Wow, it has been too long since we chatted! Things have been crazy around here, but there is nothing new about that. We had to have another quarantine for one of the kiddos due to a kiddo in his class testing positive. So, of course, between working our jobs and trying to entertain our oldest…we are exhausted!
Luckily during all of this, our youngest has been able to be in his school to receive his therapies and for that, we are thankful! For kiddos with Fragile X, speech is a tough thing for them. Jackson is 3 and is really just starting to say words that you can understand. He has said some sentences such as, “I did that”, “More water”, “No more bubbles”. He is currently working on saying his colors, identifying them and sorting them. Another big success we have seen with Jackson is the way he separates from us at school. When he first started there was a lot of change…new school, new teachers, new rules, new schedule. He would cry each morning at drop-off, blow us 101 kisses through the tears and hold the teachers hand as they escorted him to his classroom. Now at drop-off, he is the star of the show! All of the teachers/helpers know Jackson, he is Mr. Personality! He will wave at anyone of them, but his real favorite is Mr. Clark or “Cark” as Jackson calls him. I think he secretly likes him because they share the name, but they seem to have a special bond and for a parent with a special needs child, you can only hope he has great teachers/therapists he connects with. So, he gets out of the car and he knows that he needs his backpack on before he can go into school. This is a full size backpack, which I will say, is very impressive to watch him carry it in there. He waits and sticks his arms through the straps, grabs his teacher’s hand and waves good-bye to us. He has truly grown leaps and bounds!
We even were lucky enough to get to see Santa this year and for a child who has intense anxiety, he loved every single second of it. He even told Santa, “No!”, when Santa asked him if he wanted Legos for Christmas…although, I think he would be pretty happy to get Legos LOL!
Jackson has only been a part of our public school system for about a month, if you take out the 2 weeks he had to quarantine, so to see the amount of progress he has made in 1 month makes our hearts incredibly happy and grateful to his therapists and teachers and we are obviously excited to see what the new year will bring him!
We wanted to thank each and every one of you for taking an interest in our journey, in our son and in our family. We hope in sharing this that you find some bits of knowledge. If you have a family member or friend with Fragile X or other Special Needs, we hope you find some comfort here in knowing you are not alone and we hope you will continue to take this journey with us. Our wish for all of you is to have a very safe, healthy and Happy Holidays.
XOXO
Our Fragile Xperience 