I began this month committed to posting every day. I have come to realize that it is harder than I thought it would be. I do not claim to be a writer and every evening after I publish my post for the day, I wonder what I will come up with to write about the next evening. I quickly looked back at my post thus far and realized that I have been acknowledging the professionals that I have met on this journey that have been a tremendous support to me since Andrew was born. Since I first began my blog when Andrew was almost 3 years old, I never had the opportunity to discuss the professionals that have been a part of Andrew's life in the Birth to Three program. Tonight, I will begin with the second therapist that Andrew met through this program.
When Andrew was born, we lived in a small condo in Branford that Chris purchased before we met...long before he knew he wanted a family someday. Soon after Andrew was born, we took up the opportunity to move to Madison to live with my mother in the home I grew up in. My brother and his family had been living with her for 2 years and my sister-in-law longed to move back to Washington state, where she lived up until they moved across the country to live with my mother. Chris and I thought it would be a great opportunity for us to save some money by renting out our condo and, since I worked with my mother, have more convenience of living where I worked. Looking into the future, we realized that the Madison school system could provide more opportunities and programs to benefit Andrew when he transitioned to school. We took the summer to remodel the second floor of my mother's house which consisted of 3 bedrooms and our own full bathroom. The third bedroom was transformed into our playroom and Andrew's therapy room, which is where we met with Patricia Plunkett, Andrew's new Physical Therapist.
I immediately felt comfortable having Pat work with Andrew, however, he unfortunately did not feel the same. Always a cautious child, a new person trying to coax him into performing gross motor tasks, led to many tears on Andrew's part. Pat persisted in her efforts to get Andrew comfortable with moving through space, one of his greatest fears, even to this day. A classic observer, Andrew was most comfortable sitting on the floor playing with the toys within his reach. He would ignore any attempt by us to get him to move to reach a toy placed beyond his arm's length. The first months of Pat's weekly visits caused tears, tears and more tears from Andrew until the day that he finally realized that crawling wasn't so scary and it would get him to the new toy that he was so interested in checking out.
After Andrew started crawling, Pat became his new best friend and the tears were replaced by giggles as they played on the floor...until it was time to learn to walk. Again the tears and the determination that followed as a result of each of them determined to get their way. While Pat was confident that Andrew had the ability to walk, Andrew proved that he did not have the confidence to believe her. Months passed by, Andrew's second birthday came and went with no first steps. On a cold morning in February 2009, Pat arrived to perform Andrew's annual evaluation, the last formal evaluation that would eventually be given to the school system when it was time to meet with them regarding Andrew's transition into public school when he turned three in December. We began with the evaluation after a few questions that I had to answer. Andrew performed as I expected; he really was a bright little boy who understood far more than he could communicate to us. One of the final questions that Pat asked me was "Can Andrew walk 6 steps unassisted?" I looked at her and laughed. She knew as well as I did that Andrew was not walking yet. Yet she still made him stand in front of her while she held his hands. As she let go and took a step back, Andrew began to follow her. She kept moving backwards and he continued to follow! Andrew was walking! He managed 10 steps that morning until he fell to the floor on his bottom. I quickly scooped him up and danced around with him, singing some impromptu silly song about walking. His giggles sounded like a sweet melody in my ear, one that I had been waiting 26 months to hear. I put him back down on his feet and let go of him. He leapt towards me as I stepped back and he continued to follow me around the room, taking more and more steps before he fell. We did this for a few minutes, just long enough for him to finally drop to the ground tired from his workout and for me to realize that his first steps weren't a fluke. When Chris arrived home from work that night, Andrew proudly showed off his new accomplishments to his daddy and then smiled at the sight of the cake I ran out to buy for him in celebration.
Thinking back on that day, I remembered the expressions on all of our faces; they all showed the pride we felt in Andrew's accomplishment. For it was not only his accomplishment, but it was ours as well. The months and months of time and effort that the three of us put into the goal, "Andrew's First Steps", were celebrated that day. It was also the first day that I realized that it will take a village to raise a child and the village that I have now it a pretty good one to have. The support system that I have built around us includes not only family, friends and therapists, but also perfect strangers who through the power of online social networking share in our accomplishments, our failures, and our struggles and who offer continual support and encouragement as we take Andrew through his journey of life. Indeed, it does take a village, even if that village stretches across the globe.
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