Back up to the beginning

Well, maybe not the beginning. I wanted to share our Zachary with you, so that you could share in his accomplishments amidst the challenges. Zachary has a diagnosis that has posed many challenges, but by God's grace, we face them with hope for a better tomorrow.

I will start by expressing my gratitude for the many prayers and support from family and friends over the years. This blog is for you. Thank you!

So what is new this summer. We have had much go on, so I will pick up where we are currently, and add previous summer events as I post more.

Today was an exciting day! We finally earned $22 for a strawberry shortcake ice cream cake from Coldstone Creamery. Zachary earns checks for nearly every good behavior you can think of, but he can loose them for bad behavior. I love the check list system (self monitoring system)!!! If he gets 100 checks in one day, he earned a dollar. He's been working nearly all summer. And as soon as he had $22 dollars, he was ready to head out the door last night at 8:30 pm and get his cake.

Well today, we stopped in to buy the cake. He picked out his cake and proudly carried it to the counter and handed all of his money to the cashier. He was all smiles from ear to ear and never stopped talking about it all the way home.

We ate lunch, and proceeded straight to eating cake. He did not want a smaller slice but opted for the larger pre-marked slices. I do not know where he put it, but it wasn't until the last two bites I was able to convince him to save the rest for a snack later.

When dad got home, he told him about the cake, and then recalled 'the snack'. And no less, after dinner, we had more cake.

I truly believe one of the biggest blessings of parenthood is watching your kids enjoy themselves. While the frequency of enjoyment opportunities has increased with time, in my opinion, it certainly could happen more often. What a joy it was to watch him shoveling in cake, followed up with licking the plate. Priceless!