Jake definitely benefited from a weekend free from appointments. The boys had a long weekend off from school, so we were able to schedule things so he didn't have stretching or acupuncture on Saturday. Instead he got to hang out with his good friend on Saturday and outside with Luke and some of the neighbors most of Sunday. It was so nice to see him doing normal kid stuff and having fun. It seems like so much of his life is appointments, homework, therapies, he doesn't have a lot of time or energy left to just be a kid.
We did have a small incident today with one of the neighbors, but in a strange way, ended up being a sign of progress. Both our boys have always been very protective of each other and ready to come to the other's defense when they feel their brother has been wronged. There have been a few instances in the past year and a half where Luke has come to Jake's defense, but there hasn't really been a situation where Jake had a opportunity to stand up for Luke like he would have before his stroke. The majority of the time, there is no real confrontation with someone, it takes place instead with Todd and I as part of the conversation of what happened. Luke would get very upset about something that happened to Jake and talk about wanting to confront that person and what he would say. I've seen both of them over the years get very emotional wanting to right a wrong.
Today, the roles were reversed. I won't go into details with what happened, but Luke realized after the kids left that something of his got damaged (by accident), and he wasn't too happy about it. He was really upset and Jake stood up and said in a rather stern voice "I'm going to go talk to _____!" We stopped him from going outside to confront the other child, but it was so cool to see him playing the role of big brother again to Luke. Ever since his stroke, Jake has been more passive and in a lot of ways the boys have reserved roles. Luke is more the big brother that Jake relies on for things. Jake could see Luke was hurting and got mad on his behalf. Empathy and reading other people's feeling is another trait that was affected by Jake's stroke and in a weird way, it was nice to see him upset on Luke's behalf and feeling bad for his brother.
Strange as it is, it was great progress and nice to see.
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