"Thank her for that for me."

A good friend and one of Henry's Sunday School teachers gave Henry a gift yesterday. I put it in his room and planned to show it to him after school, but let's just say the afternoon didn't turn out as I had planned.

Henry discovered the toy, a wooden folding track and train carrying case, as he and Keith prepared for bedtime.

"Ooooooh! Cool! Where did this come from?"

Keith said he was so excited and couldn't wait to show me when I came home from work. 

At 5:30 this morning Henry called for me and exclaimed, "I have something to show you, Mom! Turn the light on so you can see it."

He ooohed and ahhhed over his new track/case and then asked me where it came from. I told him Thomas's mom, Mrs. Trish.

"Thank her for that for me."

I was stunned. Not because he knew to say thank you, but because he could think of it in such an abstract way (I was telling Trish for him) and because he could put that complex sentence together with correct prepositions. These are huge steps in Henry's development. Huge.

I don't know that a parent of a neurotypical child could grasp the, well, hugeness. And I suppose someone who has never met Henry, after reading my description here, would have a distinctly different picture of him than what is accurate. Maybe I've made him sound "slow" or incapable of conversation. Maybe I've made him sound like he's incapable of real thinking. I hope not. But this blog is really for us, and I want to always remember how special these moments have been - the moments we see tangible, quantifiable progress.