His High Chair

As I try to find a new normal, there are definitely some things that get put on the back burner. One of them is laundry. Not that the laundry doesn't get done, it does. It just doesn't always get put away. Where better than to stack folded laundry (yes it does get folded too) than the kitchen table? Don't ask how often we eat at the dinner table.

But we use to.

So, today I decided to put away all the laundry. I started with Luke's. Then did Seth's and made my way on to Ry's. Proud of myself I walked back in the kitchen to admire my work, only to find Grey's high chair staring at me. I cried.

Ceci and I drove all over town looking for that stupid high chair! I loved it, not because it was fancy or expensive, but just because it was so "Grey". It has a jungle print, colorful and happy. And when he sat in it, he thought he ruled the world. No longer did he have to sit in his bouncy chair on the floor as we ate. He was a big boy, able to eat big boy food, and feed himself. He would slap his tray, just to get our attention.

The video above is of one of those times. It's not great quality, taken on my cell phone. But looking back, now I can see the signs, his head tilted to the side. One arm moving, but the other stuck beneath his tray. His intelligence and his personality still there. Thank God we never lost that.

This video was taken last June. It would be one of the videos we would later show our neurologist that would land Grey in the hospital for failure to thrive. I guess the difference in Grey from June to October was apparent to others but not us, a nurse and a Special Ed teacher. Denial.

How do you go from watching your son feed himself in his high chair in June to an empty high chair since December? And how do you even try to move that high chair out of your kitchen even though it's April? But how do you eat at the table with it still there?

I should have just left the laundry.