Happy 4th birthday!

John turned 4 years old on June 13th. We celebrated with a family party. Yoshie made him sushi, which is one of his favorite foods. And, he had more than his share of cake. He still doesn't understand the idea of presents, so Maya and his cousin Sam helped him to open them. As we've seen with every holiday, he doesn't seem to care too much about the presents until after everyone has gone home. He got lots of hands-on toys, which he has been playing with all week. And, he got a toy that you hook up to a garden hose and it explodes like a volcano every few seconds. The kids had a great time getting soaked.
As I'm sure all parents of special needs kids can relate, birthdays are sort of depressing in some ways, as it's just another year that your kid is delayed. John didn't meet any of the development goals that we had for him this year. But, he is as happy as can be and is making progress these days so we must celebrate what he has achieved. We must not forget how bad things used to be and how far he has come.
As we've come to expect, the fallout from all the cake hit him over the next day or two with a noticeable increase in seizures. There is a fine line between letting him enjoy just being a kid, and keeping the seizures under control.