There is so much uncertainty in life. A great many people before me have said it, perhaps many more after me. The quiet successes and happy moments in the now have to be the joy we live for, because the rest is just a maybe, a hopefully…a maybe, hopefully some day. But today, this day, my son put together a 16 piece jigsaw puzzle unassisted by himself for the first time.

He did three of them actually. Three he’s not ever tried to put together before. Three very new to him puzzles. So we know, he’s now got the skill for puzzles of that size.

This is a collaborative goal that both the habilatative therapy team (myself and Emily) and the ABA team (Ms. K and Mr. B) have been working on. I am, to the depths of my core, grateful to each of the other therapists involved and every effort they too have personally contributed that led up to this moment today. To keep him from getting frustrated as we build his puzzle skills (it’s one of Tony’s more preferred leisure skills), we need the piece count to increase in smaller increments. There aren’t too many puzzles in this size range on the market for young children, so I ordered a bunch of puzzles off of Amazon geared towards dementia patients. We can’t just reuse the same one, two, or even three puzzles, because then he would just memorize the piece placement rather than generalize the skill.

As the day is already racing past the horizon where I live, and a busy week is rushing to greet me first thing in the morning, I am leaving you with the joy of accomplishment on his face. Smiles that lit my heart up like magnified sunlight hopped up on an energy drink. Take good care of yourselves this week, and I am hoping for each of you to find some moment of happiness… quiet or otherwise.