Watching Cav

I have had a ton of questions about Cav.  Also since we are jsut weeks out from his amputation surgery I wanted to document his before movement.  Remeber this kid who was terrified of plants when we received him, and had probably been outside TWICE in his entire 3 years in China.

I can partially understand keeping inside - he started the day with completely intact pants!  Goodwill LOVES us as his pants last one maybe two times.  I guess it cuts down on laundry LOL!

I wanted to share for those who might be contemplating a child with significant limb difference.  We believe he will do phenomenal once he has his new legs (and shoes LOL!)  As a matter of fact my other little guy in the video has dwarfism so really . . . so much for disabilities!

Disabled

When our little man was born to us, the one thing I swore was that we would NOT make him a chronic child.

AS a nurse we would cringe when these kids would come in - whispering that a parentectomy was the only surgery that would help.

I am afraid though I might have gone to the opposite extreme.  This became very evident this past weekend.

We took the little ones to a Starlight Easter Egg Hunt.  Let me first say we LOVE Starlight foundation.  We are extra blessed because they partner with the Cadets at the Air Force Academy and put on some pretty incredible events for kids with disabilities and chronic illnesses.

Anyhow, we enjoyed all of the games, food and inflatables.  As usual I was floored by Cav's incredible ability and strength.

And then I was confronted with the breakdown of the Easter Egg hunts, 0-4 years, 5-9 years or wheelchair / physically challenged.

With the two others I thought no problem we will do the 0-4 year old group.

Very quickly the realization hit me that regardless of what we think of Cav, he is disabled, he CAN'T keep up with the other kids and this poor angel ended up with a whole ZERO eggs.  I had to leave him sitting there while I ran after the other two but my heart just broke for him.

I swallowed my pride (not even sure that is it) and took him to the physically challenged egg hunt.  Although he was far more abled than the other kids, filling his bucket and then his pockets, it's where he belonged atleast this year.

He was so funny, he shook EVERY egg next to his ear and would only place the ones that rattled in his basket!!

An eye on the prize!

I know kind of an odd title, but as I was going through pictures, I jsut loved the ones that I took on the 4th of little man practicing catching a ball.  When I first became a parent I had no idea how much I would learn from my children.  This little man is inspiration to me everyday.  The sad part of his type of dwarfism is the pain he has in his joints.  His left hip is . . . well crap.  Summer days are better but we have been experiencing a lot of afternoon storms and just like a grandpa he feels the barometric pressure.

But he still goes on.  Some days he will ask to be carried, some days we just have sprout days (tv station) but he almost never complains.  Instead he is my sport kid.  He lives for sports, he spends hours practicing his different sports and he is a pretty great little athlete.

When we first got his diagnosis and the Dr's told us all of the things he shouldn't be doing we really tried to restrict his activities.  Finally we realized that sports are almost as important to him as food and water.  SOOOO, we will let him play for as long as his little body will hold up.  We pray that God has a plan for him, and we have given our heartbreak to Him.  I don't know if his sports 'career' will peak at 7 or 9 years of age but we pray that something will enter little man's life to replace his passion for sports.