Update on Johnny

I just wanted to leave a little post on how Johnny's recovery is going.  Saturday was along day, and Johnny was definitely not himself.  He just laid there and took it easy.  Well, for most of the day.  At some point he decided he wanted to start getting up and doing stuff.  Johnny just isn't the type to just sit and do nothing.  He knows he is missing stuff if he is doing nothing.  The problem was he couldn't really walk yet.  He would try, but he looked like a little drunken man when he did.  He learned that quickly, and mostly just crawled, or would come to us to help him get somewhere.

Sunday he was more like the Johnny we know and love.  He was moving better, but this led to more problems, because he wanted to do more, but still was not completely stable, so he made us a nervous wreck.  At one point, he and I took a long nap.  When he woke up, and then woke me up, he pointed to his head, and then signed "what", asking me what was going on with his head.  That broke my heart a little, and I wished I was better with signing so I could explain it better to him.  We spent a little time outside on Sunday, which we thought would be a good idea.  It just made Johnny want to do more stuff he couldn't, like sliding. The one thing he wanted to do more than anything else was to go down the slide, and that was the one thing it specifically said he could not do on the papers from the doctor.  So he was mad.

Monday, he was climbing on stuff and running around and hitting on Eliza.  Johnny was back in full force.  He still looked a little wobbly when he walked, and we had to help him up and down steps.

Tuesday, he looked normal and we started letting him sleep in his own bed, which was good for us.  He did make Erica nervous when he climbed up onto the back of the couch and tried to stand up on it.  That would have made her nervous even if he hadn't just had surgery on Friday.

Today, he has made it through most of the day without any pain medicine, and has been running around nonstop.  It is amazing how resilient kids are.  His scar is starting to look pretty good, which I think is a good sign that everything is healing nicely.

It has been an amazing process, and I look forward to what is yet to come.  Johnny is just so smart, and I thing he will figure out talking pretty quick, with work.  However, I also think he will always probably prefer signing, which is cool too.  That is his first language, and the most natural for him.  We don't want him to not be deaf, because that is part of who he is.  We also don't want him to not be part of family gatherings and get togethers.  We want him to have the best of both worlds, to be bilingual and bicultural.  It's not the easiest way, but we feel, for us and our family it is the right choice.