Patience

Well, it only took 5 years of patience. Calvin finally went poop in the potty by himself. We have been struggling for years with getting him to go on the potty. The last year and a half has been Calvin going pee by himself with no problem, but number 2 has been a totally different story. Still insisting on diapers, he would hold his poop for up to 5 or 6 days, and then we had to come in and give him help to go (I don't want to be too graphic...). Occassionally, we would get lucky and he would just go when he was asleep, but this was becoming the exception.

If you can imagine how distracting this was for him, as he could only focus on one thing. He was so uncomfortable that he could barely walk without crying because his body wanted to go to the bathroom. Talk about will power! haha.

Now, we are getting the first glimpses of Calvin starting to try to have conversations. We were excited last year when he started to initiate a one or two word description of something because we could see that he was wanting to share what he was thinking with us. But now, we are starting to get very short answers to "Why?" questions. Like, when we ask "Why do you want more chocolate milk?", Calvin will respond "Because I like it" or "Because I want it." Also, he is starting to share what excites him or what has caught his attention by pointing and saying what he is looking at. This is HUGE in relation to the overall progression of his social skills.

Luiza told me last night that Calvin was playing with his Thomas trains. She joined him and then began to pretend to be the voice of one of the trains. Calvin then responded to the train by pretending to be Thomas' voice. Calvin is also starting to imitate us and his brother.

2 nights ago, I was very tired, and so was Luiza. She went to rest in the bedroom and I stayed with the boys in the house. I was laying on the couch, feeling lousy that I didn't have energy to run with Calvin and chase him. He kept saying "Get him" meaning "get me!" and I just didn't have the steam. But then, something amazing happened. Brendon started playing with Calvin. For over 1 hour, the 2 boys played together. It was such a natural thing, that afterwards, the thought of how big a deal this was didn't even occur to me until I started to recount what happened to Luiza. Then I realized, Calvin and Brendon were playing like typical syblings for over an hour straight! We've seen them starting to play together, but this was a new level.

Praise God! He has been so faithful in helping us work with Calvin. I don't know if we're doing everything right, but God is using what we are doing and giving it life. What a wonderful thing to see your child develop as a direct result of your work!