Kim has been soooo good about keeping the blog updated
regarding Leo’s progress at the feeding clinic.
The least I can do here is give her a little break this Mother’s day
weekend and put together a blog update of my own.
Kim and Leo came home Friday night and it was GREAT to have
everyone home, together, even if only for a little bit. Kim told me that Leo had been sleeping in a
king-sized bed there in the Ronald McDonald house in Hershey, so we were a
little concerned that he might not want to return to his little kiddie bed
here. No worries! Leo was happy to play with his brothers
again, and he was plenty tuckered out from all his work, travel and play.
Kim and Leo came back with homework for the weekend– and I
got to help out. The exercise goes like
this: Leo sits in his high chair, a timer is set for 8 to 10 minutes, and we
attempt to feed the boy baby food. He
frets, cries and wails, and still each time we manage to get a spoonful in we
applaud and shout “Good job! Yay
Leo!”
Leo hates it, and lot of the food comes right back out again. But some stays in, and so we
persevere.
Leo does like to hold a clipboard throughout all of this, just
like the clinicians at Hershey. He also
likes to work the egg timer and, remarkably enough, he can turn off his water
works pretty quickly when he knows his time in the high chair is up.
When Kim talks about her stay at Hershey being hard, she
ain’t kidding. The prospect of going
through this feeding routine TEN times a day, 5 days a week, is daunting.
One neat thing is that I have observed is that Leo appears
to be a bit more vocal this weekend. It
is (at least) theoretically possible that the development of the muscles and
motor skills necessary for eating would aid in Leo’s ability to vocalize. Or maybe it is all the crying he does during
these sessions!
Earlier today I was working on a household repair – and Leo
came around to “help” as he often does. I
try to talk to him when he does this, and I swear he answered one of my
questions with an audible “Yes” (as opposed to the “Uh” I normally get).
If that is really what Leo said, then it is a huge deal. The word “yes” would be an important new word
in his vocabulary, which is currently limited to “hi” and the occasional “Ma”
and “Da”.
So, tomorrow, Mother’s day, Kim and Leo will hit the road
again in the late afternoon. Please keep
them in your prayers. Please pray that
Leo would make great progress this week, and that Kim would keep her spirits
up.
