We Have Another Biker!

In Doug's referral photos over three years ago, there was a photo of him on a bicycle. We naturally assumed he knew how to ride a bike. ...Just as, later when he joined our family and insisted to us in Chinese that he "knew how to swim" we took him at his word...about two seconds before having to pull him off the bottom of the pool, that is! In his mind, he "knew" how to swim because he loved the water. The fact that he sank like a stone and never remembered to CLOSE his mouth when sinking didn't deter in the least his confidence in his swimming prowess nor his enthusiasm for getting out into water that was way over his head. It was exhausting watching the child in the pool, because we had to rescue him every couple of minutes. He moved FAST and he was fearless of the water and before we could blink an eye, he would once again edge over into the water too deep for himself and be on the bottom of the pool, mouth wide open, once more. Fortunately, after the first year with us, he GREW enough that in most pools there is a rope marker separating too deep water from okay water...and that visual boundary helps tremendously. Also, after THREE years of intense instruction on the matter, he is finally remembering (about half the time, at least) to close his mouth before ducking his head beneath the water. Earlier this month, during our vacation in Branson, he even began stretching his body out and doing a pretty good job of actually swimming underwater.

A couple of days ago he reached another landmark...being able to pedal a bike! Doug has just enough neurological impairment and spasticity that he just could not manage to pedal a trike or anything else. The act of alternating feet and only pushing FORWARD (not backward, too) was just terribly challenging for him. This is our third summer trying and finally the light bulb went on and he GOT IT! Bless his heart, he has LOVED his bike since he first got it, but he was forever pushing his bike as he walked beside it (determined to have his bike with him, even though he couldn't move forward if he sat on it). I can't tell you how many times as he and Rayna have joined me on the quarter mile walk to our mailbox, Doug has insisted on bringing his bike, but then has wound up walking the bike all the way up and back instead of riding it. Well, those days are passing! A couple of days ago he managed to keep both feet on the pedals and begin working them in alternating fashion! He still has a long ways to go...but, he is so excited that he can now sit on his bicycle and wheel around the drive like Rayna and Darcy! I'm excited, too! I had begun to wonder if he would ever master pedaling. He has really been making leaps and bounds progressing with his speech, too. Almost daily he will casually throw out a new word or phrase that I have never heard him say before. Verb conjugation remains a black hole for him as does sentence structuring, but he is beginning to be able to pronounce things more clearly. It still takes a lot of repetition and instruction, but these days, he comes so much closer to mimicking the actual pronunciation than he was ever capable of the first couple of years home with us.