Wade's First Birthday

Isn’t Fonix Great?

“Mommy,” said Christopher happily, “eyeball starts with an I, and Emily starts with an M, and you starts with a U!”

I smiled back and decided that another day will be soon enough to disillusion him with the convoluted spellings of the English language.

--The Lady

Pride & Joy

He's got the "snooty" face down pat

Working those muscles

He puts a grin on my face 100 times a day!

Overbite

Is it possible to bite someone (for example, a brother) accidentally?

I don’t think so either, but this is his story.

“Well, Mom, we were jumping and when he fell on my head, my teeth just sort of clamped down.”


--The Lady

More Therapy

Wade has physical therapy once a week with Susan. He's always happy to see her, but then she pushes him over and he cries. It's all part of his therapy to try to get him to use and strengthen the right muscles. But Susan is so full of songs and energy that he is soon cheerful again.

In July, Wade got a new occupational therapist who also comes once a week. Jesse brings a bag full of toys for Wade to reach for and even helps Wade eat snacks to work on his pincer grasp. Fun! Fun! Wade loves to eat.

Wade's service coordinator Karen comes once a month to coordinate Wade's treatments and to make sure he is not missing any essential elements of therapy.



Wade also gets speech therapy from Liz once a month.

How To Stay Unfocused

Christopher has taught himself to cross his eyes “with no finger”! He happily tried to teach Randall how to do it. “You just put the black parts of your eyes in and the white parts out!”

Randall tries. . .

and tries. . .

and tries, but never gets it!

Christopher shows how it's done.

There's Always A Reason

Dad: Randall, did you feed the puppies this afternoon?

Randall: Yes.

Dad: Then why was their water bowl bone dry when I came home?

Randall: I don’t know.

Dad: If you gave them water then why were they so thirsty when I filled their bowl?

Randall (emphatically): I don’t know! I did give them water!

Dad: You’re going to have to come up with a good reason to make me believe that.

Randall (desperately): Maybe it evaporated.

At this point Christopher (who has been absorbed in a book and apparently ignoring this whole conversation) suddenly says offhandedly to no one in particular: Oh, I emptied the bowl.

Dad (sternly): Christopher, you don’t dump out the dogs’ water!

Christopher: Well, that was after I finished washing my fingers.

Dad: You washed your hands in the dogs’ dish?

Christopher: Randall told me to! (Long pause, then sorrowfully) And that is not a pleasant thing to do.

--The Lady

Disappearing Act

I was working in the kitchen while Wade rolled happily around the living room, when suddenly I heard a distressed cry followed by a “thwoink, thwoink, thwoink”, then silence.

Upon going to search for Wade, I found an empty living room! After frantically looking up the stairs (totally illogical) and in the office, I finally found him---under the pie safe.




Every time he raised his head, it went "thwoink" on the bottom of the pie safe. Poor boy!
Then he had to endure a while longer while Mommy sat down and laughed hysterically and then went for the camera.
-- The Lady

Garden

Randall likes planting nasturtiums



I put up a fence for Karen's cucumbers this year. They have done very well.

Digging potatoes

Wade's First Haircut

I've trimmed Wade's hair twice already, but today he got his first all-over haircut.

Aunt Laura sucked his hair into a Mohawk with the vacuum

Sitting at the supper table I decided it was time for a haircut.

A hair-cutting attachment for the vacuum makes the job so easy. I use it for all of the boys. Wade really enjoyed it!


The finished product - "My Little Man"