Lucas Camilo

The end of year business has taken over our lives a bit, so we’ve been away from the blog too long.  Krista has had homework and finals, we’ve been busy helping with year-end fundraising for the organizations we love, and then catching up with friends at holiday parties and activist awards dinners.  Krista’s family was here for almost a week for a great visit, and Burke has been gone this week first to Seattle for a couple job interviews, and now in Montgomery, Alabama where he’s filming at an immigrant rights conference.  So we’re looking forward to the quiet of Christmas…

If Lucas were to list the amazing recent developments in our life, it would probably start with our Christmas tree (especially his shark ornament) and end with a list of the names of lots of friends and family.  Lucas could already sign “Gramma”, but last weekend he also learned to say “Aunt Megan” (he makes an “m” sign that looks like a fist and pounds his chest), and he learned to make a “c” and point at Charles (Gramma Susan’s boyfriend) whenever he came in the room.  Upon realizing that we were understanding his new words, Lucas lit up and with pride repeated the names over and over and over.  He’s now expanding his name vocabulary and signs the first letter of various people’s names when they walk in the room.

Lucas is still obsessed with books, so he had Gramma and Megan read to him as much as possible.  He’s memorized his shark book, so at this point he completes every sentence whn the reader gives him the chance.  Susan got the hang of it.  “Today my class goes to the…” and Lucas says “sea park.”  “Some fish are…” and Lucas says “pretty.”  We’ll try to get this on video, because it’s hard to describe how exciting this is given Lucas’s challenges around vocalization.  But he does it so well that when Gramma Susan paused after “In the lunchroom there’s a…,” Lucas declared “swordfish burger on the menu!”  It’s muffled, of course, but also clear as day for the close listener.  We hooted and laughed, which Lucas took as his cue to repeat the phrase a dozen more times.

He’s continuing to evolve his combination of sign language and spoken words to communicate more easily to more people.  I was sure that Burke and I would need to be doing constant sign interpretation for my family but with a little help they figured out how to understand Lucas.  Indeed, he can be pretty adamant when he’s asking for something, impatiently responding “noOOooooooo!” if anyone guesses wrong.  And if we’re right, he declares “YEAAAAAaaaaah!” with a big sigh of relief.

Part of what makes this so exciting and so complicated is that there are times when good communication seems totally out of reach.  Like when Lucas is not lying down, for example.  Sitting in his kid-kart chair seems to reduce his lung capacity, so he can’t muster the air to make sound, or even enough energy to sign sometimes.  So there are moments – especially when we’re out with Lucas – when the kid you meet on the street and the one we’re describing here do not coincide.

However, when Lucas is in the right position – and with lots of adoring family at his beck and call – he is perfecting the art of asking for things.  Combine a “Neanana,” a banana sign and the right tone of voice and you get “Nothing Could be More Urgent Right Now Than Getting Me a Banana!”… which was enough to get Gramma on the case.  Megan brought him some really great, soft, naturally scented play dough from Eugene (she knows the owner/dough maker of this cool company – check them out if you’re looking for a gift for a kid), and Lucas got really into playdough for the first time.  But even more than molding it himself, he liked the power of calling out letters and shapes that Megan and Gramma would make for him.

And then there’s the tree.  He already enjoyed the power of telling us to turn lamps on around the house, but now each morning he wakes up and, still groggy and with his thumb half in his mouth, he points at the Christmas tree and says “on!”  Throughout the day he points at the tree, grins, and says “tree!” admiringly.  And at night he asks us to bring him the shark ornament, which he pets and kisses before going to sleep.

We could go on and on.  Last night he said  “I want to play animal cards with Mommy.”  Really.  First he was signing “animal cards mommy” on his own, which meant he wanted me to set them up for him to play memory.  So I asked him to say it with his voice too, gave him the sentence, and he said it!!  I want to play animal cards with Mommy.  Amazing.  He also asks for Daddy at least a dozen times a day.  Last night I told him we couldn’t call Daddy on the phone because Daddy was in an airplane.  To which Lucas replied, “Daddy on the computer!” (meaning we should call him on skype.)