Why?

Why?  That is a question we hear a lot.  It's even something I have asked myself more than once over the past almost 6 years.  Why us?  Why did God choose us to be the parents of this little boy?  Why did God make him this way?  Why does my son have to struggle so much to do the littlest things that we take for granted?  The answer: I have no idea.

But something I learned very early on in this journey is that God does have a reason for everything and we are not always meant to understand what his reason is.  The only thing I am sure of is that the reason God put us on this earth is to praise and worship him and to glorify him in all that we do. So if being the best parents we can to this very special little boy brings glory to God, then that is what we will continue to do, for as long as he allows us to.  That doesn't mean it won't continue to be a struggle or that I will ever understand God's reasons.  But I know that he has a reason and I look forward to the day where I'll be able to ask him what that reason is.

Sometimes, though, we are able to see God's reasons plain and clear.  Sometimes his reason is as simple as wanting a relationship with us.  He may allow us to go through extremely difficult times in order for us to realize that we can only get through those tough times if we rely on him.

 Philippians 4:13 I can do all things, through Christ, who gives me strength.

This is my favorite verse.  It has been my favorite verse for as long as I can remember.  But it was given new meaning to me recently.  Tommy went to a bookstore to pick up a book for a men's bible study that he is taking part in.  While there he saw a shirt that reminded him of John, so he had to buy it.  This is what the shirt said:

Pretty appropriate, huh?


Sometimes God's reason may be for us to use our struggles to help someone else who is struggling.  They may not be struggling with the same thing, but we can still give them comfort. 

2 Corinthians 1:3-4  Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God.

I came across this scripture sometime in the past year and it resonated with me.  I have said for a long time now that maybe this was God's plan for us, to use our struggles with John to help others who are struggling in the future.  We have had the chance to give advice to parents of premature children or parents of children with special needs on more than one occasion.  But after reading this scripture, I realized that God wants us to use the comfort we received from him to comfort others, even if they are struggling with something completely different than us.  So you'll notice that I put this scripture at the top of my blog as a reminder.

Whatever God's reasons may be, when we are able to look back and see how he worked in our lives, all we can do is stand in awe of how good he is.  We all know that God is good to us, but sometimes we just need a reminder.

Proud Momma, Part II

Yesterday, I met at John's school for his annual ARD (Admission, Review and Dismissal) committee meeting.  This meeting is required anytime a student is admitted or dismissed from a special education program, and also when it's time to review the IEP (Individual Education Plan) and make appropriate changes as the progress of the student dictates.  I told you in a previous post that John started this school year with about 5 goals, all of which came with him from PPCD.  Through the course of this year and being in school all day, John has managed to master every one of his goals.  This is outstanding progress for him.  So, yesterday I met with his teacher, the school diagnostician as well as the different school therapists that provide him services, such as physical, occupational, speech and audiological therapies.

I knew that he was in need of updated goals, but I had no idea just how updated those goals would be.  As I was reading the goals that the speech therapist had written, I was shocked to see the things she expects him to be able to do.  A couple of the things she listed as goals were to be able to identify objects related to his environment (i.e. backpack, bus, table) and also to be able to identify characters in a story by pointing to their picture in the book.  I read this and thought, "yeah right."  But according to the speech therapist and his teacher, he's already doing some of these things.  According to them, when shown two different pictures of objects that he is familiar with, he is able to grab the picture with the object that they ask him to identify. They say that they do this several times and mix the pictures up and he still grabs the appropriate picture.  I had no idea that he is able to do anything like this, since this is not something we work on at home. 

Another thing that I found out was that John does not meet the criteria to attend ESY (Extended School Year).  That is just a fancy way of saying summer school.  The general criteria to attend is that the child has to show a regression in what he learned after the Christmas break.  According to his teacher, John did show a slight regression, but was able to quickly catch back up.  This is the first year that my child is too smart for summer school. :)  The only bad thing about that is now I have to figure out what to do with him all summer so that we don't kill each other.  But his teacher and speech therapist are going to put together some activities for me to work with him on at home, particularly over the summer.  So hopefully he won't fall behind too much when he starts 1st grade in a few months.  I am about to have a 1st grader.  That just doesn't seem possible.

Also added to his schedule for next year, he is going to attend all specials with his class.  This year he is only going with them to music.  Next year he'll be able to do music, art AND PE.  He will be evaluated for adapted PE and hopefully that will be another place he can work on his walking.  He will be integrated into the 1st grade classroom approximately 2.5 hours a week.  I know John will enjoy being able to spend time with other kids his age.

On a separate note, I received a letter from his Kindergarten teacher on Wednesday, letting me know that next week, John will be their class's star of the week.  So the project for that person is to make a poster that tells his classmates his likes and dislikes and things that make him who he is.  Well naturally being the uncreative person that I am, I panicked at the thought of having to create a poster.  I wanted it to be nice, but that is just not my area of expertise.  So after hyperventilating and scouring my brain for ideas, I finally made my way over to Michael's for the few supplies I would need for this project.  I am happy to report that I was able to start and finish the poster all in one day.  Now I can enjoy the rest of the weekend without that hanging over my head.  It is due on Monday.  Here is the finished project.  What do you think?

 Well that is all this Proud Momma has to report for now.  Keep praying for us that we maintain the strength and energy that we need to take care of our boy, and also for him as he continues to make progress with communication and reaching his full potential.  Thanks to everyone for all of your love and support.  We couldn't make it through this journey without you all.

Weekend Fun

This past weekend was a busy one in the Hitt house.  It started on Friday with a trip to the zoo with all of Kindergarten from John's school.  We had quite a bit of fun.  The weather was perfect and it was all very well organized.  As it turned out, our group consisted of 3 adults and 4 children, all from John's lifeskills class.  Instead of everyone staying together in a group, each small group was able to explore the zoo at their own pace.  This served us well.  We saw lots of fun animals and interesting sites.  Here are a few pictures I took.



 



Me and John in front of the Giraffes.

  


A message from Daddy!



Friday evening, we had some houseguests come in.  This was someone that Tommy went to high school with and that he recently found on Facebook.  Andrea and Micah have a daughter with special needs who is just a few months younger than John.  We were telling them about Morgan's Wonderland, the Ultra accessible park in San Antonio, and invited them to come and spend the weekend with us.  So on Saturday morning we set out to San Antonio to spend the day at the park.

Also meeting us at the park were some good friends from Austin.  Chad and Kim and their son Blake are friends we met back in the NICU.  It was great to see them and spend time catching up.  The kids had a great time and so did the parents.  We spent a lot of time playing and some time just sitting and talking.  It was an all together fun time and we had some very tired kids and parents by the time we got home.  All in all, it was a great weekend.  We look forward to going back to Morgan's Wonderland in October to celebrate Blake's birthday.