Category Archives: Zach
Not Yet Four Weeks Later
Thursday marks four weeks since Zach got his cast off. (If you missed this whole summer saga, go back and read this and this.)
(The sound is a little annoying. I’m sorry about that. The neighbors’ pool filter is acting funny since Irene.)
The orthopedist gets almost giddy when he talks about how amazing kids are, how the heal so quickly. He tells me that it would take an adult three or four months to progress as far as Zach has in just three weeks.
Yes, kids are amazing. Knowing this, witnessing the miracles every day, how can anyone for a moment forget how amazing our Creator is? How can anyone deny that He exists? How can I stop praising Him for all He has done for me?
I can’t.
EVER.
We’ve been so busy with PT appointments and getting ready for a new school year that I’ve not blogged lately. Some of you have questions. Here are a few details.
We continue to go to physical therapy three times a week, an hour each time. Zach does still have a limp, but we’re working on that.
He does stairs! If he holds my hand and the railing, he does them just like a normal six-year-old. If he’s by himself, he usually does the “bear crawl” up and a “bum scoot” down.
As for walking, he does have a walker which he uses whenever we go out or when he gets tired. Around the house, though, he walks all on his own, either limping or using the walls and furniture for support. We haven’t touched the wheelchair for at least two weeks now.
Now, tell me: How good is God?
A Quickie
We started physical therapy yesterday. I must admit my expectations were … um … easily exceeded. Not because I’ve had a bad experience with PT in the past, quite the contrary actually, but rather because of our experience with the doctor who recommended this specific therapist. Thankfully, we had a wonderful first appointment. Seriously, great. Zach and I both came home excited, energized and encouraged.
Look at that. I unintentionally created an alliterated trilogy. Nice.
In a related note, do other writers ever tire of having a constant and persistent editor observing from a cranial balcony?
So here’s the big announcement: not only did Zach stand up by himself yesterday, he also took two steps last night. How cool is that?! The therapist said our goal is to have him walking by Friday. BY FRIDAY!!
God is so good.
And that is all I have to say today.
The new leg of our adventure
I am still processing the events of yesterday, so my thoughts here may seem stilted or a bit jumbled. It is what it is, folks.
On Tuesday I posted on many things including my disillusionment with doctors and this whole cast business. I told you how we likely would not get the cast off until the middle of August. Believing that, we prepped ourselves for yesterday’s appointment by stifling hope and planning to seek additional opinions if necessary. But things didn’t happen as we expected.
After Zach had his x-rays, we corralled both kids into the tiny examination room and simultaneously steeled ourselves for the doctor’s assessment. Instead of his usual demeanor, the doc entered the room with a smile and proclaimed “It’s the day we’ve been waiting for!”
We weren’t ready; we weren’t prepared, but we were willing.
What happened next involved a lot of screaming and crying from both kids. That saw is LOUD. And then more screaming and crying. After being bound for nearly ten weeks, Z was quite uncomfortable with his new liberty. The crying lasted until we got home and then throughout the bath and getting dressed.
The same questions repeatedly rise.
Is he walking? No. In fact, he hasn’t even put weight on it yet. He’s very nervous about bending the newly healed leg, but when he’s not thinking about it, he does move it around. His train table served as a beautiful motivator. He has confirmed that the break location doesn’t hurt at all. It’s just his knee and muscles that hurt. They’re stiff and sorely out of practice.
Is it totally off or does he have a smaller cast? It’s totally off. We don’t have a splint or anything other than a prescription for a pediatric walker, should he need it.
How does it look? Skinny, sore, and kinda gross. You know all the dead skin that naturally exfoliates during baths and while you sleep? Imagine that piling up over ten weeks with nowhere to go. It’s kinda nasty, and now it’s floating in my tub, flaking off my son and leaving a soft, thick layer on all our sheets. In addition, the lack of sunshine has left him looking a touch gray in color.
When do you start physical therapy? Hopefully next week. We’re still waiting for a confirmed appointment.
What now? Well, this is definitely not the end of our adventure, just a new phase of it. Our job now is to get his courage and confidence up while his muscles regain their strength and memory. School starts in less than five weeks. It would be fantastic he were walking independently by then, including doing stairs. If not, though, we will need wisdom to know how what steps to take.
And that’s the story. Life is never boring, is it?
