I have said multiple times today, “why am I not handling this better” as Owen screamed at me one more time and I wanted to cry and scream with him. But then he stood next to me as I was painting and talked about all the colors he saw in front of him. He went on to talk about the characters he’s painted and the things we’ve talked about having him paint. We’ve been painting together for about two years now, quickly it seems going into three. He’s never had this much excitement about it before, but as he sees his finished projects around the house he talks about each of them. I’m thankful he’s making the connection and glad to know that he enjoys it. When he’s talking about the paintings he expresses himself almost more in my terms and I can hear him thinking through the steps we take to paint. He talked about the colors we would select and how he would put them on the canvas. I can’t stop smiling about this. It feels like huge progress amid a very challenging day. The win column was full though. I always ask Owen what his favorite color is. He has never answered me. And technically still hasn’t, but as we were playing on his tablet one of the characters could be changed to a different color. It was a wheel of color, maybe around fifty or so to choose from. He immediately went to yellow. He said it and he then selected it. I was once again struck with how amazing that moment was. Maybe yellow is his favorite color. Maybe it was only for that character, but I was still overwhelmed with gladness that without prompting he selected a random color. I started teaching Owen how to plug in his tablet to charge. All day he had handled it pretty well when “it died” until the end of the day and stuff went sailing across the living room. He wanted his tablet and he wanted it to be charged. I explained we couldn’t throw things just because the battery went out. I made him count, breathe, and started teaching him how to put the cord on his tablet. It’s a hard concept for him, but he’ll get there. Today was filled with a lot of emotions from both of us. I’m thankful for his growth, his choices, his expressions, and his words. Life is not always easy to explain, but the love sure is. Follow your heart, know your dreams are important, and tomorrow is your day. Smiles to all and donut daze!
RSS Feed