i'm a walkin' fool!

every thursday zaavan goes to the courage center in stillwater for physical and occupational therapy. this is him with his PT jessica. last week we put zaavan in a contraption called a gait-trainer. it is intended to help him "walk" by giving him support in the areas he can't control himself. the idea is to get zaavan to lift his legs and push himself forward. zaavan has been using a gait-trainer off and on at school and home for over a year with......less than successful results. ok, i'll be honest, he seems to hate it and has never even tried to push himself forward or backwards! until last week. i don't know for sure how, why, or what happened, but he was actually making attempts to push himself. it was all i could do to keep from breaking out into tears and looking like a blathering idiot in front of complete strangers. i could barely hold it together enough to snap a few photos. anyway....he tired of the gait-trainer fairly quickly (after about 15 min.) and there was no recovering once he started whining. but for a few brief minutes he actually tried to do it! he was trying to walk! and he was excited about it! i started clapping for him saying "yay zaavan! you can do it! go go go! you're walking!" and he looked at me with a big smile on his face that was full of pride, as if to say "i knew i could do it!" it was only a few small steps, pushes really, but each one was a giant leap for zaavan. my cup overflows with joy and anticipation of what his future holds.