Rex - Thirty-Seven Weeks Home

Today marks thirty-seven weeks home and thirty-nine weeks out of the orphanage for Rex.

The last two weeks with Rex have been pretty amazing.  He is doing so very well in all of his therapy and mastering IEP and ABA objectives left and right.  He is signing eat, music, go, and swing with almost perfect accuracy and spontaneity now and he’s nearly there with the signs for drink and jump, too.  He needs very little prompting now to wave hi and bye and to give high fives.  Rex is consistently following commands like “give me,” “sit down,” “pat the drum” and many others.  We keep adding to his repertoire.  He responds to his name by looking and he makes beautiful eye contact with me and those he knows well.  His receptive language is remarkable for a child who was thought to be nearly deaf and treated as such for many months.

The little king surveying his territory.

(And yes, he was supervised, but didn't know it.)

Rex has completed the objective of scribbling two to four marks and we’re now working on drawing lines.  We’re also teaching him how to match objects and how to catch and kick a ball.  He’s coming along nicely with puzzles, learning to put the pieces more easily into the correct spots.  In a great self-taught accomplishment, Rex has learned how to open doors by turning the knobs. The moment he figured it out, Craig was watching him. He says that when it finally clicked in Rex’s head, he uttered a triumphant, “haha” and nothing has been safe since.

With all this progress in so many areas, we have also seen the re-emergence of some auto-aggression.  It’s not frequent, but, of course, we’d rather have none of it.  The moments it happens are easily understood: when we tell Rex no and when he is unable to complete a task he has set for himself, such as pulling the kitchen table onto the deck and the darn thing just won’t fit through the door.  Rex has also been a little more restless at night, waking briefly once or twice, so we have allowed him to co-sleep a bit more.  When he does, he is completely peaceful and makes sure that he touches at least one of us at all times.  He seems to really need and enjoy that nesting warmth and comfort still and we are happy to provide it considering he missed out on it for such a long time.

So handsome (not that I'm biased).

Rex is also getting to be such a funny little guy and so savvy.  When I wanted a moment of rest, I used to be able to sit down on the couch and hide my hands under the blanket, so Rex thought he couldn’t pull me anywhere. Well, no such luck anymore.  The little stinker has figured out that he can slip off the blanket and find my hands and thereby my attention.  Makes me smile every time he does it.  Very recently, I was working with Rex on one of his imitation programs where we show him an action and ask him to repeat it by saying, “Do this.”  So, I was clapping my hands loudly, proclaiming, “Rex, do this.”  Next thing I knew, he was walking over to me, grabbed both of my hands in his and smacked them together.  I instantly cracked up at his very literal and accurate response to my request.


Yesterday we learned that Rex's first day of preschool will be August 27, so we have four months left together at home.  However, Rex will start transitioning on August 6 by attending half day camp at the school for one week, then full day camp the following week and then he has a week off before the school year starts.

My happy boy with shining eyes and big smile.

I hope Rex knows how very proud we are of him and that we understand that learning these basics is hard work for him and doesn’t come easily as for most children.  He is our Armenian treasure, forever to be cherished and adored.