Paul's Update - 02/09/07

Dear Friends:

Thursday was a quiet day for the most part. Dad was preparing for his trip to Florida with Bill. Paul was unhappy when Dad told him he was going away. I think Dad is going to have a hard time being away for that long!! As usual Dad tried to work with Paul to use his words. Sometimes he actually uses his words and it is exciting when he does. It shows that he is still doing improvement!! Dad came into the room and asked Paul if he needed to go to the bathroom and Paul nodded "yes". Dad said "what do we say?" and Paul nodded again. So Dad asked again ... "what do we SAY?" and Paul SAID "bathroom"!! He doesn't always get it right ... but it is so encouraging when he does! Ronda & Jessie came by to get an idea of the routine around the house for Max so they would be ready on Friday & Monday while Dad is gone. Max was doing really good with them while Pap-Paw was out of the room but when he came back into the room Max suddenly became upset ... I guess Max hadn't realized that Pap-Paw had been gone!! He recovered when Jessie started playing with him!! Friday morning started early for Ronda & Me. Ronda got to the house before Tabby left for work. I was scheduled to go and give Paul his medicines at 8:30 before heading to work. When I arrived Ronda was feeding Max. Paul had already done breakfast and Dora (the nurse) was there. Ronda was going to do the morning shift with Max since Jessie had to work until 12pm. Jessie took the afternoon shift. It was a very different day for all of us since Dora isn't usually there all day with Paul without any help and Dad usually has full time care of Max. PLUS ... Tabby decided to give Ozzie to a lady whose children were wanting a dog. Ozzie is a very busy little puppy and is quite a handful with all the other things that go on in the house. Hopefully this family will have more time to care for him. Anyway ... the house was pretty quiet without him! I think we will miss him quite a bit! Maybe some day she can get a little older dog that is calmer and will be able to sit with Paul more. It would be good to have a "therapy" dog. After dinner Tabby was working with Paul. He did his counting and got all the way to ten without ANY help! She tried to get him to say lots of new words, even some that have multiple syllables. He could repeat most of the words ... he even got three of the syllables in the word pronunciation". Try it ... it is a hard word!! She tried to get him to identify her eyes, nose, ears and cheeks. He can say the words but when she pointed to them he couldn't identify them. Max has a book that you identify pictures with and Tabby was using it to see if Paul could pick out pictures by pointing to them when she asked him to. There were three pictures on each page for him to identify. He got several of them right! His accuracy needs more work but he seems to be able to identify some things! By 9:30 it was time for medicines and bedtime.

Have a great weekend! Lynne & Carl