Liam's Golden Birthday

Check out what we bought Liam for his third birthday! Can you believe it!? I think I’m still in shock.

If you would’ve told me that this baby boy would be sitting on a bicycle one day, I never would’ve believed you. Side note: before you spend too much time staring at this next picture, I’ll just go ahead and let you know that, yes, those are sixth fingers on each hand. He had them removed when he was a few months old. I show this picture often, because I think it really captures just how far he’s come, and people always look at it for a long time. A little too long. I used to think they were marveling at his progress, but now I’m pretty certain they were trying to make out what was going on with his fingers, since they all inevitably asked the same question: “is that a sixth finger!?” 

Our little boy, who was born paralyzed from the ankles down, with clubbed feet, one dislocated knee, and two dislocated hips, is learning how to ride a bike! In typical Liam fashion, he is exceeding all of our expectations. 

We still have work to do, of course. The good news is we’re one step ahead of where I thought we’d be. When I ordered the bike, I bought two packs of Velcro thinking I would have to strap his feet to the pedals somehow, and he hasn’t needed it. He does need to learn how to get on and off the bike by himself, and we’re working on teaching him how to pedal using his feet and legs. Currently, he gets his feet on the pedals and uses his hands to roll the back wheels, like a wheelchair, which is totally genius, but not how we want him to do it.

During the month leading up to his birthday, we worked on learning how to pedal a bicycle by getting on our backs and pretending like we were riding a bike. He got that down quickly, so I am convinced it won’t be long before he is zooming around the apartment.

When we first received the diagnosis, not being able to ride a bike wasn’t even on my radar. Because we found out about the spina bifida only a few weeks after the magical 20 week ultrasound – you know the one where you get to find out the sex of the baby – we already knew we were having a boy. So for almost three weeks, DeMarko and I had conversations about our little guy being a wrestler, and doing all sorts of other “boy” things. But riding a bike never came up. It wasn’t until weeks later, when I was on my way to work one day, that I saw a little boy riding a bike. It hit me like a ton of bricks: my little boy would never ride a bike.  It seemed like everywhere I turned, I was taunted by things he would never be able to do. And now look at him. Just look at him. So, you know what, I’m not going to count out wrestling either. If Liam has taught me anything, it’s not to count him out. Not to underestimate him. Come to think of it, he does have some amazing upper-body strength. And he is really flexible (see picture below). Sounds like the makings of a perfect wrestler to me.

 

Psycho

Confession: I was a little nervous about moving in with my husband. Okay, so maybe I was more than just a little nervous. 

My husband and I spent the first two and a half years of our marriage living separately: Liam and I stayed in Charleston in order to get all of his surgeries and doctor appointments taken care of, and my husband stayed in Kuwait for work. If you want to know what the perfect marriage looks like, that was it. Or, at least, it was the perfect marriage for a woman who likes her space, a woman who needs her space. I’ve always been a person who enjoys living alone. I like to be in complete control of my space. Of course, one tends to give up some of that control living with a toddler, but it was still my house. And, the truth is, I was very content with my life in Charleston.

Surprisingly, the transition has been relatively easy. That’s the word we both use to describe our relationship: easy. It just somehow works. Well, except for the three weeks we spent actually packing up and moving to the Middle East. That was almost disastrous. Had it not been for some wise advice from a family member – telling me that moving ranks third behind death and divorce for most traumatic experiences – I don’t know where we’d be. I think it was his use of the word “traumatic” that really drove the message home.

So, except for those three weeks, life has been easy, peaceful in fact. I’m learning how to balance my time between my son and my husband, which has been difficult given the fact that Liam has had my undivided attention since the moment he was born, and he is not giving it up easily. Sometimes I think living apart was actually beneficial to his progress, and my sanity. I had the luxury of devoting every ounce of myself to Liam’s surgeries, therapy, doctor appointments, etc., without having to stress about finding time for my husband. I barely had time for myself, so making time for my spouse would have proven difficult. Phone calls and daily emails kept us connected, though, without feeling like a burden. Thankfully, these days, Liam is slowly but surely becoming more independent.

There is one other problem, however. This:

This piece of “art” is hanging in our Master bathroom. Need I say more? Every time I take a shower now, I have visions of being attacked, which forces me to peek out from the shower curtain every couple of minutes. Even Liam points to her and says “Oooohhhhh!” each time he crawls into the bathroom. Because I’ve essentially taken over the whole rest of the apartment, I haven’t had the heart to take it down. But, when I first moved in, my husband and I did have a conversation about his interesting choice of bathroom art:

       Me: Um, buddy, did you buy this or did the previous tenant leave it?

       Husband: Oh yeah, I bought it!

       Me: So. You thought it was a good idea to buy a poster of the scariest shower scene

       in all of movie history, and hang it in our bathroom!?

       Husband: What? It matches the shower curtain.

Sometimes men just don’t get it.