Legendary Luke

After a crazy Christmas holiday, we were very eager to get back to the routine, primarily for Luke's sake. Routine and structure provide stability and comfort for him, and while it took a few days to get back into the swing of things, Luke thrived going back to school!



Here he is with his 100th day of school project. He really did a good chunk of it, helping me glue on the numbers and then sticking on the stars.

It looks GREAT in the hall at his school!

He got a big kick out of walking through the door like this!

I've mentioned his amazing SpEd teacher before and her notes home. Here is one that just melts my heart:

He had a great first week of February! We've noticed great strides at home, too: he's using his "brave" voice more and more, his articulation is improving daily, and we can tell how he's putting things together in his expressive and receptive language capabilities.

And? He high fives his sister when I ask him to. Kate BEAMS whenever he does this!

More than all of this, I am so over-the-top proud of Luke for how well he did on the 17th, when he and I went to Cook Children's hospital in Fort Worth to do a sleep study. His ENT ordered the study so we could get a definitive answer to whether or not he has sleep apnea. (Anecdotal evidence suggests he might, but we aren't going to do a tonsillectomy because of hunches.) Here he is in the waiting area.

Here he is after he got all of the wires and sensors put on him: 14 on his head, two on his chest, one on his leg, and one on his toe (and I'm sure I'm forgetting some). I don't think most adults could sleep with all that stuff, and BELIEVE me, I didn't think we would even get this far!

But the sweet boy slept from about 9:00 p.m. to 5:30 a.m. when the nurse woke us up. The fact that he made it this long - including interruptions to put in a cannula, reset sensors, and remove the cannula - is a testament to God's power and the power of prayer. To all of you who lifted Luke in prayer, I cannot thank you enough. Ephesians 3:20 says, "Glory to God, who is able to do far beyond all that we could ask or imagine by his power at work within us." I know God whispered words of peace to Luke all night long so that he could make it through this test. I am just so very thankful, and I'm so in awe of my sweet, strong boy!

It will be another week or so before we get a report on what they found. The study measured his heart rate, breathing, movement, and brain waves, AND they had a camera on him, too, so imagine it takes quite a lot of time to synthesize all the data.

I am so proud of my brave, smart, tough little man!