We spent a wonderful weekend with family. The first stop was to see one of the many who have become a very special part of our family in the journey ofthe past 2 years, Wendy and P.J. (a five year old AMCer) and Paul (her hubby and their younger son Patric); may not be related to us by blood, but the bond we share with them is inmesureable. I first met Wendy a little less than 2 years ago at the very first AMC Convention we attended, she was a"young" mom too and I identified with that and her son P.J. gave me and Jon so much hope for the future and what Jackson would accomplish. As long asI live I will never forget this:
On the Sunday (last day of convention), Jon had gone out to get the car, I was standing in the lobby with Jackson in his car seat in the stroller. I noticed a typically developing child running as P.J. ran behind them. When they reached the stairs, I thought to myself, how is the heck is P.J. going to get up those stairs, he can't pick up his feet like me. Well, before Icould get the thought completely out of my head, this little amazement hit his knees climb the stairs and took off running again. I cried and cried anda s soon as Jon came to pick us up all I could say was "Jackson will be fine".
Wendy and I chatted during that convention, but life was chaos for us then,between caring for Jackson, changing braces every three hours, pumping andf eeding, there wasn't much time to just hang out. By the time last year's convention rolled around in July, Jackson was doing so well, that we were bracing only at night and I (thank goodness) was done pumping, so there was a lot more time for hanging out and that is just what I did for two and a half wonderful days, when we weren't in sessions, I hung out with Wendy, we sat and talked for hours about our lives, our kids, anything we wanted(while my wonderful hubby hung out with the kiddos). Wendy and I had an instant bond, we left that convention with a new found friendship (and kinship) that will last a lifetime. We talked about it so many times in our numerous phone calls and text messages since July that we needed to visit each other and let our boys hang out. So when Jon asked about going to Oklahoma, I knewthat there was a stop we needed to make on the way---we had to see Wendy and the boys. So on Friday night after seeing Dr. Mathews (it's a story foranother post---but he has AMC too) we drove to Dallas. We arrived around 10 p.m. and stayed up while the little guys played until 1 in the morning. We got up the next morning and had breakfast, P.J. showed us his feeding machine and Jackson tried out his new adaptive equipment Wendy found for us---it's called a dip stick and is made for kids to eat ice cream cones without making such a mess---but it works well for bananas. P.J. and Jackson totally get each other and Jon and I left with yet another beautiful picture for our future and Jackson's. During our visit, several times we heard P.J. scold his brother for trying to hand Jackson a toy "the wrong way"...P.J.knows how Jackson should get a toy, he uses his hands in a very similar way to Jackson. The funniest moment came as we were leaving and we told Jackson and P.J. to give eachother five--they turned their hands "backwards" like that was just how you give five---it was truly amazing to watch them and how well they know each other.
On Saturday, it was on to Aunt Aubrey and Uncle Jason's, their kiddos and Paw-Paws. When we were about 30 minutes from their house, Jackson started asking for Paw-Paw and NeNe (his dog) and was so excited to finally see them when we got there. Jackson had a ton of fun hanging out with his cousins: Alexander, Abby, and Andrew. Andrew is a little younger than Jackson and it was absolutely precious to see him (and Abby) try to roll like Jackson!
It was a wonderful weekend spent with family.
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