5 Months Today!

Today the children have been home 5 months.

It's amazing to think back and remember how far they have come.

Really!

Five months is a relatively short amount of time,

yet, 

their progress is nothing short of amazing.

Here's an example of progress:

Neither children knew what to do with a box of crayons and a blank sheet of paper when they first came,

nor were they interested in finding out what to do with them.
Coloring books were not interesting, either.
I put the crayons away for awhile, since there were MUCH more important things to work on. About 2 times a month we would bring them out and try again.

About 6 weeks ago they had to wait for me and someone handed them each a clipboard and a set of colored pencils. Little Missy managed to draw a triangular shape with a couple of lines through it. Buster stared at the white paper. Three weeks ago we had the same scenario... only with better results.
In fact I was impressed enough to label and date them.
Here's Buster's. It's something, anyway.

 Here's Missy's. Flowers... pretty good ones, too, and the letter "N" backwards as usual.

Imagine my surprise today when they both loved my suggestion that we spend a few minutes drawing today, but imagine my greater surprise when they both turned out great pictures in full color! These are Buster's pictures (with one of mine to inspire him).

My favorite?

He said this is a HAPPY HEART. 
The rectangles on the side he said are doors - you know, the doors that Jesus is knocking on.
The smiley face, I think that's Buster when he's chosen a happy heart. 
Funny how his heart is bigger that he is.

I like that picture the very BEST!

Here's Missy's with one of mine - inspired by one of hers :-)

I love that they are bright and cheery and full of color.

You know what is most surprising? 

They did this for nearly 2 hours!!

I finally said it was time to do something else 

and that led to an incident that also showed growth....

Not, right off, but when I mentioned Buster had a car track set to pick up he started whining that he couldn't do it by himself and I reminded him that he certainly could. I knew that it wasn't really about picking up the toys, it was about his fear. He's really struggling with fear since our big  thunder storm. He could have asked for help, or left the door open, or whatever, but that's not what he chose. He threw himself on the floor and started crying and I quickly picked him off the floor and removed him from gawkers. He was ramping up to an all out tantrum and possible rage session.... I asked him to stop and told him he COULD control himself if he chose, or he could go out of control and end up with consequences, but it was totally his choice. He chose to calm down. I put him in time out for 5 minutes to give himself time to cement his decision and in 5 minutes he was out picking up his toys. I was excited! We talked about what he did right and how he turned the situation around from what could have been.

Little Miss had a time out session today, too. She sat quiet and chose to obey. In the past this would have been cause for screaming "No, NO, NO!!!" at me and flailing and beating the walls and breaking things and could have taken several hours to a few days to turn around.

In 5 minutes she was happily playing once again.

Progress. 

It seems really slow

Until you think that it's only been

5 months.