Tuesday, November 20, 2007

Good News to Share

When Asher began physical therapy, he identified three long-term goals he wants to achieve:
1. Keep up with his friends when they run across the playground.
2. Pull himself up on the monkey bar (the low one on the playground) and flip himself around it.
3. Learn to pump his arms and legs to swing himself on the swing.

His physical therapist (PT) and he created short-term goals so that he can reach milestones along the way to his long-term goals. The PT wrote them down in Asher's PT notebook on the very front page. Then Asher and I promptly forgot them. On Monday, during his physical therapy session, I was reviewing the notebook and saw the goals. The first one was:

1. Run to the school bus stop (our neighbor's mailbox) without stopping.

So, this morning, as we headed to the school bus stop, I remembered the goal and reminded Asher. After safely looking both ways, he and Simi took off across the street and to the neighbor's mailbox (about 50 feet away). To Asher's surprise, he not only made it without stopping, but he and Simi reached the mailbox at the same time. It was a tie! Now, Asher was probably running full-out and Simi was trotting along, but that didn't matter. I don't think Asher noticed.

Asher was thrilled! He not only made it to the mailbox without stopping, but he and Simi tied arriving there. He was THRILLED!!! I made a big deal out of it.

Then he said, "Thank you"!!!!! I could barely believe my ears.

I gave him a hug and he said, "this is the best hug ever".

Yes, Asher, I couldn't agree more.

No comments: