Vroooommmm!

Man. I'm exhausted. Today, Tash and I cleaned up the backyard in preparation for Alex's birthday party next week. We had a lot of assistance from my Mum, Dad, brother and Medway. But the backyard is clear of rubbish and fully fenced in. I'm so glad to have a backyard that Alex can't escape from now. I've been so worried he'd run out onto the main road and now we can be in the backyard with him and not have to worry about him running off.

Also, I'm now the proud owner of a new bike. A nice 650cc Hyosung Aquila cruiser. I went into the dealership for a test ride yesterday and really enjoyed the ride. Very, very nice bike and the price just can't be beaten. The next best bike would be a Honda Shadow and while its the same price (and is also a very, very nice ride), it's only a 400cc and has none of the extra features that the Hyosung has. Tash came along and had a look and we negotiated a deal for this:


This my very bike. Even the colour. With all the bells and whistles. Sweet. I pick it up on Wednesday and I have to say that I just can't wait. I'm taking the day off work and I'm going on a nice, long ride on it. I think I'll head either up or down the coast with it to give it a good run. Heh, heh. Vrooooommm!

My Boy's Growing Up.

Two posts in a single day? Are you kidding me? Wow. He’s either got lots of news to share, is feeling talkative or is bored at work. Well, it’s mostly the latter. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve got stuff to do but I’m just not interested in doing it. Plus I’m on my break.

I mentioned a couple of months ago that Alex is in speech therapy to treat his childhood apraxia of speech (or “CAS”). He’s been coming along brilliantly and is up to spontaneous 4 to 6 word sentences. This is awesome. For a child diagnosed with severe CAS, to be spontaneously generating sentences of this length after only 7 months of treatment is truly amazing. But that’s not the best part. What is even better is that he is also spontaneously copying new words and repeating them without prompting. This means he is starting to overcome the apraxia barriers in his mind and body. And yesterday evening he showed me just how far he’s come.

We’ve had a big corner of our backyard cleared out of the weeds and crap. This left a big, bare patch of soil which we seeded with some grass. This has come up but the recent (and sudden) increase in temperature coupled with a lack of rain has turned it brown and its starting to die. Water restrictions have been eased lately so I thought we’d water it to try and get it going again. I was watering it when Alex came over and told me “My turn, Dad”. I gave him the hose and he ran off to spray the water into his sandpit. I told him to come back and water the grass.

“No. My turn, Dad!”

“But the grass needs water, Alex.”

“No.”

“But look, it’s all brown and sad. Its needs the water to be happy again.”

“Oh, no. My turn for happy!”

With that, he ran over to the grass and began to water it by running up and down, spraying water and saying “Happy! Happy!” over and over. He’s never said the word “happy” before. It involves several sounds he’s had trouble with (“H”, “Pee”) but he just took straight to it. It was wonderful and made the months of hard work worth every minute and cent we’ve spent. Occasionally he’d stop to survey his handiwork and see a brown patch he’d not seen previously. He’d say “Oh, no. Sad, Dad!” I’d ask him, “So what will you do?”, “I go happy!” would be his reply (we’re working on “make”). He’d smile at me and run off with the hose and water the patch of “sad” grass. It felt good to have him communicate with me. I can’t wait to hold long conversations with my boy.

Parental Anecdotes 2.0

And yet another blog post proving that I have had my head buried in work and family for such a long time that it’s now September, meaning 6 months have flown by since my last Blog post. Geez. Lots has happened. Work got busy. Alex grew some more and started speech therapy (he has been diagnosed as having Apraxia of speech) and is coming along in leaps and bounds. Tash started a new job. I got all technological and acquired smartphones for Tash and I. Busy, busy, busy life.

But what I wanted to share in this blog post was another joyful moment of parenthood I experienced last night. Alex and Tash went to bed early as they were both exhausted giving me a couple of hours of Peace and Quiet (TM). I watched a movie and then played a game on the ‘puter. Just before I shut the ‘puter off I decided to browse through the folder marked “Alexander”. While trolling through the hundreds of photos of my son I found a folder marked “Playing with the New Camcorder”. I open it to find some AVI files of Alex. In one of them he is “helping” his mother water the garden. What he is actually doing is spraying everything in sight with the hose. At one point he finds the outlet for the downpipe off the shed roof and begins spraying water up the pipe. After a couple of seconds, the water begins to run out again, at which Alex squeals with delight. So he sprays the water again and, after another delay, more water comes out. He’s fascinated. He does this a few more times before the video ends. It was really nice to watch.

I love watching my little boy discover the world. He just finds so much happiness in the simple things and I love sharing it with him, even after the fact.

AMUSING SIDE STORY: Two nights ago I was getting ready for bed when I heard Alex grumbling in his sleep. He’s had some nightmares recently so I thought I’d check on him. As I entered the room he sat up, still sound asleep, and belched rather loudly. After the belching was done, he giggled and proceeded to lie back down as if nothing had happened. All still sound asleep. I had to creep out so I didn’t wake him with my laughter. It still makes me laugh. Heh. THAT’S my boy!