A visit, and a kitten

Good morning, as I told you my cousin is in town from Missouri. So we ventured over to see them last night, and it was a very nice visit. She was very impressed to see that Jude has made so much progress. The last time she was in town she experienced him very doped up from the pheno, and a horrible violent seizure. She kept pointing out that Jude was looking at his hand, and then slowly tried to maneuver it to his mouth. Sometimes we would hear a sucking noise, and look to see he has been successful, but sometimes he just couldn't get his hand to cooperate. I have mentioned before that there are times Jude truly reflects a stroke victim. He knows what he wants his body to do, but unfortunately his body just will not cooperate. Sometimes Jude will get very frustrated, and at other times he seems content with the fact he cannot perform the task. I wonder what lays ahead for us, and him with his frustration levels.

Candace also noticed that Jude is looking in our eyes a lot more. There is a tiny kitten at the house that kept playing around Jude last night. I noticed Jude was following the kitten with his eyes, so I picked up the kitten and rubbed his fur on Jude's hand. Jude had a great big smile for the kitten, and kept following him, and I would say "Kitty". This small accomplishments bring us a lot of hope, and great joy. Jude is still having difficulty keeping his head up, but as I said before he is getting better. We work with him everyday on tummy time. He also sees his ECI therapists twice a week, and we will look into more therapy as well.

My cousin also asked if people are noticing that Jude has issues now that he is getting older. I told her that they do make comments now. I hear "Oh he is so sleepy", or "did something happen?", or they will just stare (Fyi ~ I prefer you ask). I explained to her that I have no issue with this, and that if someone make a comment I tell them he suffered a stroke. It's a way for me to lead into stroke awareness, and Jude hopefully educates a few people with his experience. I really feel like we were blessed with Jude, and he has a purpose in life.

Emily has practice tonight with her possible select team for softball. She also starting hitting, and batting practice this week, and she seems to love it. It's a lot of time out of our schedules, but if Emily has the drive, we will support her. My boss helped me get in touch with someone that has been in select ball for years, and he directed us to the batting/pitching coaches. I am thankful I got this advice because we love them both. In fact the batting coach has his own batting cage at his house, and Emily really learned from him, and he was funny!

One funny, remember how I posted the video of Jude saying "Moooooom". Well my husband gives me a hard time that he isn't in fact saying that word. The other night Jude was laying in his bed just playing away (at 1am!!), and Mike and I were both so tired. Suddenly we hear him fuss a bit, and say "Mooooooom". Mike so nicely says "welp he is calling for you so I am going to sleep" and turns over. Nice!