pain-it is devastating to whoever is living with it. It has not helped me to be angry with God (although I tried that route for a long time). It does help me to know that He is with me in the fire, to experience it alongside me, even when I can't feel Him there.
Thank you, again, to all of you who are praying for Jonathan and Aaron and our family. Your prayers and support are so important and necessary. We are grateful to have a strong support system.
Heather
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