Progress and Growth

  Yesterday morning I happened to be over on the side of town where we previously first rented when we moved here. I had a little extra time after my appointment, so I decided to take a quick drive down our old street and see the house and neighborhood again.  I stopped for a second just looking at the house, all of the gorgeous trees that had made their seasonal changes, and even some trees that had already lost all of their leaves, where bare branches only remain. As I sat there for a second, so many memories and emotions flooded my mind. We did have some good memories in that house (both of our boys took their first steps there!!) There are others too, but we also went through a lot of trials in that house, there were more bad memories than good. I sat there and thought back of where we were even just 6 months ago to where we are now. So much has changed, life is different now, but it hasn't been without struggle.

  It really is hard to believe that its already been 6 months that we have moved into our new house (6 months ago on this date to be exact.)  We have grown closer as a family, we have grown closer to God, and we have each had some personal progress and growth.  This move brought us so much closer to B's work, he can now come home on lunch if he wants or can just stop by for a few minutes if need be. Amazing what moving 30 minutes closer can do, we see a lot more of him now (well, except for the past 7 weeks!) and being able to see him more has been good for all of us.

  We also found a church that we dearly love and it just so happens to be a few minutes away as well. Finding a good church has been SO beneficial for us, we had stopped going to church since we had moved here a few years ago really, there were a lot of fears with Eli and my own personal fears about sending him as well, so we just opted to not attend church. We still incorporated God and prayer in our home and with the boys, but church was really missing and looking back, my biggest regret was not overcoming some of my fears earlier and finding and attending church together as a family. While letting go of some of my fears was so incredibly hard, the benefit of letting go of that anxiety has been far better than I could have imagined. Our church has been amazing with the boys, especially E since day one and we couldn't be more thankful, K loves it too, he runs to his Sunday school class eager to see his teachers and learn!

  We have each all had personal progress and growth since the move as well. I think the biggest area of progress and growth can be seen in E. He started preschool in August and it has been a complete success! We are so thankful and blessed that he has an amazing teacher and some pretty amazing paras as well. He still does ABA (last month he reached 79 hours total for the whole month of Oct!) he works so hard, and his hard work is really starting to pay off. He has officially been in ABA for one year now and the amount of progress he has made is remarkable. His therapists were just talking to me last week about how far he has come. When they first came into the home a year ago, E couldn't even stand for them to be in the same room as him, let alone try to do therapy with him. It took him a good month before he would let the therapists into the room he was in, and another month to start interacting with him to try and design a program to meet his needs. I look back at the videos of those early ABA days and I am just amazed as to what I see now,  its like we have a different child, and it is absolutely amazing! He still has a long road ahead, but the amount of progress he has made has been stunning.   He is also making huge progress with his speech output device, his Novachat. We have been going to MMI every week for the past 10 weeks to try and become more and more familiar with his device (its therapy for him and parent training for me). I will admit that even up to a month ago or so, I was having a love hate relationship with the device, I was  starting to fear that he will never functionally speak if he continuously has this device and uses it instead of trying to actually talk (his speech therapy only consists of using the device at this time).   Well the past couple weeks and this past Wednesday really changed my mind about that little thing; we are starting to see into Eli's brain and what he is thinking for the first time, all before this it was a guess as to what he wanted or needed or was thinking, but with this device, he has learned to use it so fluently that he not only uses it to request what he wants or needs, but he is starting to use it to show us what he is thinking, and I think its even showing him that we can finally understand him a little bit better. It has been the biggest blessing.  On Wednesday, his therapist was programming some info in the "about me"section on the device, the info was that his name was E and he has two cats, and it gave their names.  He was across the room and as soon as he heard that, he stopped walking, turned around ran over to the device and pushed the button again where it once again said "My name is E, I have two cats..." He started squealing with delight and running up to this therapists and myself with the biggest smile on his face shaking his head yes over and over.  Tears y'all, seriously, tears,  even one of his therapists had tears. Not only did he understand 100% completely what the device was saying, but it was as if he was telling us,  "yes! yes! If I could speak right now, that is what I would say to you!"  Ever since then, he has been obsessed with the cats, chasing them all around and playing with them.  His whole life, even just a few weeks ago, he had remained oblivious to their existence.  Absolutely amazing.  His therapists told me that they are going to incorporate buttons into his device for Christmas next time we go, they are going to try and teach him the buttons and how and when to use them, so he can actually participate in Christmas with us for the FIRST TIME EVER.  There are no words that can even begin to explain my excitement for this, E will be 4 years old in just under two months, so this will be his 4th Christmas, and while he has of course been present all of those Christmases,  thats really all that was, he was physically present but not able to participate really in any of our Christmas traditions, gift giving, Christmas Eve service, etc.  If he can participate in even just one of the activities with the help of his device, we will be elated!! I get chills just thinking about it. I am so very excited!

  With all of this being said, we still have the next move on the horizon. The fact E has made so much progress forward and that he is with a great school here with an amazing special education program, not to mention all of his therapists,  moving is a huge concern for us. E's therapists have already explained there will be a big leap back for him, and of course we have the anxiety of not being able to find as good of therapists in our next location, or as good of a school. Moving is hard for anyone, and being military, moving is not foreign to us at all, heck we have moved 4 times in the past 5 years! But, in E's particular case, it just takes it to a whole new level. We have to meet in January to find out if we will be medically cleared to go to our next location or not, in the mean time, we are praying, praying hard that E and our whole family can deal with this move in the best way possible. When we first got the news, we found out just two months after moving into the house we built, I honestly thought it was a joke and by the look on B's face, I knew it wasn't. One thing I keep reminding myself and that instantly came to my mind when I received the news, was that God already has this planned out, we are just along for the journey. That helps my anxiety a little bit about the situation, knowing that I am not the one in control, but also being the control freak I am, makes me just a little bit crazy! Honestly though, while we had no hesitation moving to where we are now, if it weren't for us moving here, E would likely not be where he is today. This next location might have even better resources than what we have now, or this situation might turn out differently and test our faith even more than what we could ever imagine, we don't know, but we do know that as long as we are following God and including him in every step of the way, we can't go wrong and if we fall, He will be right there to pick us back up.  

  A month ago, I was in a sermon during a very difficult situation for a dear friend of mine, when the pastor started to say that it is so easy to praise God in the good times, its during the darkest times of our lives that we find it nearly impossible to pray, let alone praise Him. That is the absolute truth, but if we persevere and keep on, keeping God in our lives, even if we don't have the strength to pray for ourselves, but ask others to pray, we find our real inner strength, we find that we draw closer to Him than we ever have been or even thought possible. It really is during suffering, and no one's suffering looks the same, but during our personal bouts of suffering, whatever that might look like for you, that we are growing, growing so much spiritually, gaining so much wisdom, strength, and perseverance by His mercy and grace. It is my prayer that I always remember that, and that you always remember that too, whatever life throws at you.