A Dream Comes True

Silas is 3 years old and has physical therapy every day. He practices standing and moving his feet forward slowly while being supported. He has started walking a little with the walker but his dream is to walk on his own.

He is able to stand as long as someone is supporting him. As he became stronger his nanny thought he might be able to stand by himself, so she would slowly remove her hands. But Silas would fall forward giggling into her arms. He thought his nanny was playing with him.

Then we explained to him that we wanted to see if he could stand by himself when we took our hands away. He understood what we wanted him to try…..and he did it. He stood for a couple of seconds. Now we have started getting more pictures of him standing from his nannies.

One day Ruth, Amos, Libby and Silas were in one room. Silas was practicing standing. He stood on his own and we encouraged him, "Wow, look at you, you can stand yourself!"

Ruth was sitting there and saw this, without being prompted she clapped her hands to encourage her brother. My heart was broken for Ruth when we saw her so proud of her brother, because, you see, standing on her own is something that Ruth cannot yet do herself, and will likely never be able to do. But she wasn't thinking of herself or feeling sorry for herself, she was just purely happy for her brother.

Ruth

Amos was also watching, in the past he had been so fearful of falling that he did not want to use the stander or sit in a chair, but when he saw Silas standing, he crawled over to me, grabbed my hands and tried to stand. He fell when he let go, but it was exciting to see him confront his fears and try.

Amos

Silas was motivating the other children. Ruth was cheering for him and Amos was confronting his fears.