Fatherhood

Today, I reflect one three fathers: Terry Harbison, Ray Brown, and Tim Harbison.

Terry and Kathi started dating 40 years ago. Kathi kept in contact with Terry during his mission, and got married shortly after he returned from serving in Spain. They were married in 1984, and had their first son, Eric, in 1985. Four years later, they had Tim, the man I married. They later had two other boys, Kenny and Chris, all of which are now married with children of their own. Terry was active in his church callings, through The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. His various callings included: a member of the Bishopric, High Priest group leader, and primary teacher. His true passion was teaching, and he taught for about 6 years. He taught government and economics, and history. Terry would take Kathi to summer musicals, and they frequently would go to the Arboretum for walks. He was diagnosed with frontal temporal dementia in 2015. He retired from teaching, and spent a couple of years at home with Kathi after his diagnosis. He later got moved to Golden Acres Nursing Home. Terry enjoyed visitors, and was able to see his children, siblings, and mother frequently. He loved his grandchildren, and tried to play with Preston and Flynn whenever he was capable of doing that. On Sunday, the family got the call that he was not doing well, so many of us visited him to say our good-byes. On Tuesday, he was diagnosed with COVID-19. Today, on Thursday, he went home to return to live with his savior, Jesus Christ.

Raymond Brown was born on July 23. Today, he turns 63 years old. He has been an amazing father to me, and has taught me so much about being an amazing parent. He has always, and will always, be a great cheerleader for me. He has gone to all of my track meets, concerts, and even traveled to Rwanda to enjoy a new land with me. I have loved traveling with my family to many locations through the years. My dad worked for a long time as an electrical and systems engineer for BAE Systems. Since leaving his job as an engineer, he is now working more on hiking, running, and volunteering. He does an amazing job with Preston and Flynn.

Tim is the third father I would like to mention. He learned how to be a father early on in our marriage. He was meant to be a father; it is truly something that he excels at, that he was made to be. He has patience, more so than I have, and is a great teacher to our boys. He is very kind and sincere. I can see all of the love in him.

Updates on Flynn

Let me start off this one by saying that we do not have a diagnosis, other than your generic "developmental delay". We had Flynn evaluated by a pediatric neurologist, who checked his growth, his reflexes, and then said, "it's probably autism", and wanted to order an EEG and an MRI. He didn't actually do any testing on him. We then looked into getting Flynn tested for autism, and learned that the majority of places that do autism testing do not perform the tests until the children are at least 3 years old. Flynn is 2 years and 4 months. We did find one location that does testing prior to age 3, however the reviews and what they were telling us did not sound good, so we have decided to wait.

Here are some of the new things that Flynn has been doing:

• Pointing more (with books, toys, and once at an animal at the zoo)
• Chatting more (B, D, M)
• Focusing longer (he is really good at getting your attention, and holding your face in place while he investigates)
• Interested in books
• Improvement climbing stairs
• He is responding to commands more. He responds to, "come here", "stop", or if you call his name, he will more likely look at you.

We even got a progress note from his occupational therapist this week:

"Today we practiced: bilateral integration, visual motor, motor planning, hand/upper extremity strength, manual dexterity, upper extremity coordination, and vestibular/proprioceptive input.

Today I: participated and finished my work, used good listening skills.

Flynn was able to tolerate sitting on the platform swing for ~5 minutes during the motor activities for vestibular input. He was able to independently pull apart large pop beads 3 times and able to push them together 1 time, and required physical assist for the other trials. Flynn required physical assistance to imitate vertical lines to improve pre-writing skills. He was able to roll a ball back and forth with a partner with some physical assistance required to improve joint attention and bilateral coordination. Good job, Flynn!"

We are very proud for the progress that Flynn continues to show.