Walking!

 A few weeks ago we got the 'okay' to get Zephaniah back into his prosthetic.  We are waiting on a walker being ordered to help him walk.  In the mean time we strongly felt that he COULD walk and just needed to not really have a choice (he's of the mindset that he can get around faster/easier by crawling so "why bother?" and then there was the fear, which we strongly felt he'd let go of as he gained confidence in his abilities to walk).  So we decided he was no longer allowed to crawl.  Nope.  Not at all.  We told him he was a "big boy" and that he is to walk to get from point A to B at home now.  He wasn't thrilled.  It was a rough few days especially.  Lots of whining and whimpers and frustration.  Lots of holding onto the walls, throwing himself towards his destination to avoid an extra step.  But by the 5th day he was starting to get the hang of things.  In two weeks we now see him NOT HOLDING ONTO anything - just walking down the hall or across a large room.  Then he even began to carry objects ("look ma - no hands held out in case I fall" - now that's confidence!) around. 

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Then there was the language.  I was beginning to be concerned because he could say two words but not together; two sounds - but not together.  That - and he was still hardly adding words to his very small vocabulary so slowly it was nearly a stand still for MONTHS at a time.  Well, he's made a breakthrough here too!  We tried "banana" but he could only say "ba" and "nana" totally separate (long space in between).  Then we tried teaching him to add "please" when asking for something.  At bedtime all the kids get their drink of water before bed and this is one of his favorite parts of bedtime so we tried "water, please?".  It took a LOT of practice but he can now say "water, please"!  Now he can add "please" to other requests as well!  Then yesterday we worked on "banana" again and he's starting to get it.  His "babble" is starting to make a little more sense as he begins to use more "real" words and more realistic sentence structure.  It's just amazing to see what this little guy can achieve when he tries!  We are so proud of him!