Out and About

We had gorgeous weather over the weekend and no plans or sports due to the holiday so we took advantage of the time and the weather and spent our weekend out and about.  Lots of walks and parks.  Easter we learned that a lot of places were closed so we just went for a quick walk to the park in the afternoon.  Jacob has been begging to bring his bike places but he doesn't know how to ride it yet so we brought his scooter.  I'm not sure when he figured out the scooter but he can now ride, as you will see in the video, not for very long.  Poor little dude is not built for exercise.

I few more pictures from the weekend!

From my alone time with Riley

Two scooter riding fools

God Bless Monsters Inc for a few minutes of calm in the midst of pure chaos!

He'll hate me for this one day but he loves these shoes!  Every morning he wants to put them on!

Little Buddy Time

I had Friday off so I planned to keep the kids home with me and spend some quality time with them.  I asked them both if they wanted to stay home with me and Jacob's response without hesitation was "Yesh, stay home momma!"  Riley says "I proberry just want to go to school."  Turns out they were having an Easter Egg Hunt at school last Friday, I said she could go for that and then I would come get her after if she wanted and she then asked if she would have to take a nap at home.  Yes, Ri, you would.  Let the negotiation begin.  To which she responded "Maybe you could just get me after nap."  Sure, Ri, I'll get you at 3:00, that way we can still do something fun in the afternoon and you get to see your friends.  Negotiation complete.  That meant little dude and I got some alone time, it's been far too long since we've had a whole day just mommy and Jacoby.  We kicked the morning off with a little viewing of The Wiggles.  Jacob was so in heaven having my undivided attention, he kept coming up to me and randomly hugging and kissing me.  I could just tell he appreciated the time.  Then we went for a walk and then he requested the mall (he likes Wetzel Pretzel Bites).  We headed home for lunch and nap and then went to get Riley after a little more one on one play time.  Little man was SO sweet that whole day, I really need to make a bigger effort for one-on-one time with each of them.

Of course Riley was later jealous of Jacob's time with me so we ended up with some alone time on Sunday.

Sometimes All It Takes Is A New Pair of Shoes

I love shoes, Riley loves shoes, so it kind of, for lack of better terms, sucks that she has clubfeet, it sort of sucks the joy out of shoe shopping.  I'm secretly jealous of all of her friends who can wear cute boots, sparkly Maryjane's, and whatever sneaker they want.  I've never said that out loud and I feel ashamed to feel it.  I just want to be able to take Riley shoe shopping and not have my heart sink because I have to tell her over and over again "When you're done with casts or your AFO, then you can get those shoes."  I don't want her to have to make mature decisions and just accept that she can't wear certain things because of her AFO, I want her to be 5 and be able to go to the shoe store and pick out a pair of shoes, whatever she likes without having to think about the fit.  This surgery has brought back all of those horrible feelings I had when Riley was an infant about her clubfeet.  I wouldn't change a thing about Riley, because of her clubfoot we have learned to be strong, face adversity with a smile on our face, we've learned what we are truly capable of handling.  Riley has also learned to be accepting and compassionate of those who are "different."  We've also met some fabulous families through it.  I just wish it was over.  It was supposed to be behind us by now, and it's not, it's still very much a part of our every day and I am ready for it to be over.  This week was especially rough because they had a jumpy house at school and Riley made the decision on her own not to go one the jumpy house because it would be bad for her foot.  While I am incredibly proud of her maturity and ability to make that decision, my heart breaks because she had to be in that position.  I want her to be able to rip off her shoes, whichever pair that she wanted, and run in the jumpy house and bounce like every other kid.  I don't want her to have to be mature beyond her years.  I want her to be a normal kid.

