You can shove Chuck-E-Cheese up your butt.

I will never forget an encounter that I had with a nurse while we were staying in the hospital oh-so-long-ago.  Joel was about 2 months old, and we were working on his wean off of the ventilator.  Now, I knew this night nurse was a Christian because of previous conversations I'd had with her.  She wasn't one of my favorites, but she was competent, and it's always nice to feel comfortable talking with someone about our situation from a Christian perspective and not feel like I'm "preaching" to them.  I hate feeling preached at.

During this chat, I shared with her our financial experience, and told her something I tell lots of people.  "My son is going to be fully healed and normal."  And her reply was something along the lines of: "My brother is really social, but slow.  He can't add 2 plus 2, but he works at Chuck-E-Cheese, and is very happy."

Now if I could have slapped that woman and gotten away with it, I probably would have.  But I didn't.  I gritted my teeth, and told myself that one day, Joel WOULD be healed, and he WOULD be normal....(and that she was an idiot for saying something like that do a worn-down mother.)

And here we are people, it's less than 2 weeks until my little pumpkin turns ONE, and would you like some proof that I was right????  Of course you do.

-Joel claps when he does something good, or he's proud of himself.
-He can hold a toy in each hand independently
-He acts shy when someone new says hi to him.
-He has separation anxiety when I leave the room, or during shift change...which is VERY normal for our family if you happened to know Mia as a baby
-He can sit up
-He can say da-da.....(working on mama, or is that just me? ;)
-He shakes his head NO.  For lots of things, and especially if you tell him to cough or "go ni-nite"
-He has recall-recognition.  If he knows he got hurt the last time he attempted it, he has hesitation to do it again.
-He cries the second his OT, PT's walk in our front door.  He knows they're going to make him do work!
-He has a great sense of humor, and does things to make us laugh, purposefully
-He wants to eat everything on our plates, even though he isn't ready to be eating like a big kid yet.
-He's walking with support.

Is that enough proof for you that my son is doing things that other normal babies are doing?  I think so.  I just have one more thing to say.  Nurse Winona, you can shove Chuck-E-Cheese up your butt.