January 13, 2008...love that room

Another few days, a few more lessons learned. The big one...I definitely need more than 5 hours of sleep a night. I just don't function at my best on that much sleep and that's what I got every night this week. I do ok for a couple of days but then I really feel it. I move very slow, I think slow, I don't have as much patience, my judgment becomes slightly impaired and I get a little crabby. I still get by ok......I just find myself sticking my fingers in a 5-pound bag of M&M's every time I walk by. Gotta get that crap out of the house.

Jakob's cool. Really cool. I keep getting asked what changes I've seen in him. Well, he looks at us...a lot. Right in the eyes, not through us. There's a sparkle there too, he's liking looking at us and connecting with us. The eyes are the window to the soul and for the first time, I feel like we're looking into each other's souls. It's amazing. The best is when he's looking into my eyes, I see the sparkle and he smiles. The bestest smile ever.

Another big change is he's trying to talk more. We're getting tons of verbalizations. There are sounds we've never heard before and they're even spontanious. Out of nowhere, he'll try to say stuff. Now granted, only a trained ear can understand what he's saying but it's so much more than we've ever heard from him before. He told me "lights off" the other night. I about wet my pants...and I turned those lights off faster than you can imagine, after I threw a huge celebration in his honor for trying to say the words. I've never felt more hopeful about him
learning to speak than I do right now. I can't even express how excited I am. Every day, we're a little bit closer to my dream of he and I having a conversation.

Other stuff I'm noticing...he's calmer, more flexible, more connected, understanding more, bringing us into activities instead of just ignoring us...he's with us. My little guy is with us.

I spent 4 hours with him in the playroom this morning. Four hours feels like 40 minutes. The time just flies. I love that darn playroom. I love his trampoline, his blankie, his markers and whiteboard. It's fun being a kid again and being a kid like Jakob. His world is wonderful. I think everybody should spend a little time in the Autsim world...I definitely think the world would be a better place if more people could see things from a different perspective. A perspective where rolling a marker along the floor is so cool and exciting, where there's so much
joy in the little things. Love that darn playroom.

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