Milestones

milestone: a significant event or stage in the life, progress, development, or the like of a person, nation, etc.

As Allison covered in her last post, the progress Ayden is making is encouraging.  Despite the handicaps he has been saddled with, he continues to play catch up.  It will still be many months before he gets all the way there, but he will.  There are milestones we are looking for with his various therapies, benchmarks that we will be trying to help him attain.  Sometimes they come quickly.  Sometimes he seems to be just treading water.

He has been talking a lot of late.  He seems to have abandoned physical progression for verbal progression.  If we had a dollar for every "buh" or "da da" he's said over the last week, we could pay for his college.  In the last week he has put a cookie and a sippy cup in his mouth.  He has started reaching for us again.  His personality continues to develop and expand.  His love of music is exhibited often by his own version of dancing, whether it's nodding his head, kicking his legs, or bobbing up and down.  He shows happiness, such as when one of us comes to get him out of his crib.  He shows frustration, like when he is trying to pull something out of his toy container and can't quite get it.

But, as the above definition suggests, not all milestones are developmental.  Some are related to Ayden's life.

It is very important to us that Ayden experiences as many "normal" things as possible.  Our hands are somewhat tied right now in this area, unfortunately.  As flu season fades and summer approaches, Ayden will have more opportunities to do the things normal babies do.  Until then, we have to be content with the few things he can do now, such as spending time with Jude.  That type of interaction with another child is important.

It takes particular motivation for me to lay on my stomach.

Jude & I had our own conversations while our moms talked about us.
(Apparently, adults can't comprehend the words that come from our mouths.)

My buddy Jude is almost crawling!

What does having "normal" experiences have to do with milestones?  Well, let me tell you.  There's been an important event in Ayden's young life that we've been working on for a little while now - having him dedicated at our church.  These dedications usually take place on stage during Sunday service.  The parents bring their child up front and hand the child over to one of the pastors, who then prays over the little one.  As with everything else, we have things we must worry about that most parents wouldn't: Has the pastor been sick? Has a family member been sick? Did he come in contact that morning with someone who's sick?  Additionally, our church is large.  There are probably 1000+ people in the sanctuary.  How many of them are sick? You get the idea. We could easily avoid some of these dangers by doing the dedication at home or by having the pastor wear a mask.

As I've said, though, normal is important, and neither one of those options would fall into that category.  Fortunately, our worship pastor - Pastor Jonathan - who prayed over Ayden before his first surgery and who was one of the first people to come to the hospital the day Ayden crashed, blessed us with his willingness to jump through all of the hoops we had set before him and dedicate Ayden.  He got a flu shot.  He made a wardrobe change between services, at our request, so the shirt he was wearing for the dedication was as clean as possible.

Below is the video of this important milestone.  Jonathan, you did a great job.  If you hadn't told everybody, no one would've guessed it was your first.  Thank you, and all of our fellow church members, for blessing our family with your love and prayer.

Yes, I'm looking at myself on the big screen behind me.