Three Months Later

 

 What a difference three months can make . . .

It is hard to believe this even the same little boy!

Micah was scared, and reserved, and in his own little world. 

He hated to be touched.

He would spend hours rocking himself 

and fluttering his fingers in front of his eyes.  

He wanted me to just leave him alone.

He refused to eat.

Now, just three months later, Micah is silly, and busy, and curious, and noisy, and stubborn, and opinionated, and so, so sweet!  He gets into stuff.  He eats big bowls of oatmeal, and yogurt, and soup, grinning and grabbing and yelling for more if I am not fast enough to shovel it in.  He is HAPPY!  He loves to be held.  He hates to be ignored.  He just cannot get enough cuddles and tickles and rocking. 

There is a sparkle in Micah's eyes, a delight. 

 When I met him, he had trouble holding his head up.  

His body was thin and weak. 

 Now just look at him!  So strong!

Three months ago, Micah weighed twenty pounds.

He was skeletal.  Skin and bones.

Now Micah weighs 31 pounds.

Look at this happy tummy!

Micah still has a lot of hard work to do.  Physical work, like figuring out how to chew food, and feed himself, and crawl, and walk.

Cognitive work, like how to communicate.  Until recently, he has been completely disinterested in sign language.  (He tends to be disinterested in anything that we want him to do.  He is a bit of a Lone Ranger kind of guy, who wants to do what he wants to do, on his own terms, thank you very much.)  When I have used sign language with him, he turned his head away, pushed my hands away, and yelled at me when I signed.  But recently we are seeing a spark of interest.  He watches my hands.  He has an amused half-smile on his face when I sign to him.  He sometimes lets me move his hands in order to sign.  And somehow Derek even convinced him to sign one word by himself, when we prompt him: "please" when he wants more yogurt (you have to watch closely though, his little hand is lightning fast!  Pat, pat, on his chest.  Blink and you will miss it.)  He is thinking it over.  Trying to decide if he is going to do this signing thing.  Did I mention he is stubborn?  He also is not sure about using picture cards to communicate.  So far he just wants to throw them across the room.  But we know that he can understand the picture cards, to some extent, anyway, because he can play matching games with them.  For example, if I show him a card with a cat on it, and then I hold up two other cards for him to see, a cat and a dog, he will immediately grab the cat card.  And toss it across the room.  But he totally gets the idea that the picture on the card represents something, and he can match the pictures.  (Gideon, incidentally, cannot do this yet.)  But to convince Micah to use the cards to communicate wants and needs?  That is a breakthrough that we are still waiting on. 


Emotional work.  When we are at home, he is almost always happy.  But he generally does not like to go places.  He sometimes can go to a new place calmly, but other times we are still walking into appointments and stores with Micah thrashing, screaming, and struggling in terror.  He prefers his stroller over me holding him, but sometimes he hates his stroller, too.  He can make it very difficult to go places, because we never know if he will be happy and smiling, or silent and stoic, or screaming and scared.  But he loves coming home.  Whenever we turn into our driveway, we can hear Micah giggling and kicking the car seat in glee.  Even in his rear-facing car seat, he always knows when we are home, and he is always so relieved and delighted when I finally carry him back into the house.  


Yeah, he has a lot of work to do.  But look at how far he has come in just three short months.  He is like a different child.

This miraculous transformation is all to the glory of God.

The Lord is working an amazing miracle in Micah's life,

and I am humbled and awed to be a part of it.

                            I love this happy, joyful little boy!