Thumper-A Special Gift

June 30, 2009

I woke up with Thumper’s chatter in the background. As usual, he woke up ahead of me again.

Our routine would always be,a bottle after he wakes up, if he doesn’t want it, back to his crib. I’d tidy his crib, make our own bed, then pick him up for a wash and a change of diaper, then, we will go upstairs together. Soon as we get upstairs, first thing we do is find his nanny to say “good morning” and get his good morning kisses. Then I put him in his entertainment center while I make a cup of tea for myself and prepare his breakfast.

I was sitting out on the porch sipping my tea when I heard him almost yelling. I came in to check on him, and, lo and behold, our cat Lovey-Dovey was right under Thumper’s feet rubbing her face on Thumper’s legs!

I told Lovey-Dovey to get off Thumper’s feet. Soon as she left Thumper was back to being quiet, busy with his toys again.

Lovey-Dovey is one of our two cats. The other one is Butt-Head (earned her name from being  rambunctious).

Lovey-Dovey got her name from just being that, being lovey- dovey all the time. She is the nurturing, loving, motherly type of a cat. I remember her trying to be a mother to Thumper a few days after Thumper was home from the hospital. She would come up to us after I had Thumper bathed to lick him off. Other times, she would try to get to Thumper’s bowl when I was feeding him, to try do it herself! When Thumper is on the floor and nobody is around, Lovey-Dovey would be sitting vigil next to him! Thumper would grab her and yank her hair hard, be it on the neck or her tummy, and she wouldn’t mind, just letting him do as he please!

Lovey-Dovey loves to sit  on my lap or anyone’s, whoever  would take her in. One time, I had Thumper on the floor, asleep on his nursing pillow, I saw Lovey-Dovey circling ’round  him. I saw her tried to cross to the other side of the sleeping Thumper( I thought she just wanted to go across), however, she instead started to lie down across Thumper! She wanted to sit on Thumper’s lap, almost covering his face too! That scared me, and had me watch her whenever she comes near Thumper.

Oh well, if she could change Thumper’s diaper, feed him and clean him, she would….she thought she’s his mother!….

June 8, 4:13 p.m. Thumper just called me “mama”, first time I heard that very distinctly. I was so overjoyed. You see, one of my fears is his speech development.

I would thank God everyday for whatever accomplishment he did . He cut his first tooth around that time too, and another one ready to come out.

Yesterday, he had a visit from his therapist for the first time. Again, she evaluated what Thumper could do.  She kept repeating how impressed she was with Thumper’s progress, even before she start to work on him.

One thing I noticed with Thumper is that, everytime there are other people around other than me, his dad and his nanny, he would be mostly observing, and listening on what is going on. He’s a blabber, which he usually does every morning for an hour or so. Other times of the day as well.  But I find it very curious when he’s around other people, he seem to just take it all in , whatever it is that we are talking about (mostly about him, of course)!

I don’t depend on store bought baby food. I make his own from scratch. My rationale is that, if he is going to have developmental handicap, I can help him by introducing very minimal preservatives in his system. I don’t know if it helps or not, but I still believe , the less artificial components he takes in, the better.

I was giving him his breakfast this morning, and after the first bite, the rest ended up as his raspberry ammunition. I  tried to get firm, feign being mad, but nothing worked. Until I resorted to laughing at his antics and giving him smooches between bites, and telling him I love him despite, and he started to do less raspberries and more swallowing!

Again, I do not know if the latter technique worked with him or not. But I keep close observation to his reactions to stimulus. Negative and positive.

Nevertheless,  it is just one of the many observations I have of him. And no matter what, I’m just so proud of my little Thumper!

To be continued….

Thumper is now almost nine months old, very active  and a happy baby.  He now rolls, blabber like crazy (even said “mama” a few days ago very distinctly). He has learned his own sign language, like when he is hungry, he would pucker his mouth and start sucking. Or if I am talking to him and ask, “Right Thumper?”  , he would give me a raspberry as his affirmative reply. When I tease him, he would often look at me with twinkling knowing eyes  and flash his naughty smiles. If he likes his food, he will be ready before I am to get his food in his mouth, and when he doesn’t like it, he will be splattering it all over me and his face with his non-stop raspberries.

When I learned  of his down syndrome condition, I was terribly upset. Not because he was imperfect. It was because of the horrible thoughts running round my head, like, “Will people treat him kindly?How will he fend for himself when we are already gone?Will he learn to be independent and be able to take care of himself?” There were days filled with thoughts like that which just reduced me to endless stream of tears. Blaming God never entered my mind. One day as I was into one of my introspective mood thinking about my blessing namely Thumper, praying to God as always he will be okay in the hospital, I finally came to a resolve. God entrusted him to us, all we can do is just do the best that we can to him and leave the rest up to his Creator.  And that’s what we did.

Looking back on the first few days since bringing him home from the hospital after 13 days at NIVU,  almost seemed unreal.

We had to hold him in a certain way as his neck  was very weak. And there were times I was a little afraid it would snap. His muscle tone was very low.  It’s almost like holding a soft shelled crab.

His eating demands were low. He would sleep through the night, if I will not get up and feed him, he would probably starve to death without complaint. There was even an instance after bringing him home from the hospital, that I was sitting there holding him and trying to give him his formula, talking and coaxing him to eat, with tears just streaming now my face, He showed very little interest in his bottle. He would fall asleep while feeding, often choking while feeding. It wasn’t until I started to read on Down Syndrome that I finally understood all that was happening to him.

But I was tenacious. I keep telling him,” I will not give up on you!” ‘All you need to do is just to help mommy one step at a time.’

My husband adored Thumper as much as I do. He actually was the one who came up with the nickname “Thumper” for Sean. When we were discussing names, he was envisioning a little baby on his lap thumping, and at the time, we don’t know the sex of the baby yet when we decided on his nickname. How appropriate that name is! He is so active he wears me out at the end of the day.

Everytime his dad comes home from work, all he would do is just wash his hands and pick up Thumper. He loves to rock Thumper to sleep as the closer Thumper is falling off to sleep, the more smiles he would flash. And his daddy love those moments. He would often say, “I wouldn’t trade Thumper for any ‘normal’ baby in the world!I just love my little man!”

I enrolled him recently at Early Intervention. I did not do it earlier since I wanted to see first which part of his development need a helping hand. They assessed him to be 6 months old in his cognitive, motor skills and other developmental issues. His physical growth within 2-4 months range. Hopefully as he starts on his physical and occupational therapy in the next few weeks, he will catch up eventually.

One thing though, this gift we were given is a blessing, not a curse as others would see it. I still marvel at this little blessing, bringing tears in my eyes as I thank his Maker, our Maker everyday for the opportunity given to us to nurture this “blessing”, this “gift”. We love this “gift” with all our hearts. Thank you dear God!

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