Some answers

24 hours later, we have some of the answers to the questions we were wondering about.

Q: Will it take Zach a couple days to be comfortable walking again, or a couple weeks?

A: While we obviously can't answer this exactly yet, based on the last twenty-four hours, I would guess we'll be closer to the couple days end of the spectrum, although I wouldn't be surprised if it was a week or so. By the time he went to bed last night, he was sitting on his own, crawling (albeit without fully bending his left leg), scooting on his butt, standing while leaning on something, taking a few steps with support, and even moving from standing to sitting and occasionally vice versa. That's a lot of progress! But, he clearly does not want to put his full weight on his left leg, nor does he want it bent past a certain point. I am assuming every day, the more he puts his weight on it and moves around in attempts to play, the better it will get and the closer he'll get to trusting the leg.

Q: Will he play cars by himself or continue to want us to play - nonstop? Will he ever want to play something other than cars?

A: Yes and no, to both questions. He was absolutely delighted to play with "toots the train" (thanks Cindy), his grocery cart and food, and construction geotrax last night. And he did play by himself quite a bit - his imagination creates all sorts of scenarios now; it's fun to hear him making up conversations between cars and trucks, etc. But in the end, we did come back to the cars, and that's the first thing he wanted to do when he got up this morning. We're playing in a different way - with him standing against a row of our ottomans - so he can use his legs a bit. Hopefully the pictures show some of his progress, even if you can't see his face - he was too busy playing to look at the camera!

Q: Will he realize right away he can roll himself over in his crib, or will he still cry out in the middle of the night for one of us to come and roll him over?

A: This boy slept for 2.5 hours yesterday afternoon - which is not typical. And he seemed to sleep well last night too; he did cry out once or twice during both his nap and at night, but based on what I think I heard, I suspect he was having bad dreams. And as soon as I put him down in the crib, he rolled over - hooray!

Q: Will he still want to watch tv as much as he does now?

A: Hard to say for sure what the long term answer will be, but for now, he's pretty happy to play. That was his first request when he got up from his nap and this morning, although this morning he pooped out after an hour or so and wanted to watch tv. So I don't think it'll be too much of a struggle to get him back to "normal" viewing levels, especially once he's walking and we can go outside.

Q: Will he want to go out in the world again, or continue to prefer the safety of home?

A: Well, if this morning is any example, it will just keep getting better. We went to a playdate with our regular group, and he was a little iffy when we left the house. But he did GREAT at the playdate; was scooting himself all over the place to get to the toys he wanted, and walking fairly long distances while holding on to my hands. So hopefully we can get back to our usual out and about schedule sooner rather than later!

Q: Will he ever eat vegetables again?

A: TBD... we haven't tackled this one yet. We're starting out focusing on having him eat at the table again, and eating what we're eating/what we put in front of him, rather than the custom-ordering he's gotten used to the last 5 weeks. Veggies are up next!

I also have to comment on one other thing. Zach is very lucky to have both a mom and a dad, and yesterday was yet another perfect example of why. When Zach got up from his huge nap, we plopped down on the floor and started playing, with me encouraging him to try new things like sitting, for example. And I was thrilled to just watch as he had an absolute blast playing with things he hadn't played with in a while, and cheered him on when he started doing things on his own, like scooting around on his butt to get to something he couldn't reach.

When Scott got home from work, he was ready to start "PT". He had a plan - arranging all the ottomans so Zach could walk hanging on to them. After a while I thought to myself, I'm glad I'm going curling in a few minutes, because this will work better if I'm not around! Scott has always been able to get Zach to try new things better than I can, for many reasons I won't go into. And while I was pretty content with the progress Zach had made, Scott was quite sure he could and should do more. And sure enough, this morning I got to see Zach demonstrate all the things that he and daddy had worked on - all the walking, moving from sitting to standing, etc, that I mentioned above. And I can assure you, he wouldn't have made that much progress if I'd been there! He needs both of our approaches - the combination is what works. So yet one more time that I've been so grateful that I'm not doing this on my own, for my own sake, but especially for Zach's.