Tra la la

S sits up in bed after being tucked thoroughly in for the night and shouts in a stage whisper, "Mom."

"Yeeees?"

Pause. Hoarsely, "I'm a tattle-tale."

"Okay." I sit still, on the edge of K's bed, waiting for the confession.

She thuds back on to her pillow, yanks up the covers, rolls toward the wall, done for the night. Alrighty then.

I've been moving furniture, striving for a configuration that will allow a better use of space in various rooms. This process always involves a welcome de-junking that somehow didn't seem like it needed to be done until the bazillion single socks that hid so deviously under the couches are again in the light of day. Or rather, in the light of incandescent bulbs.

I can't do anymore now because I should already be asleep, but mostly because the rest of the stuff to move has attachments. That are noisy. Like bells and wind chimes and crackly paper and stuff. Q's toys and therapy things now take up about twenty square feet in the living room. That's probably a conservative estimate, actually. He has 1 1/4 bookcases plus space in front of the windows. That space is taken up by his old Tiger 2000 height adjustable chair (one parking space) and (second parking space) a sort of nesting stack of, from the ground up: his monkey stander, his "little room" which just fits over the top of the stander like a shelter of some sort, and perched on top like whipped cream on a sundae, the Baby Einstein caterpillar toy. Note that the "sundae" lacks a cherry for it's whipped cream. Not to worry. I'm sure by the end of the day tomorrow the same girls that tried to cover every shelf in the then empty bookcases with the single socks (regurgitated couch rejects plus the laundry--clean, thank you very much) will gladly take on the task of topping off the tower. Can't wait to see what item(s) they'll pick.

I've moved the dining room around a little too. Tuesday, Q's will-by-then-be-modified, very gently used (in astonishing shape for being ten whole years old), free (thank you so much--you know who you are) Prima Pappa highchair will roll into it's place of honor. I've had him in it already and he likes it very much. The modifications are necessary to keep him from curling up into crunches and then tipping over sideways. He's silly like that. He likes to be active, busy, but has a hard time with head control, keeping himself at the midline/midpoint when sitting, so he'll get a little help with velcro and straps threaded through crotch buckle and up over his shoulders.

So things are shifting a bit here. It feels a little more roomy in the living room now. More exposure to the gas fireplace, more room on the pretty red rug, larger spaces in which to walk. The goal here is to make all pathways easily wheelchair accessible while still allowing the rest of us to enjoy being here. As one might assume, this takes a little effort. Redoing one's mindset about ambulation is no small thing. Ah, well. Q will very likely do some type of walking at some point, or at least that's what I'm telling myself. But in the meantime, he's getting bigger and I can't carry him everywhere, so he needs wheels. The boy has gotten so long that in PT Friday we raised his stander five inches. His little boot orthotics have been modified four times since he got them in September (same time as the stander), and where he once had over an inch of space to stretch out those toes, it's now down to about 1/4". I snuck the PT's tape measure and checked the punkinhead out, lengthwise.

I just went and looked that number up. I'll have to check again, because if my measurement is right, it places him at about the 95th percentile for length. Holy cow! No wonder he's looked so skinny all of a sudden! If this is right maybe it explains his sleep patterns (or lack thereof) and eating habits. About three, maybe four weeks ago, he doubled his food intake. Just like that. So who knows? Maybe we're busting out of the 25th-50th section once and for all. Not so great for my back, mind you, but if he's exhibiting what one would consider to be basically normal growth patterns compared to his siblings', this means he's pushing the limits of his raw material--really burning new pathways in order to get accomplished what he needs to.

This is just awesome, isn't it? I mean it's not just me, right? His OT wondered last week if maybe his brain is growing. Some things just seem very different with him again--like an intellectual growth spurt is happening, only he doesn't exhibit it the same as one might expect in a kid this age so it's hard to tell.

Wow. Well, I'm just going to wander off to bed now, happy as can be that we're making progress. Let's focus intently on that. I love progress.

'night. Sleep tight.