Anticipication

Waiting seems to be the name of the game these days.  Wether it is sleeping with one eye open dreading the reoccurring nightly invasion of our bedroom.  Driving around wasting time before an Occupational or Speech Therapy session.  Sometimes, if we get a great parking spot, we hang out in the car and listen to music (and hopefully be patient), waiting for the same.  At home, I gently and slowly encourage James to eat his apple, his strawberries, whatever healthy snack I have laid out. I try and turn play into counting and naming games.  Because he willing participates if I let him stand at the top of the steep, concrete steps to play catch, I actively court danger.  He counts, names colors, and even attempts speech - all as I stand below with my heart in my throat.  Let me tell you this kid has amazing balance and dexterity.  Generally, I try not to push too hard, mostly nudge. I have found that if James thinks something is his idea, I have him in the palm of my hand. I believe that my continual quiet suggestions and encouragements have helped James formulate some ideas of his own as well.
On Saturday, we pick Dad up at he bus stop.  This week, James decided, a bit prematurely, that it was that time.  I explained to him that we had to wait. Daddy was still at work.  At first James listened and we kept playing ball, but soon he trotted over to the car, opened the door and settled into his car seat. After a while, he got out and opened the driver's door.  He then flicked every switch, putting on the radio, the hazards and the windshield wipers, in attempt to start the car.  Amazing.  It might sound like a normal development, but I was blown away. James doesn't learn the way average children do.  I wish I could simply show him how to do a task and then he would be able to imitate and eventually master.  If it was that easy, success would be ours with potty training, with fastening buttons or snaps, with coloring, with writing - hell - with speaking!
How is James able to go from complete inability to brand new skill in a matter seconds?  He watches the boy downstairs play basketball and knows how to pass the ball without looking.  He watches soccer on TV, once, and now can bounce a ball up with his knee then kick it with his foot?   How did he go from being unable to complete the "animal walks" at Occupational Therapy - even the simple ones for months - to mastering a squatting duck walk?  And then go on to independently attempt the crab, when they haven't even started, let alone demonstrated it, yet?  All from looking at the pictures of children in the animal positions?  His OT gave me a lovely compliment too,  She said that I was right - that James can write his name.  About three months ago, I told her that, although it is a mess and pretty much unrecognizable, that I believed that James could write his name.  Like his language, his written shapes were very, very approximate, but these shapes were consistently repeated.
I am not sure why James advances in spurts but he does.  We wait, we wait, we wait.  Day in, day out, we slowly plod along. Then, unexpectedly, BOOM.  He suddenly can shut the computer and close it in the secretary.  He comes out with a long sentence, pretty much inaudible, but we gather it involves YouTube and Bob the Builder.  I still don't know but I got a silly fun song up quickly. "Big fish. Little fish. Cardboard box.  We're all having fun."   That's my life these days.  Incomprehensible, silly and repetitious, but at least we're all having a blast.