How Much Does Joey Understand?

This is the BIG question. How much does Joey understand? I know I have talked about this before, but many of the days we forget.

Everyday Joey does things (very small small things) that show us he understands what we ask of him. These things are so small, yet very consistent that sometimes we question ourselves about how much he really understands. Then every once in awhile he really impresses us with something new or something BIG.

He did this yesterday. When I went to pick him up from school, the teacher had a talker in her hand. She said to me, "Joey has something he would like to say to you." The teacher puts the talker in front of Joey and says to Joey, "go ahead tell her". He then lifted his arm and hit the button. The talker said, "Hello Mommy". He was so proud of himself that he started laughing and then kept hitting the button. Some of you might say "SO, he hit a button". Well normally he would not reach out and touch a button unless you said, "Joey can you reach, reach and touch the button, come on Joey reach, touch". I brought tears to my eyes, reminding me that Joey is there and does have things to say.

Well that was just the start of him impressing me. During his behavioral therapy he impressed me more. We had him in his gait trainer. We are trying to encourage him to walk, but not just walk, walk on command. So at first when we put him in he would take a couple steps. We would reward him with a bit of pudding. Then we started to ask him to take a certain amount of steps (ie. 2 or 4). He would then take the asked amount of steps and stop, then open his mouth and say "UMMMMM", for more pudding. We did this numerous times. Then we decided to step it up a bit. We said if he could walk all the way across the room then he could be done walking and could finish his pudding. So what did he do, he turned his walker around and moved his feet as fast as he could all the way across the room. He reached the end and again stopped, opened his mouth and said "UMMMMM".

I think he likes to keep me on my toes. He wants me to think that he doesn't know much and then BAM! Just reminding me that he is a typical 5yr old inside that brain of his.

I Love You my little man.