Another Small Victory Thursday Morning

Thursday morning
Jake is not going to school because he has bad butt.
A Hot Mama is registering him for Camp.. thank you thank you Mama B, Mother of 37,461 kids!

Jake and Lucy are running around the top floor of the house drinking sippy cups of milk.

Jake finishes his and drops it on the floor.

"Jake please put your cup on the counter."

and then

"If you want more milk, please give your cup to mom."

I pull the milk out of the *new* fridge.

Jake kicks the cup to me.
In the past I would have accepted this as his attempt to follow directions.

"If you want more milk you need to put your cup on the counter. You need to hand your cup to mom."

Jake picks up his cup and comes to the breakfast counter and lets the cup roll out of his hand towards me.
this is as close as Jake gets to following these kind of directions which require intimate touch

"Jake, if you want more milk you need to hand your cup to mom."

Jake picks up his cup, steps a foot towards me and puts the cup in my hand.

He put the cup in my hand.

Jake has never actually handed any one any thing ever.

He will drop it close by, he will kick it to your feet, he will nudge it towards you, but never in the hand.

and he did it. and i cried.. and I gave him his milk, and gave him a big hug and thanked him for following directions and being a good listener. He smiled and made happy noises and ran away (with his cup of milk!).

I went downstairs and woke up Descartes.

and to my great delight he was excited too, and knew exactly what I was talking about, which is, I suppose, a great testament to our marriage and our parenting that we are in the same place.. that we both knew how special this moment was.

Descartes came upstairs and gave Jake a big hug and told him that he was very proud of him and Jake leaned into Descartes and smiled.

September 20th, 2007

Jake followed directions.

Jake handed me the cup.

Small victories.