Leo, Our Little Lion Man

    This is a bit of a weird post, but I'd really like to talk about 1) some things God has taught me about help 2) receiving help 3) and asking for help.      Help. Man. Needing a lot of help can be a very uncomfortable experience. May I just say that I feel as though I have been taking and taking from the community around us for the last 3 years without giving anything in return. That feels really raw and cringey. I don't want people to think I'm lazy. I don't want to think I'm entitled to help and not push myself to do difficult things. I am so grateful for the help that we've received from people that I'd like to give back as a way to show appreciation. BUT,     the thing about help is that--in it's purest form--it's not given with expectations. We don't help people in order to get something from them. We don't help so that we can hold something over them and they now owe us a favor. Help is making it  easier for someone. We're all hu...

     It feels like so much has been going on in our lives; at the same time, there's nothing new. I don't think it's that there's nothing new, but there's still a lot of waiting and limbo with certain things. But depending on how things go, big changes could  happen...but we just have to wait right now...I don't know, but it feels frustrating. Things don't feel super clear. So, I'll list some basic prayer requests out right now and elaborate after that. Especially as a global thinker, it's not easy to linearly explain everything that's on our radar right now. Prayer requests: 1) That Leo would not lose weight. That he would gain weight at the rate that God wants him to gain. And that we would have wisdom to know what's concerning and what's not. 2) For the puking to subside more. 3) For carseat, stander, and stroller to continue to improve. Leo's getting bigger and transporting him around gets more difficult without functional use of ...

 I never know how to put this into words, but I'm going to try. Leo’s been understanding. And it feels weird to say for two reasons. 1) Being excited that Leo is understanding feels like I didn’t expect him to understand. And that feels like being a bad mom. 2) What if he can’t understand and I’m fooling myself? What about what other people think? What if they can’t tell what he’s communicating and think I’m crazy?  Now let me just say that I know that both of those reasons are untrue. But I think they’re worth mentioning.   Anyways, so comprehending. Where do I start? First off, I must say that we have the best therapists. I’m so grateful for how they work with and relate to Leo. They continually see his intelligence in a really beautiful way. So he does physical, occupational, speech, and vision therapy. And the basic way to say it is that we are using verbal instructions with him and he is showing that he understands. For example: 1) asking him to touch a specifi...

We had two ER visits in the span of a week. That sounds a lot more dramatic than it was, but it wasn't easy either. We've had canceled and rescheduled appointments in there. Today was our first day of therapy again after a bit of a break due to all the stuff getting taken care of. This blog post is a bit scattered because I wrote some parts of it and then another appointment or phone call happened. Please excuse the scattered thoughts. I don't want to rewrite stuff again and again. We have some appointments a bit up in the air. And we still have some questions moving forward from our last ER visit. But I hope this is a bit of a clarifying update. Thanks for being with us through it all.  I really don't want to sound dramatic. We really are doing well. So thankful for community and our God.  If you've been curious about how we're doing....this is a bit of it :) ER updates So we ended up having to take Leo to the ER again on Wednesday. It was a whirlwind. He had s...

I was writing another post and then we had a fairly eventful weekend! So, a post about other areas of our life is coming soon, but—in regards to this weekend: We had to take Leo to the ER on Saturday. He wasn’t breathing well, wheezing and coughing. I don’t mean to make this sound too dramatic. But yeah. He had a rough night Friday, a lot of mucus and very restless, but we hadn’t heard much coughing or stuff in his throat. However, he does this gasping/gulping thing when his reflux and congestion combine (my words, not a doctors 😉). So he was doing that but I was able to get it under control. Got him sleeping comfortably on me. But when he woke up from his morning nap, he was wheezing. And it was getting worse not better. He sounded like a squeaker toy. Made a couple of calls and drove to the ER. He wasn’t turning colors from lack of oxygen, but it was NOT a good car ride.  He got a steroid treatment there. We waited for a couple of hours to see if things got worse again. Then we ...

Yes. But... Now, I need to be really clear here that I know that expanding your family can be a very difficult topic for many people other than us. So many different situations can lead to pregnancy, childbirth, having kids, etc. being very difficult topics to talk about and/or go through. This post is by no means saying how others should handle or feel about expanding their family.  This is where we are at in our story. Yes, we want more kids. And just being able to say that is a lot of growth from where we were. I used to say “I don’t know” to this question and I just couldn’t picture it.  Right after Leo was born, I told God he had robbed me of having more kids. With Leo’s brain injury, no forewarning of it, and no explanation, I couldn’t fathom having more kids. I had just experienced one of the most empowering things in my life--labor--and was now wading through painful muck. I kept on replaying labor in my head. It genuinely felt a bit like I was going to wake up from a ...

     Pool therapy is so fun! Leo loves it. We got one of those innertubes that goes around his neck. It is the most free and relaxed I have ever seen his body. It's been so fun to see his body after spending time in the pool, too. The therapist asked me if he seemed any more relaxed after time in the pool. Well, the two times he spent his whole time in the pool with that innertube around his neck, he was so relaxed that evening. He has seriously slept so well after being in the pool. Some friends of ours have also said that we can come and enjoy their pool whenever we want! Such a kind answer to prayer. When Leo and I have free time and it's hot, we can hang out in the water!      We've also had one PT session at Schreiber and that was really fun, too. I feel like having therapy outside of the home has been fun in a way I didn't expect. After struggling so much with feeling like I have the responsibility for Leo's developmental outcome, the therapies outsid...