"Sasha home! I home!"

Well, lots of news, little time to tell it.

We did get news that Alex has an official diagnosis of FAS (fetal alcohol syndrome).  Frankly this is not good news; it indicates more brain damage than just the CP.  But it also isn't unexpected and makes sense of a number of things.  More on that later....

But I wanted to mention some interesting things here.  Alex has been in a really, really good mood this week.  Cheerful, not many tantrums (last week was a bit of a bear that way).  And people are noticing: he's made some cognitive leaps.

The biggest was when I was putting him to bed four days ago.  We were looking at a picture book called "How do Dinosaurs Eat Their Food?," and when I flipped to a page when a dinosaur was flipping a plate of spaghetti (yes) I did my exaggerating reading that I do with the youngest kids "Oh NO!  Silly dinosaur!  No throwing, Dinosaur--right!"  Alex laughs and on a whim I gave him the Russian version "ne brosaitye, da?"  His giggling goes immediately to a all out laughing fit, and after a minute, he screams happily "Don't throw, Sasha!  Don't throw, Sasha!"--which stopped me in my tracks.  He hasn't called himself Sasha (his nickname, the only name he knew in Ukraine) in months.  We haven't called him Sasha.  And my "no throwing" talk was clearly to the dinosaur on the page.  It was obvious the Russian triggered a memory of being told "don't throw, Sasha!" in Ukraine (and I guess it wasn't bad, given how he was laughing).

The only place where we saw he would have the opportunity to throw anything was in the therapy room, where there was a ball pit.  He indeed would love to throw the balls out of the pit when we were there.  The next day, when he brought up the "don't throw, Sasha" language again, I suggested "Alex...do you miss Yana?"  (She was the woman who gave Alex some basic therapy on a regular basis in that room with the ball pit.)  He got serious fast and whispered "yes."  Keep in mind, if he had better langauge, there are a lot of things I'd say right now.  I'm not even sure he understands the word "miss".  But he recognized Yana.  So I thought about it and said, "Alex, I understand.  Is Yana nice?"  He again somberly said yes (and we thought so too, very overworked, but nice) ...but I'm not sure if the somberness is remembering Yana or worry about where this conversation is going.  Does he even understand that he is here forever, now?  Other times when he has heard people speaking Russian he has gotten very unnerved.  I touched his cheeks and said firmly and with enthusiasm, "Alex, this is your home.  THIS is your home.  Mama, Daddy, and Alex, all the time.  Yes?"  Huge smile again.  "Yes!  Sasha home!  I home?"  "Yes, you are home."

At family prayer, we ask the children who they want to pray for, and Alex has always said "the bus" (hey, he loves the school bus! this is an older picture, but deserves to be on this blog!).  But this one time, he said what sounded like Anya...I think he was saying Yana.  So we did.

In Alex fashion, he has been asking the home question the past few days.  A lot.  "I home?  I home?"  And grins ear to ear when we say yes.

Maybe this is why he is so happy this week. :)