Miss Charlie: Favorites...

My sister sent this to me. She said it reminded her of Charlie. Ever since Charlie has started to communicate more and smile more, we are able to tell what her favorite things are. Her favorite song (by far) is "The Wheels on the Bus" and her favorite PART of the song is the "horn goes beep beep beep" part.

I love seeing that she has such specific preferences. Clearly she's a smart little bugger with a defined personality. For so long she just seemed like a little lump. It's hard to try to imagine the future when you have a severely brain-damaged child who is missing every milestone and gives you very little feedback other than crying.

I was very glad to hear Charlie begin to cry at 6 1/2 weeks. That was a huge thing for her, to show that she IS in there! She does feel things and she dislikes certain things. But after we brought her home and she got past the adjustment period where she cried a LOT, I couldn't really tell what was going on with her. She was a pretty content little baby, and sure she cried, but other than that, she just layed there. She didn't respond if you said her name. She didn't look at toys and hardly ever made eye contact. I constantly wondered if she was miserable and had just given up.

But none of that is the case. She is a VERY happy little girl! She's been doing little smiles here and there for quite a long time now. But up until a month ago, it was rare to get a little smile out of her. Still I was wondering if she was even happy. But I think it was just a matter of her muscles developing because now she smiles ALL. THE. TIME!

She's smiling at people other than me (for a long time I was the only one who could convince her to smile LOL). She smiling at toys. She smiling just when I say "hi". She's smiling when she wakes up. She's smiling to get my attention. I used to have to work hard just to get a little one and now all I have to do is sneeze and she starts grinning like mad. LOL

I know several other parents out there whose kids (with the same diagnosis as Charlie) aren't smiling yet. Some are older than Charlie, some are younger (but still far past the typical age of 6 weeks for this) but all are anxiously awaiting this very huge milestone. I'm telling all of you right now, that it was *agonizing* seeing one little smile and then not getting anything for a month. And then seeing little "twitches" but then they didn't develop into a smile. And then she'd smile really well for a week and then stop smiling altogether for 2 weeks. Like anything else, this is a 2 steps forward, 1 step back process, but it WILL happen! I read tons of blogs and all of the kids have quad CP. And every single one of them smiles!!!