Noah Discovers his Face

It usually takes me a few days to sort various problems that land in my mailbox. Friday we received a letter from SSI indicating that Noah is making payments and wrote them a check. I called their offices today to let them know it was a mistake as we aren't making payments let alone Noah writing checks himself at 19 months old. Of course I was greeted by a representative that had broken English and was hard to understand. She proceeded to tell me that they don't believe they made a mistake and told me I either need to come down there in person or to make a copy of what was sent to me along with a letter explaining why I think they messed up and mail it (because a simple phone call doesn't do the trick).

Of course Noah doesn't like talking to government agencies first thing the morning on speaker phone and proceeded to cry and spit yogurt at me. I can't blame him, I feel the same way he does.

Chris and I took Noah for his first swimming outing at the local recreation center that has the closest temperatures of a warm water therapy pool. To our surprise not a single cry or whimper. He enjoyed every minute of his experience. He was even a good sport about getting water in his face from all the other children splashing about. He of course doesn't like the drying off or changing of clothes, even after his bath he is that way. We're hoping to keep Noah acquainted with the water now that we have gotten him past being upset until we start his therapy in September. We don't want him to forget that water is not a bad thing.

Noah has also started rubbing his face occasionally. I don't think he's really doing it purposefully, it's more like he goes to touch his hair and comes down with his arms realizing he has a face. But any touching, accidental or not I think is beneficial for him recognizing that he has eyes, a nose, a mouth and can do things with them. I'm hoping that he continues and it will bring some self-awareness about, I'd love it if he even realized he could suck his fingers, it would be the beginning to understanding he could put things in his mouth.

I'm finding myself in search of inspirational stories again. It's nice to always receive those occasional uplifting stories of children that have defied the odds against them and gone on to do incredible things in their lives. I keep hoping that Noah is and will continue to be one of those stories. Only time will tell. And I continue to remind myself to be patient - there is that saying that "Rome wasn't built in a day."

"All human wisdom is summed up in two words - wait and hope."
Alexandre Dumas Pere

Love,



Noah's Miracle by Stacy Warden is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.