Spring

I had begun to give up hope on our hibernating swallow tail caterpillar. It had been well over a month since Owen had placed our caterpillar friend in his glass bottle incubator, and he was looking very dead. I almost threw his glass house away.

November started as a disappointing month. Errol’s developmental pediatrician, Dr Christiaanse, had diagnosed Errol at the developmental level of a five month old, and he was acting like it. Errol had been sick, and just didn’t seem to be growing up. We were deeply discouraged. I think he felt it, too.

Then things slowly warmed. We would plop Errol, tummy side down, on his zebra striped blanket (he’s always a fashion maven), place his noise making devices in front of him, which he can activate with a slap, and sit back to listen to the beautiful cacophony of sounds – his music cube plays a few bars of a Mozart sonata, followed by a recording of Owen saying, “have a terrific Wednesday Errol!”, then the sound of a toy car horn honking, followed by a few more bars of Mozart, then a couple more of Owen’s announcements, “have a terrific Wednesday Errol!” (Errol is going to be confused about his days of the week. I think we can live with that), and then a last little Mozart scherzo. It’s a beautiful sound, especially when we think that he couldn’t have done any of this just a few months ago. After Errol’s symphonic tour de force we roll Errol’s sleek yellow stander into the room and place Errol on its padded surface. We strap Errol in snuggly, and then slowly flip the gurney up so that Errol is suspended upright. Errol looks around and then gives us a wide grin. (I want to rig the stander so that we can flip Errol around and around – I can’t imagine why his physical therapists aren't keen on my plan). Once Errol is “standing”, we slide a little shelf into place right below his arms so that he can scramble his toys around or fix himself a cocktail. Always vigilant Cary even read about how vibrations help stimulate muscle development, and disassembled one of Errol’s bouncy chairs, and brilliantly attached its vibrating mechanism to Errol’s stander in the hopes that it might help build his muscles. (Now he knows how a milkshake feels.) Errol is on a roll. The other day, Errol’s grandmother put him in his crib on his tummy and came back in to find him, amazingly, on his back. Go Errol.

We are thrilled at Errol’s progress. The slower the steps, the more momentous each tiny one is. We have our good days and bad days, but more and more often I catch Cary saying, “Errol is going to walk!” Which is exciting, because what Cary wants, Cary gets. (Are you reading this, Errol?) Errol seems less and less like a baby and more and more like a little boy, and that’s great!

I was fretting about the caterpillar the other night, when Cary told me that swallowtails can hibernate throughout the winter and then turn into butterflies in the warm spring. (I didn’t tell her about how I almost threw away our butterfly) Spring will arrive, slowly but surely. Hope blooms eternal!