This all happened “so that we would not trust in ourselves but in God who raises the dead. He delivered us … and He will deliver us!”
“We have set our hope on Him that He will deliver us yet again, as you also join in helping us by prayer, so that many people may give thanks to God on our behalf for the gracious gift given to us through the help of many.” (2 Corinthians 1:9b-11)
Praise be to HIM forever and ever! Amen!
Big Birthday Wishes
My baby turned six last night. I still have very mixed feelings about this. When Ellie turned seven earlier this year, I had some major issues to face, stuff worthy of a separate post. This one, though, was different. I now have two big kids in my house. Two big kids and no little ones.
Ellie proved how big she is by decorating her first cake — all by herself! That’s right, my girl designed her brother’s cake and she did a wonderful job with it. She even made the frosting from scratch. Here is her beautiful creation.
She made the chocolate dinosaur molds and lined up all the “dinosaur eggs” around the bottom. She even did the first part of the lettering. I’m so proud of her!
Zach blew out his candles and made one big wish.
Surprising us all, that wish came true today.
I can now see two skinny legs. One is a couple inches shorter and still — even after a rather long bath with watermelon bath bubbles — a touch stinkier than the other, but, oh, it’s such a beautiful sight!
I want to tell you more, to share all the details, but it has been an exhausting, emotional, unexpected day. We’re all wiped. God answered our prayers! I wish my faith were so that I expected those answers just as they came, that my trust prevented surprise at God’s goodness. But my faith too often waivers. Pessimism guards my heart against shattered hopes and then miracles find me utterly unprepared.
Details will follow. I’m off to praise and delight in miracles given me.
On Many Things
Posts that follow my little bloggy vacations are often long, random ramblings on many things. This one is no exception.
On Gardening: I grew up on a large farm in northern Indiana. We had pigs, cows, horses, geese, chickens, a handful of other animals and lots and lots of acreage of hay, soybeans and corn. Our family garden alone was more than one acre. No joke. We even grew our own popcorn. My mother canned and did all sorts of beautifully domestic things that come naturally to homesteaders like Kristina over at Proverbs 31 Woman.
I’ve always romanticized that part of rural living and tried, unsuccessfully, to bring a small piece of it to my suburban home. For four years I’ve tried to grow patio gardens. In four years, groundhogs, squirrels, rabbits, skunks and who knows what else have benefited greatly from my labors. In fact, from my collective annual efforts, I have eaten precisely three tomatoes, two tiny strawberries and absolutely no sunflower seeds.
Like the critters, I have also stolen a couple pints of mulberries from a wild bush growing through the neighbor’s fence, but that has nothing to do with my gardening efforts.
This year, however, I employed a little solution. Or so it seems. I bought a large ornamental birdcage to house my garden. It’s not a huge garden, but it’s not bad considering we live on less than a tenth of an acre. Check it out. Read the rest of this entry
Only Two More Days
Zach’s cast comes off on Wednesday. Only two more days! How exciting is that?
At the risk of sounding like an absolutely despicable mother, I’m a little sad to see this end. Oh, I know last week I mentioned how the time seems to have flown for everyone but us. I talked about how difficult this has been and how we could hardly wait, but now that the end is so near, I have to say time is going by too quickly. It’s not that I want my son to remain bound; it’s just that I have treasured this time with just the two of us. I have relished these moments in which he is so vulnerable and sweet and welcoming my tender care.
Kids grow up in a blink. He turns six next month. Will these be my last days when he actually wants me to hold him? How many more times will I hear that tender voice ask me for help? How long until his independence replaces his desire to cuddle with Mama? Read the rest of this entry
When a boy breaks his leg …
When a five-year-old boy breaks his leg, his x-rays may look like this:
From the top, you can see that his femur broke into three pieces.
From the side, you can see that those pieces overlapped one another at a rather painful angle.
… his sister writes him lots of little love notes while nervously waiting in the ER.
My favorite is the one on the top far left. It simply says “Be ok. Be ok. Be ok.” She was so scared.
When a five-year-old boy breaks his leg weeks before summer break, he misses the last three weeks of school, the end of baseball season, VBS, Sunday School, swim parties and 4th of July fireworks, but his cousins may still envy him because … Read the rest of this entry
Recent Kid Quotes
Zach: “I love you the same as you love me. Like a steak as big as our house, but cut into lots and lots of little tiny pieces. Like this. (He held up his fingers about half an inch apart.) That’s how much I love you.”
