Sitting Pretty

OK, so this post came with a teaser trailer. OK. A teaser spoiler. You see, I couldn’t sit on the news. I couldn’t help but tweet my joy and relief at the weekend. Like always I did it with a sense of nervousness.

Whenever Boo does something to suggest a milestone will be met or has been met, I worry that telling people will jinx it. It’s not that I’m a superstitious person. I’m not at all. It’s not that I’m a pessimist. I’m not. It’s just when you’ve played the two steps forward, one step back game for long enough you become a pragmatist. Too many things come and go with a growth spurt, or onset of illness, or the turning of calendar pages. But I think this one is sticking. And I am so, so happy.

So, here it is:

Boo sat for 5 minutes. Unaided. 5 minutes. 300 seconds. It felt like hours in my mind.

And it was the reflection of not just hours, but days, weeks, months and now years of hard work and grinning through tears of frustration. Hours of physio at home and nursery every day. Sitting him between by crossed legs, sitting him on my legs. Sitting him straddled on a physio roll and on a box. Sitting him on a Swiss ball and, when that burst, his sister’s space hopper. It’s the result of hours and hours of conductive education and the love and support of his teachers, who don’t see limits in our children, just potential. It’s also, undoubtedly the work of the Lycra suit he now has, which gives his brain enough sensory feedback to make his floppy trunk muscles realise that have a job to do and iron out the c-shape in his spine.

As I sat playing with Boo last Sunday he was on his lime green yoga mat (non-slippy and cushioning for bumps) as usual, I had an array of toys in front and to the side of him to choose to play with: his drums, his bubblegum machine, his V-tech bus. I was actually focused on his SALT therapy at the time. (Yeah, cerebral palsy has robbed me of the opportunity just to play with my son. There’s always an end in view.) So I was getting him to choose toys by eye-pointing and grabbing and making a ‘yeah’ or a ‘no’ (which he can’t yet say but is trying to). I was talking about colours and seeing if he recognised them.

I looked at my watch, to see how much time we had before his sister came back from her swimming lesson and when to put the jacket potatoes in the oven for their tea. 15:05. OK, plenty of time.

Bubble gumballs cascaded down the machine and I tipped it up so Boo could try (it’s very hard for him, but he is just about doing it now) to lift the balls up and put them back in. He was doing so well with this, we kept going. Then he wanted to play with the bus and I made him choose letters (from the ones he can say: ‘m’, ‘a’, ‘d’) and played the songs. I sang them and he joined in with odd sounds. It was fun. And then I got out the drum and realised one of the instruments off its side had fallen off. It was near me, but I had to move about half a metre away from Boo to get it. Without thinking, I did it.

He was still sitting. Diamond legged (to eliminate his hamstring tone), propping with one arm. Then he swapped to prop with the other. He was still sitting. I looked at my watch 3:10. I shrieked. He wobbled. I caught him.

He had been sitting for 5 minutes. Tears welled up. If it hadn’t taken me so much by surprise, if I wasn’t so nervous about not being near him to catch him when he falls, I’d have a picture to show you. Maybe soon.

There have been days (many days) where I worried this day would never come. People had told me not to expect that Boo would ever be able to sit independently. And no one can predict what this means in the long term.

But we’ll take this and shout out loudly and proudly about how well Boo’s done.

No limits, Boo. Sometimes, I think there is nothing you aren’t capable of.