THE appointment

So, I took Alex to his ortho last Tuesday. HE IS GOING DOWN TO 18 HOURS A DAY IN HIS BRACE! Can you tell I am excited? I'm excited not because I don't like the brace or I am embarrassed. Rather, I am excited because he might actually get to do some tummy time and I will feel a little more comfortable leaving him with someone else. I am not looking forward to a cranky baby who doesn't want it on after having it off for a couple hours, but one must take the good with the bad.
These are a couple pics from my phone. These two are of Alex after the appointment when I told him that he only had to wear the brace for 18 hours. I think he understood what I was saying.






This is what James thought we should do with the brace. He was looking for a garbage can.
When I said "NO!" he responded like this. He told me that he wasn't touching the brace. He is so darn cute.

He has a club foot, not three heads....

If you ever run into someone who has a disability, a deformity, an injury, or something else wrong with them, as an adult you are suppose to ignore it. Well you are suppose to, but unless you honestly don't notice for at least a split second you may think about it. What happened? Right? We tell our kids not to stare. We explain to them that some people are different. Then we move on with our lives.

Since Alex has been born, I have run into a lot of people who on the surface appear to be adults, but obviously are not. First, let's explain what a club foot is. It is a foot that is abnormally turned inward. It can affect one or both of the feet. This is what his foot looked like before the first cast.

There are different methods of fixing a club foot (or club feet) and we choose to do the "Ponseti Method" of casting every week until the foot is in a normal position then wearing a brace.

Alex was two weeks old when he got his first cast. Now unless you have a child or know a child with a club foot, you would probably think it is just on his foot. Oh no. It is a cast that goes from his toes to his groin.

I thought that we would get some looks. I mean, I thought that I would get some looks with a new born with a big cast on his leg. I was not prepared for James getting looks. Why would they be looking at him? Well, I found out what at least one woman was thinking when we took at trip to Babies R Us. She looked at Alex. Then she looked at James and told him he should be careful with the baby. WHAT DID YOU JUST SAY!!! OMG!!!! I wanted to slap her. I "calmly" told her that James was a fantastic big brother and that in fact Alex was born with a club foot. The cast was how they fixed it. I walked away as quickly as possible to stop myself from loosing it.

Alex just needed four casts over four weeks and then his foot looked relatively normal. He does have extra skin on the outside of his right ankle (his club foot). Other than that, you can't really notice much of a difference.

He then started to wear his brace. I don't have a good picture yet of him wearing it (he is always kicking it around and let's face it, he is so cute why would I want a picture of a brace). Here is a link to a good picture of what it looks like.

http://www.c-prodirect.co.uk/ponseti_afo_brace.html

He wears it (right now) for 23 hours a day. I am a crazy person trying to make sure that it is not off for any longer than an hour because it may cause the foot to return to the club position and we would have to start all over again.

I made the mistake of thinking that because it is obviously a medical thing and not abuse, that people would be "kinder" or "more understanding" when they saw him in the brace. Alas, no. I will tell you of a typical incident I recently had at Chuck E. Cheese with Alex. I go into the bathroom to change him. I have him in the stroller with a blanket over him (it was cold in there). A woman walks in with what appears to be a preschool aged girl. She stands outside of the stall waiting and looks at Alex. She makes the usual small talk (how old, he's big, so cute, etc.). As I pull him out of the stroller, her daughter emerges from the stall and proceeds to the sink to wash her hands. We get the woman's attention as Alex starts banging his brace on the changing table. She stares. VERY OBVIOUSLY! Her eyes just about popped out of her head. She walks her daughter over for paper towels and the little girl then notices Alex. Not his brace at first, but a baby being changed. The mom then says in a not so hushed tone "don't stare". Of course she stares. Her mom is staring. The little girl then says "what is that on his feet". A good question. One that mom should ask... She says rather harshly to the girl, "That's not nice. I told you not to stare. Come on...." He doesn't have three heads lady! He has a brace. A cute brace I may add. If you are curious just ask. Don't stare and then expect a child not to.

All right. I am done. I will save more of my frustration for another post.

Til then...

As promised...

I am now ready to actually talk about my baby turning three. We always try to make it as special as possible. He woke up to two posters that I made that said "Happy 3rd Birthday James" with picture of the Mickey Mouse club house gang.

This year I asked him what he would like to do. He said he wanted to go to Boston Market for lunch and to the Oak Lawn Children's museum with Eddie and Katie (his cousins). So, I called their moms and set our plan in motion.

Katie got dropped off and we headed to Boston Market for lunch. He always gets the same thing. Mac and cheese, mashed potatoes, corn bread and LOTS of gravy.

Then we headed to the children's museum where we met Eddie and four other cousins. He had a blast. So did I. Seeing him so happy. Seeing him overnight become a big kid. OK maybe not a big kid. But a kid. Not a toddler, not a baby. A kid. OMG!!!

We finished off the day with a small family party with Grandma, Papoo (my parents), Uncle George, Aunt Cheryl (my brother and my sister in law), Papa and Gigi (my in-laws). We had pizza (or pitzia as James says it) and chocolate cake. I decorated it myself with all the Mickey Mouse characters. Pretty, huh? We finished off the day with a bath and a Scooby Doo movie (that we got him, well I got it and daddy signed the card). All in all a good day. Next time I will tell you about his birthday party. His first all kid party.

Til Then...

My "baby" is three!

I am almost ashamed to admit it. I am sad that James is three. It seems that as I go though those baby things with Alex, that I was doing them with James a heartbeat ago. I am so proud of the boy he has become. His loving heart. His gentle spirit. His imagination. His creativity. I love every part of who and what he is...
I feel that those days of him wanting to spend time with me are running short. He is more and more willing to do things without me. He doesn't need me to watch every little thing he does anymore (which I do admit is a blessing with a 3 month old).
I miss that time that we had before Alex arrived when it was just the two of us. When we could do anything at any time of the day. When we would wake up and just talk in bed for a while in the morning after Daddy left for work. I miss the hours we would spend just talking about anything and everything and going out and exploring the world together. Doing a park tour one day and doing art another. And I am sad that he has transitioned to our new reality, where he must now share my attention, a little to easily.
He is three now. He will be starting school soon. I am equally as afraid that he is not going to like going to school as I am afraid that he will love it. I hope that he can separate from me happily and easily, but I also want him to not want me to go. I am afraid that the amount of tears shed will be mostly mine.
For the better part of the past three years, he has been my world. My heart. My everything. Now we are both learning how to love another. My heart breaks every time that I must stop playing with him to take care of his brother. My heart also breaks for him every time I fall deeper in love with Alex. I want to have my cake and eat it too. I want to have two boys to be in my heart, but I want both of them to feel like they are the only ones. I hope that James will forever feel my love the same way he felt it before Alex was born and that Alex will feel that love too. I guess that all I can do is pray that I will be able to give them all that they need and that they always know that I am there for them.