Bubbaahs

There are some evenings that I get to have Jackson all to myself. I find them very rewarding because I don’t get to experience some of his accomplishments without Sara telling me and then having Jackson show me.  Sometime I am lucky and I discover something that he hasn’t already done or something that I got to teach him.  Tuesday night turned out to be night where he showed me something he has been doing that I didn’t know about and I also learned later that I taught him something.  Sara was out of the house because she had rehearsals for her show “The Big, Fat LGBT Everything You Need To Know Show of Shows”.  

Jackson and I finished dinner and played a game of chase up and down the hall way.  Then I needed to call Sara to find out when he last took his cough medicine. While on the phone with her I wasn’t able to get Jackson to the potty in time, so we had a poopy diaper.  It was bath night anyway, so straight from the changing table to the tub we went.  It was also a great positive reinforcer to get that diaper changed, “First diaper Jackson, then splish splash”.  Jackson had so much fun in the bathtub and I was drenched by the time he was done.  He really loves splashing and putting his face in the water.  After bath time I gave Jackson his cough medicine and Seroquel.  Then we went down to his play area for the rest of the evening.

We played a few games of match the flash cards, but Jackson wanted to do something different. He kept going over to his shelf and showing me a sign that I wasn’t familiar with.  I thought he was trying to tell me to sing “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star”.  He promptly told me no by shaking his head.  He does that a lot these days, we are working on yes.  He kept doing the sign and he was getting frustrated and then he said, “Buubbaahs”.  I still didn’t understand what he was trying to tell me, but there were bubbles on top of his shelf.  “Did you say bubbles Jackson?”  Jackson responding with jumping up ond down and shouting, “Eeennnwww!” Duh Na-na.  Jackson has these awesome bubbles that we bought at Gymboree, probably one of the only affordable items in that store. They are called Bubble Ooodles and they do exactly what the name says they make ooodles of bubbles.   The bubbles are also stronger than your normal cheep ones and they don’t pop easy.  So as millions of bubbles fill Jackson’s play area, he is running around very excited and laughing.  He would run towards me, tug on my shirt, and run away. I thought maybe he was trying to tell me he wanted to blow the bubbles.  So I got down on my knees and tried to show him how.  He would run up to me and run away. I showed him the wand and he looked at it from every angle possible, I mean he studied that thing in great detail.  I showed him how to hold it up to his mouth and blow.  He ran away, but came back. I tried again, this time he put his mouth on it, laughed, and ran away.  I kept giving him directions and showing him how to blow them and each time he would run away laughing.  Then he stopped, I held the wand in front of his face, he put his mouth on it, and blew.  Jackson made ooodles of bubbles.   I was so excited, I cheered, I clapped, I pretty much did everything besides giving him a parade.  This of course made him run away laughing, but he came back and did it twice.  We played bubbles for about 10 more minutes and it was time for bed.

I was so proud of Jackson and naturally I wrote about it on the Fragile X Facebook brag page.  While I was sharing this experience Sara came home from her rehearsals.  She was surprised to see me still awake.  I was still so excited.  I asked her if Jackson had ever blown bubbles before and she said no.  So then I got really excited to tell her how he went over to his shelf, used a sign I had never seen, then used the word “Buubbaahs”, and how he played when I blew the bubbles for him.  The best part was watching her face light up when I told her that he blew his own bubbles.  Although she might argue, for her the best part was when Jackson and Sara were home together the next day, he did the same thing for her.