A Toy

Tomorrow and Wednesday are the last two therapy days for Byron at Kennedy Krieger. Thursday will be an all day testing day.  What a remarkable journey for this brave little two and a half year old!

Tonight he and I went to Toys-R-Us to pick out a toy to honor all the hard work he put into these five weeks.  My theory was - I'd let him wander around the store and try things out for a while.  Then we'd see where he spent the most time and we'd get that.  He immediately glommed on to the most cheesy Yo Gabba Gabba retro boom box.  He absolutely loved it.   Oh brother, another loud tinny computer music toy - but if he wanted it - he deserved it.  We put it in the cart.   Just as we were leaving to check out, we passed the REAL music aisle.  Byron saw this tiny, kid size, wooden, non electronic, piano.  (Byron loves pianos.)  He was in toddler love.  He spent almost a half an hour messing around with the keys.  He'd run away for a second, then turn around and run full steam back to the piano shouting "DAT"!  (means that).   "Ok - this is it" I thought, with a bit of relief.  Cheesy damn thing though - after only moderate banging, two keys popped off rendering the upper half of the notes just dull thuds.    Oh - well, it was a good idea.   Just when I thought I would spend the next year (or week) with the YGG boom box, I spotted this little Casio keyboard that seem to have some of the functionality of the bigger ones, at less than half the price.  The kind sales clerk got us some batteries to try it out.  The piano sound was not bad.  I put it next to the wooden keyboard and let Byron play both.  Of course he dabbled with the on off switch for a while, enjoying how all the lights came and went, but finally he settled into playing the keys.  The clerk asked how old he was and when I told him two and a half, he said "Two and a half?!  I wish I had been that into music when I was his age.   I would be really good by now."  He must have been a musician.  So I asked him which one he'd get and he assured me that the Casio keyboard was  a waaaay better deal and Byron would probably have it for a few years - not so with the little wooden one.

So we got it.   We'll see if Byron can get beyond all the switches and drum effects and settle into the simple sound of the keys.  I hope so because there are very few things that get him to use his left hand spontaneously, and one of them is the piano.

Here's a picture of Byron "playing" piano with Kenny Werner a couple of months ago.  Kenny is a very accomplished Jazz pianist and his wife Lorraine babysits for Byron from time to time.