Re-evaluation news

We had our re-evaluation a little over a week ago. I'm happy to report that things went much better then I had imagined. We've made huge neurological progress and we are moving on to the next step. We've been assigned a new set of patterns, and they are very do-able. I must admit, they look a bit strange, but we are going to do them. We know what we have been doing has caused big changes, so we're going to do everything we've been told. I don't know if I've mentioned this, but S's emotional guard is coming down and I can see her falling in love. If I look at her and smile, a change overcomes her entire face and she smiles back at me. She is giving hugs to everyone. I got my first real kiss last week. I ask her for a kiss before she goes to bed and never get one. Sometime she'll press her cheek to mine, and that's good enough for me. I get huge hugs, and I know she is dealing with oral sensitivity, so it's always been okay not to get kisses. It's a different world for her, and I'm happy to be a part of it and understand how she feels without trying to force her into anything. Well, this night was different. She pressed her little lips to my cheek and gave a long kiss. I was totally in shock, not even knowing how to react, and then she moved to the other cheek and did the same thing! I squeezed her and gave her another kiss and put her in bed. She has since given a few more, it has been wonderful. Her baby cousin who is 6 months old was over the other day. She kept walking over to her and touching her on the head. Then she touched her arms, legs, head and was labeling all of her body parts, it was so cute. The baby coughed, and she kept asking her, "Are you okay?" I finally realized that she was expecting the baby to answer, because she kept asking if she was okay. So I answered for her and she stopped. This was the first time she really took an interest in a baby for more than a second. This time last year, I remember being so excited at how far she'd come. I had no idea that she would get to this point one year later. When you have your children by birth, you always marvel over each new thing that they do. With S, each new thing that she does is cause for celebration because we see her unfolding. All of this is in her, she just lets it out very carefully and slowly. We are always in anticipation of what will come next, and it's not always in the order you expect.

We hope to be traveling in the next couple of weeks, so I'll try to keep up as best as I can. We are on an exciting adventure, and I would love to share it so others like us can experience the same joys that we have achieved through NR.