I've just been going to bed earlier and thus missing my main blogging time. On the plus side, I've been exercising so that has been what is making me more tired. I actually wrote this entry (or something similar) a couple of days ago and typepad lost the whole thing. It made me so mad, I had to put typepad in time-out for a couple of days.
Naim is a walking fool now. He did turn a corner that day, and within a few days, he took off walking. As I suspected, Aaron is starting to get a bit interested in the whole deal watching Naim. He is starting to let me hold his hand and walk and takes one or two steps now and then.
Everything with Aaron is 'CAH' (car). My friend Kory, who is car bananas himself, has a son who was always into cars. I totally thought that this was because he pushed his son into liking cars. I did NOTHING to encourage Aaron's fascination with cars. I don't even have a car. He doesn't even ride in cars that much. It's probably been a month since he has been in a car. He only has about two toy cars. But everything is all about cars, now. The train that comes by our house is a car. Trucks are cars. Airplanes are cars. Anything with wheels. CAH! CAH! He stands at the window and watches cars go by. When one doesn't come for a while, he looks at me and starts whining like I can control traffic. We have to count every single car from my house to D's. And man, there are a lot of cars in the world.
They are also starting to sign. They sign "All Done," "Milk," "Cracker," and sometimes "Mom" and a few others. Cracker is really funny, because the sign itself is funny. You knock your right fist on your left elbow. Naim gets his arms all twisted up together doing it. It's cute. I can tell that teaching them sign is really going to help me. I cannot get a handle on anything they are saying unless it is really in context and isolated (Like CAH!). Already I can tell that our communication is better with signs. I'll miss Naim's "A-Duh!" (All Done) that is intertwined with all his other babble, but there is no mistaking the "A-Duh!" with his way exaggerated flapping hands. They are enjoying learning it. The only problem is that I wake up at night with the damned songs from "Signing Times" videos in my head. ("Put your fingertips together for More, More, More...") Signing may be a novelty for hearing parents, but I can tell it is going to be essential for us.
So much for the kid update, now moving on to D:
D is STILL in the nursing home, for no other reason than bureaucratic bullshit. He could have been out weeks ago, but there has been a bunch of social worker dragging of the feet and such. This woman is screwing up left and right. She didn't call the rehab hospital for a week and then came in and asked D, the guy whose been laying there with no access to phone book or computer, if he knew the number. D called me and I found it in under 5 seconds on Yahoo Yellow Pages, and I think I should start getting paid to do her job. I mean, that is the essence of a social worker, no? To be able to connect clients with community resources? And she can't even look up a number? Ugh. He could just walk out but they've got us all a'feared now that if we do before all the doctor's dot the i's and cross the t's then insurance won't pay for it and we'll end up with millions of bills. So, he sits. Buuuuuttt, he is leaving during the day, almost every day. He comes home for a couple of hours in the afternoon and we've been seeing a lot of him that way. So, we wait some more.
Out of the 15 months the kids have been alive, D has been in the hospital for almost 6 months of it.