Four More Years

Thumpety-thumpety-thumpety thump.

Thump.

Thump.

Thumpety-thumpety-thumpety thump.

“Boys,” I yell, “what’s going on up there? You sound like a herd of elephants.”

Silence.

“It’s not my fault, Daddy!” calls Jordan. “Andrew made me do it.”

“I did NOT,” says Andrew, indignant. “You wanted to do it.”

“Do what?” I ask.

Jordan has come down to the kitchen by now, and he says, “Andrew was timing me, to see how fast I could go up and down the stairs.”

Now Andrew comes into the room, holding up one of those little sand timers you find in a board game. “I was just timing him, he was the one running on the stairs,” he says. Then he adds, “But I don’t know how long it took him, because this timer doesn’t really even tell you.”

“The rule is that we don’t run inside the house, guys,” I say. “Especially not on the stairs.”

We live in an old house, and the stairs are awful. Really awful. They’re steep. Steep enough that adults often put a hand out in front of themselves when ascending. They go around corners. Even just carrying a laundry basket up the stairs requires you to lift the basket practically above your head in order to fit. These are advanced stairs for advanced stair users. When I use the stairs in other homes, I get a little jealous.

“Oh, your stairs are so comfortable to use!” is a thing that I have actually said, out loud, to other people.

So I’m a little annoyed that Andrew would convince his little brother to run up and down our stairs. Jordan works with a physical therapist and an occupational therapist every week, and stairs have always been a challenge for him. Especially our awful stairs.

Secretly, though? I’m proud of Jordan for running up and down those stairs. That’s a big deal. He may not run like the other kids, but he’s getting closer and closer. And he’s worked really hard to get there.

Andrew has worked really hard, too. When he was four, no one could understand what he was saying. He had lived with us for months before I was able to understand his speech with any regularity. He used to have to repeat himself so many times to be understood. We used to work on using different words to say the same thing, on the theory that if you said, “Can we go to the park?” and “I’d like to visit the playground,” you were increasing the odds that someone would be able to puzzle out what you were saying. And that’s a tough skill for a four-year-old; they have a hard enough time coming up with just one way to turn their thoughts into coherent sentences.

I remember the week that Andrew’s speech therapist told him a story to teach him how to make the K sound and the G sound. She told a story about a little boy whose necktie was on too tight, nearly choking him, and all that came out was a coughing “K-k-k-k-k-k-k!” sound. Then, once he took the necktie off, he gulped down a giant glass of water, swallowing so much so quickly that it went, “Guh-guh-guh-guh-guh-guh!” down his throat.

Andrew came home from that appointment and worked on nothing but G and K for the next 48 hours. Finally, he managed to choke out the word cat. He was shocked. I was shocked. His therapist was shocked when he showed up for his appointment the next week and said, “Hi … Katherine!”

I ran into Katherine last week, and it made me realize just how long ago Andrew’s struggle to be understood seems. Everyone understands him now. No one who meets Andrew today has any idea that he was ever hard to understand. Just a couple of weeks ago, his teacher was talking about his “remarkable vocabulary,” just casually mentioning that he really knows an awful lot of words for a second grader.

Next week, it will be the fourth anniversary of The Day The Boys Moved In. It’s an interesting combination of “I can’t believe it’s been four years,” and “Really? It’s only been four years?”

I guess it’s time to get going on the next four years. I’ll get out a big sand timer.