Paul's Update - 02/11/07

Dear Friends:

Saturday morning was a bit different without Dad but Tabby & Gladys rose to the challenge. I went over around 10am to be with Max since Tabby had promised Carolyn that she would help her paint her bedroom. Max played for a while upstairs with me. He is such a joy and he keeps himself entertained very well. He has lots of learning toys that make noises and he loves them but sometimes the simple joy of a Teddy Bear is most fun! By about 11am Max was tired and in need of a nap so I put him down in his bed. He went right to sleep ... without even a little fuss! He is so good when you put him down ... we are sorta spoiled since he seems to like going to his bed still! He slept for about 2-1/2 hours. While he slept I went down and kept Paul and Gladys company. The cable TV was not working so Gladys and I had to learn how to run the DVD! We watched a couple movies before the cable guy came and replaced the cable box in the bedroom. It seemed to be a day that our electronics didn't want to work!! The Craftmatic bed that Paul & Tabby own was also not working! Tabby figured it was because the remote control had been dropped on the floor one too many times!! Gladys managed to fix the remote ... it appears that the battery compartment isn't holding the batteries in place. She was so thrilled that she was able to fix it ... we were too! After Tabby got back I went out with Ronda to my sister Cathy's house to pick her up. We went to my niece Lizzie's Choir Concert at the High School. Lizzie has a beautiful singing voice and she surprised us all when she came out on the stage to play her flute while the Soprano/Alto choir sang. She didn't tell her mom about this special honor! We really enjoyed the concert! Ronda and I went out to dinner after the concert and I got back to the house around 8pm. Tabby worked on words with Paul after dinner. She was trying to get him to say her name and mine. She would say "Tabby" pointing to herself and he would repeat her name. Then she pointed to me and said "Mom" and he repeated my name. She did that several times and he could repeat it each time but when she just pointed to herself without saying anything he got a confused look on his face and couldn't remember her name. It is evident that his memory is extremely short but he is remembering some words and hopefully over time he will make the name and word associations. Sunday Carolyn went to Paul's to get Max for church. Tabby had been cleaning the house last night and was tired. The plan was for Max to go to church, then when Carolyn brought him back and after I arrived they would go back to Carolyn's and continue the painting. I stayed with Paul and Max (and Gladys) again. Gladys played with Max most of the time. She hasn't had much "baby time" lately. I worked with Paul this afternoon on his words & numbers. He counted with me to 30. He gets 1-10 by himself. He also got eleven & twelve but then I had to help him. He got some of the numbers in the teens correct without any help but I had to help him most of the way through the twenties. We also worked on identifying the features of the face ... eyes, nose, mouth, cheek, ears. I would point and ask him what they were and sometimes he got them right. But then right after he would get it right he would call all the other parts by the name that he just got right. Then he would randomly call something by one of the other names ... for instance I would point to ears and he would say "nose". He knew the words just not the right name of what I was pointing at. Tabby worked on the names again tonight and he is getting a bit better with that as well. Dad will be home sometime tomorrow night. I think Paul will be glad to have him back by Tuesday!! We just cannot do all the things that Dad does ... and Paul misses him!

Have a great day! Lynne & Carl