Zach, while cleaning out the lint trap in the dryer: “This stuff is so warm! It cozy, too. We should make this into a something. Mom, do you know how to make sweaters? Sweaters are warm and cozy.”
Me: “I don’t know how to make sweaters. Aunt Beth does.”
Zach: “That’s great! We should talk to her. She can make a pretty, warm, cozy sweater for us. So we can’t throw this out until you talk to her.”
Note: If you look deep enough in the corner of his closet you will find a growing collection of dryer lint.
Zach: “I like helping you, Mama.”
Me: “I’m glad.”
Zach: “I like helping you because I’m getting a headache from you saying the same thing all the time.”
Ellie: “His name is Monster Yodel — “
Me: “It’s Master Yoda.”
Ellie: “Right. His name is Monster Yodel because he yodels a lot.”
Zach: “Read you will?”
Ellie: “Yodelers always talk backwards.”
Zach: “You know, I’m not really nocturnal. That’s a secret I’ve kept for a long time.”
Progress Report & Indoctrination Attempts
My girl is back in school!! Woo-hoo. 
She’s still not 100%, but she’s well enough to return to classes, which is good enough for me. All our preparations are moving along just fine. The refrigerator is clean. (In another word: empty.) All of our laundry is done. (I’ve never in my life experienced this phenomenon. It’s kinda weird.) We still have packing and general house cleaning, but I’m feeling good.
Actually, I’m feeling really ache-y and a little sinus-head thing going on, but I refuse to surrender. It’s mind over matter – right? And what matters today is that I rejoice in all the good things God has done for us. We are flooded by grace and swimming in blessings, so I will not complain. Not one tiny bit.
I want to share with you something else about all our preparations: indoctrination attempts.
We have always been rather conservative about what our kids see and do, in particular with entertainment. (Okay, all my friends who live nearby can stop laughing now!) While I don’t regret sheltering my children from popular culture, we realized this resulted in our kids being rather ignorant (in some cases completely ignorant) of many of the characters and stories they’ll see at Disney World. So we began a condensed indoctrination program. I haven’t had them watching all the movies, but we have talked about characters and stories and things like that. I don’t want them running up to Grumpy and calling him Doc or confusing Mulan with Pocahontas. Sometimes it’s the little things.
And sometimes those little things can be quite amusing.
Here two conversations I’ve enjoyed recently.
Me: “Okay, so that’s the story of Aladdin and Jasmine. Do you guys know who Anastasia is?”
Ellie: “She’s your computer friend’s daughter! From facebook, right? She’s soooo cuuuuute. I love her.”
Me: “Well, that’s true, but I’m talking about a different Anastasia. This Anastasia was a Russian princess.”
Zach: “I know what that means. That means she was in a hurry! Why was she in a hurry, Mom?”
Part of our “conservative discernment” has also included commercials and movie previews. (Again, friends! Stop making fun of me!) The first time our kids saw an actual commercial (and this was about a year ago — yes, my kids are 5 and almost 7), they both started screaming that the TV was broken. I loved it. Recently, though, I’ve let them watch the previews at the beginning of certain movies we own. Such was the case this weekend.
TV Announcer: “Coming to video Fall of 2007!”
Ellie: “I have to wait THAT LONG?!”
Sweet, sweet innocence.
How My Children Keep Me Humble
In addition to being a nurse, cook, maid and therapist, mothers often need to be dictionaries. I am constantly defining words for my kids. Recently they asked me what “humble” means. I explained that being humble is to know exactly who you are. You don’t think too much nor too little of yourself. I also told them that God wants us to be humble by knowing who He is and who we are before Him.
It seems they’ve taken this lesson to heart and, always my little helpers, have decided to encourage my humility.
Here are a few conversations we’ve had lately.
Zach: “Do you know who is the very best mama in the whole wide world?”
Me, welling with pride at the expected answer: “Who?”
Zach: “Grandma!”
Ellie: “I want to be a writer when I grow up.”
Zach: “What’s a writer?”
Ellie: “It’s what Mommy does.”
Zach: “Write books?”
Ellie, laughing: “No, silly! Mommy doesn’t write BOOKS; she writes EMAILS! She READS books.”
Zach: “I love all mommies. Mommies are the BEST!! (long pause) Even you, Mom.”
