Rewards

Who is this beautiful young man, and what can I say about him to fill in the gap since I wrote about him last? Here's a little guy who is so clever, so determined, so athletic, and so... verbal. Verbal? Really? Yep. The last two months have been a verbal explosion for Zach. He went (seemingly overnight) from saying "Buh" for everything to becoming a coherent and cordial speaker of the language. He can count to nine (and after that he usually says, "Thirty-nine" for some reason); he can name at least three days of the week in the right order, and he can tell you exactly what he wants to do and why. (Today while standing at the neighbor's fence: "Climb up... Garden ball... Zach get it.")

Yesterday Zach had a rare chance to be the star of the show ... Luke was sick and couldn't make it to Suzi and Bill's house so Dave and Zach went without us. This gave Zach a great opportunity to shoot some hoops, and it gave Bill a great opportunity to take some nice shots of Zach. Here he is sizing up the basket ... and getting ready to take a shot. Now imagine this happening again, and again, and again...

I only come on this blog every now and then to look back at the early days and reminisce, but at times like these I'm not losing sight of the fact that things could have turned out much differently. Two years ago this month I was in a hospital bed, trying not to go into labor and trying to stay as positive as I could about what would happen if I did. Zach was kind of forced out onto the scene a tad earlier than we would have liked, but he's no fragile flower. He's been a happy, healthy, incredibly strong and determined little fighter since Day 1.

After Zach had a great week last week, I told Dave that after all of the hard work of the first two years, it seems like we are finally getting the rewards. It's fun - and funny - to watch and listen to him every day. I certainly wouldn't have chosen the beginning that he had, but now that we have him, I wouldn't change a thing.