ASA

Wow, as I sit here trying to figure out how to start telling you about this special little guy, I'm just lost. The first thing I want to say is just how utterly AMAZING he really is. We call Asa "King Asa". In the bible there was a wise King Asa, and I wholeheartedly believe that you name your children something that you want them to become. He is a wise little man who has a very old spirit inside of him. Asa's name actually means "The Physician or Healer". When I was pregnant with him, the Lord put on my heart that this baby would be "a healer of many hearts". I just knew that would be this baby's destiny in Christ..
I remember sitting in church with him when he was maybe 3 months old or so. I was holding him in my arms, but he kept squirming upwards to get over my shoulder. Behind me sat a woman who was friends with Tom as a teen. She then said "I think your baby wants me to hold him", as she laughed a little. She was right, because I was thinking the SAME THING! That little baby just very literally was trying to climb up over me to go see HER! AT THREE MONTHS OLD!!! Later on, as I was speaking to the woman, she mentioned to me how healing it was for her to hold a precious baby. Just a short while before, she had lost her own precious baby in utero and was feeling the loss and sorrow so deeply. To hold Asa was a healing time for her, and I believe that this was one of the many calls on this child's life.

Asa has a Neurologically based disability called Dyspraxia. (Otherwise known as Apraxia or Global/Limb Apraxia).Dyspraxia is a Motor-planning disorder that basically means that his neural pathways are incomplete and unable to get him to do things he tries to do. Through extensive traditional therapies and neuro-developmental therapies, we're making great strides and his abilities grow with each new day.

We first noticed that things were awry when he wasn't able to speak. It's not that he didn't want to, but you could see that he truly couldn't.He also couldn't smile "on command" or blow out a candle. Things that we would normally take for granted, Asa couldn't do We had him evaluated by a qualified Speech & Language Pathologist,and it was the beginning of many diagnoses to come. Along with the Dyspraxia comes Hypotonia, Oral Motor weakness, Gross & Fine Motor delays, Sensory Processing Disorder, and a few other things. Some of you may also remember that his legs (thighs/femurs) had a severe bowing to them. This is called Blount's Disease, which is a rare orthopedic disease. We are blessed to be able to say that through God's miracles and Man's Science, he was treated with leg braces and the Blount's is no longer evident!!! He does have a severe in-toeing, (literally walks toe-over-toe) but we're working on that too! Rather than talking about his DISabilities, I like to say that Asa is DIFFERENTLY ABLED! He is a VERY abled young boy who has so many strengths, that you hardly notice those physical weaknesses.

This year, as Asa turned 4, for the first time EVER, he was able to blow out his birthday candle!!! Mommy started to cry with joy and no one else other than Asa's Occupational Therapist, Tracy, quite understood the magnitude of such a feat!

Asa has a sweet and kind spirit. He is one of the hardest working kids out there! He literally will endure hours of therapy in a day's time, and he has a sense of humor that leaves the rest of us laughing through our time with him. When he's tired and no longer wants to do something, he is easily distracted and we can get him back onto track with just a little joke.

Asa is gifted in things that are computerized, and even though he has severe challenges with motor-planning, he can beat the other kids at the Wii Sports or Wii Fit games. At the age of 2 yrs, he picked up his big brother's Nintendo GameBoy and got to a level that none of the other kids could figure out! He simply loves these sort of things and has the "knack" to figure out anything on a computer screen.

Even though he cannot always convey his thoughts in words, Asa is quite brilliant! He has the comprehension of a 10 yr old! He's just truly one of the brightest little minds out there, and he loves to learn. We're doing a Language-Based Preschool program with him here at home, and knows his alphabet and phonics forwards and backwards. While the handwriting can pose a big challenge for him, he's learning every day to work at it, and he is dilligent in writing his name A - S - A !
I'm sure that he's going to be picking up on his reading skills sooner than all of the others.

One of the greatest things that comes to mind with Asa, is his GIGGLE! He has a wonderfully infectious giggle. There was a time when we heard no words, but that giggle would resound throughout the hearts and ears of all who know him. He's gone from having only 5 words in the Summer of '07, to now having hundreds of words in the summer of '08 that he can string together in normal sentences. We're working on the articulation, but he's punching away at the Verbal Apraxia

Just recently diagnosed (12/20/08) with Juvenile Diabetes Type 1, we've seen yet ANOTHER side to this amazing little boy!! When we check his glucose levels, he puts the stick into the glucometer, and gets it ready for us. He also knows how to put the needle onto the inulin pen! Did I mention he's only 4 1/2?? Just when we think that we've seen it all, we are blessed to see that Asa is even stronger than any of us could ever imagine. With the onset of the diabetes, we quite literally almost lost him. The Lord gave us our son back, and we couldn't be more grateful.


We are excited to see what new things Asa is able to do on a daily basis. We are blessed to have a child such as he. Without the challenges that we've been allowed to go through with him, we would not be the people that God has intended us to be, nor the parents that he desires us to be. We are indeed thankful that God has given him to us.