Our dear Stephen woke up in the middle of the night and only fell asleep at about 6++ in the morning. Naturally he woke up very late and ended up late on his first day of school. Could he be too excited?

These days like what Daniel wrote, I mean the days after he got well, have been good as Stephen initiate more things such as wanting to bond with us, singing, playing with us, going to the toilet, handing my hand to help him open a locked door, walking up the stairs tho' at times it's still a struggle. Overall, things have been moving more positively. Thank God for things big and small. Always like the ending - The Lord God made them all, how true!

I've been trying to pace my workload, mainly my marking and preparation in the daytime so that I've got some pockets of time at night or in the evening to play with the children. Through all these, I feel happy that both Deborah & Stephen are my kids. They've been forgiving to their mommy who had been busy during term time. This year, I resolve to play more with them . just on Tuesday, the children, Vengie & I took MRT to Hougang Mall. 3 cheers for us!!! That was the first time that Stephen travelled by MRT. Thru'out the journey, whenever we mentioned that we were travelling in a train, he would touch the print "Thomas & his friends' which is on his pants (my mom bought that to fan his entusiasm). Very sweet, right? And in context... ever hope for a day to bring him to England where we could take the Britrail for that's where Thomas & his Friends were conceived out of a man's childhood fascination with trains. But first, he's got to get used to moving around in Spore on public transport. For him and for us.

this few days has been beautiful for me as i fellowship with stephen. from our usual "distant" togetherness we had been having cheerful and peaceful moments.

monday was great as we play together on his bed, sing songs and having him fill up the last word. we had much fun and as i leave for work, he willingly say "good bye" and kisses with lots of smile on his face.

tuesday we were able to continue the trend. when we were doing pillow throwing, he was able to say "up", "down", "throw" without promting at all. that's communicating intentionally i believe. there were also occassion that he asked me to "come", asked for "water", using these words it is context.

when he was in the car the other day, he was listening to the song "march in the infrantry" and he actually said "yes sir" at the right part of the song although there wasn't this part in our CD, then he also sang some parts of the song. of course, if we are not listening to the song, we proberly won't catch it bec his words are not too clear. i realised that when he follow CDs to sing, his words are usually not too clear compare to when he repeat our words.

going to school has been a breeze for me. starting this year he has been ok to leave home with me, esp these few weeks. when we reach school he is ok to walk . so he no longer need to be driven to the school pouch to be alighted. i use to think he is like the "big boss" when he reach sch his teacher got to open his car door and welcome him., then he go in without making "noise". hope days light this is over.

yesterday was interesting. when he came back from school, he came into the house took off his socks put his shoes into the shoes cupboard, all by himself without being asked to. then we told deborah to learn from his brother. came to think about it, a special child will also do special things at the most unexpected moments. so they have special need, likewise they can also give special treats.

stephen seem also to be better to his new teacher now, more cheerfullness on his face as he reach sch and after sch.

tomorrow he will been going with deborah to her sch. we have arrange for him to try out interacting with children of his age. really thank God for the opp as not many sch would have allowed him to try at all. deborah is all excited.

now abideth love, hope and faith. the greatest is love. we are discovering the depth of these words in our special situation.

Stephen started going back to school this week. It's great seeing him getting better.

Last night we brought Stephen to walk-walk in our neighbourhood. He doesn't seem to like the loud music and he was yelling quite a bit. Than we had our dinner at Yoshinoya but he wasn't interested (which we thought he would be bcos there was rice & some fried finger snacks) and he only bit off only one part of each finger snack (he enjoys crispy food). Finally he had his share at Mac where he was contented with his cup of iced milo, nuggets (he clapped his hands & shouted 'yeh' when I flashed out the first piece of nugget for him) & fries. For Stephen, we would try to pace his eating more so to moderate his prefences in eating one type of food over another.

The children enjoyed having grandma's presence when she came over to stay for Fri night. They were so excited that they refused to sleep on their own bed but squeezed into the same bed as grandma. Papa had to move Stephen over in the middle of the night bcos it was simply too close for comfort.

Yesterday, my mom tried to help Stephen say 'mimi' (as in 'mi' in mommy) as he often has a 'b' sound for his 'mama', and she managed to get him to say that for a few times. Stephen seems better with saying 'mimi' so now I'll be his 'mimi'. A couple of days back, Stephen was looking at Deborah's toy and said 'jie jie sister'. With Annie, he repeated after her as she said the word as she pointed to the different words (with pictures) showing different emotions such as happy, sad, angry,etc. It was very nice to have Yifan coming over during the week to just play with Stephen. Oh yes, I handed Stephen my mom's pillow and asked him to put it on 'popo's bed' and he walked into her room and he did it.

From these, it's not difficult to see that Stephen's awareness of himself and others and his willingness to verbalise is increasing. For this we just got to press on. The other area to concurrently work on is managing his emotions. Looking forward to this week's 'lessons' with Stephen...