Hotdog Harmon!

Today I found out that Harmon's CT Scan came out normal!  WOHOO!!!  But that is not the only reason why I wanted to write about him.  Honestly he is a treasure.

Harmon has that smile that can woo a hundred ladies.  Tonight he saw I was tired and so he kept running into my room just to jump on the bed next to me and help me smile.  He kept singing "HOTDOG" as loudly as possible (he got it from Rach's Minnie Mouse Movie) and than he would smile and run off.  When he went to bed instead of the kiss and hug good night I asked for he said: "I will give you four kisses and four hugs because I love you" and he did just that!  Earlier today I happened on some of his baby pictures.  From the beginning he was just so charming and special.  There is a magnetic quality about Harmon and it has always been there.  He is also evil brilliant and it can be scary how smart he is.

His nick-name is Harmonious and honestly sometimes he is less than Harmonious.  I remember when he was eight months we started getting these red flags.  He would cry for hours b/c he was just out of sorts.  He is still that at times, and those days that are especially hard on him I feel less than adequate as a mom.  I feel bad for him that he can struggle like he does to make sense of his world.  With that said those days are much less frequent.  Night terrors (he wakes up randomly screaming at like 2 am) are also less frequent; although he got me bad last night b/c his screaming was so loud it woke up his sister and brother.  That is the best part of all of this, he still has his challenges but he is overcoming many of them.  Things like eye contact which was really difficult for him now is starting to really come together.

Harm isn't the type of kid who lets things in the long run keep him down.  The most amazing part of the process is that he is learning how to really connect better with people and with me.  It is amazing to see the empathy he has had since the accident.  He has as earlier learned to pick up people when they are down.  Tonight I reprimanded Cally and Cally started crying.  Harm went and found Cally's favorite train and brought it to him saying, "don't cry Cally.  Let's play."  That is just being a quality big brother right there :)

Our big thing recently is that Harmon graduated from pre-school.  The only problem is he still has a year till Kinder.  So we are likely integrating him into a new type of school (the twins might even attend at the same time with him).  After all we wen through keeping Harm in special education for this school year, we all feel strongly it is time to exit him.  The biggest challenge was that it was in a "contained" class meaning he was limited socially in some ways because there were so many teachers for just a small handful of kids.  While I do think exiting at this point feels right, I will mourn him being in such a special class room.  His class had students with serious challenges and I think that is where Harmon learned empathy.  He could see a fellow student in pain or in serious confusion and Harmon learned to be kind.  He was very much a leader helping to support his peers

We have a lot of changes in store for my special little man but I don't doubt that he can handle it.  He is just really thriving and doing things I was told he wouldn't be doing for a long time.  It is delightful to see his progress!  Now we have the stomach issue to figure out as well.  I'm considering my options carefully at this point.  We will update readers which path to follow with this.  He is starting school in August and I don't want this issue looming for him all the time.  With that said it breaks my heart to have him go through a lot of invasive testing that doesn't yield useful answers.  One thing I learned when Harm was diagnosed with Sensory Integration is that this is a condition that affects him but it doesn't define him.  What defines Harmon is his sweetness and amazing intelligence that he share with us everyday. He is just a really great little boy and even though he picks his nose, I still do love him!!!