Last week Riley's teacher was worried about her limping, I was too, I even called Dr H's office about it.  I thought maybe it was her shoes, one was a 10 and one was a 8 and I felt like the different sizes were too extreme and contributing to her limping.  I had read somewhere  that Target's shoes run extra wide.  I don't want to spend $60 on special AFO shoes, and quite honestly, I don't think Riley would wear them, she wants to wear what other kids are wearing and special shoes would have probably resulted in a meltdown.  At lunch one day I needed to get out of the office (that's a whole other story there) so I walked across to Target to check out their shoes.  I always thought expensive shoes were the way to go, Nordstrom all the way, but as I was examining these shoes, seeing which ones looked just wide enough, that I could easily take the insert out of, I realized Target shoes were pretty awesome!  So I picked out a cute pair of grey and pink shoes and brought them home.  I held my breath as I showed Riley them, she loved them.  Phew, test #1 down.  Next we tried them over her AFO, they FIT!  With the insert in and perfectly with the insert out.  Test #2 passed.  Then she started walking, dancing, no more limp!  Test #3, passed!  So reason #1,999 why I love Target, their $24 shoes were the answer to my AFO conundrum!

So she can't wear sparkly Maryjane's, she can't wear cute boots, we can't go to Nordstrom and pick out Toms or sparkly shoes right now but I still hope some day all of these will come true for Riley.  For now, I am just happy with the new pair of shoes from Target because Riley can now run, ride her scooter, dance to "Let It Go" and be Riley!

Modeling her shoes!  Jacob has his own sense of fashion!  LOL!

No shoes here but I love this picture of them hugging, I didn't even ask them too.  And look how tall Ri has gotten!

All About Sports!

Jacob is all about sports these days.  He comes home and after dinner wants to play catch with his Nerf football (his first and only Hanukkah present after we came home from the hospital).  But we also recently put him in basketball and his first practice went great, I have visions of him being a Hoosier and playing at Assembly Hall.  He also loves baseball.  He is ALL boy!

First basketball practice

He loves to dunk

I was trying to get the kids out the door to school the other day and I called for Jacob asking where he was, he responded "Here, watching bayball!"  On another note, his verbal skills have picked up significatnly, as has his biting again!

Here's a video of us playing football last night, Marc was so excited about his spiral!

Cast Free!!!!

Well Friday was the day that we became cast free!  Riley's foot looks so good aside from the very sensitive, dry, cracked skin from being in the cast for basically 9 consecutive weeks (6 post surgery weeks and 3 weeks of re-casting).  Her leg is sore but we're covering it up with lots of lotion and it already looks tremendously better than it did Friday.

Friday everything went smoothly, Dr H and his nurse were extremely happy with the way everything has healed up, there was only 1 stitch that we needed to trim all of the rest had dissolved.  The steri-tape was still on all of the incisions which Riley did not like, and I can't lie, I don't blame her, the incision on the inside near her heel had lots of dried blood.  But other than that her foot looks fantastic.  Dr H even humored me and checked her right foot and he said the curvature I am seeing is from her cavus tendon (same tendon he released on her left foot) and that her range of motion is still really good.  Darn cavus tendons are going to be the death of me.  He felt like it was something we could watch for a while and she'd likely grow out of it because her range of motion is still good and will likely improve as she builds strength in her left leg as she becomes active again.  Her AFO fit perfect and is giving her no problems which is a vast improvement over her last AFO which took at three trips to the brace guy to get it just right.  Of course our problem was shoes, the 2 pairs  I brought did not fit over it so twist our arm we had to go shoe shopping.  Her foot was nice and ripe so we came home and washed it off.  I had to put on my big girl pants pull the steri-strips off. I can see why she didn't like them, it was pretty gross.  But we cleaned it up, had a photo shoot, lotioned her up and were off to the mall for some good old, mommy/Riley shopping.  Dr H made a comment that I should start a line of kids shoes that are designed for orthotics and after our experience, I think he's right.  Nordstrom was fantastic, the girl helping us pretty much brought out every pair of shoes imaginable.  The Nikes that normally fit over her AFO didn't, I'm thinking because of the shape of her foot is different now that it is corrected.  We landed on a pair of lace up Converse All-Stars (I'm sure her teachers will love me for that) but that's the only thing that we could find to get wide enough for her foot to fit in.  We also had to buy a size 10 on her left foot and a size 8 on her right which leads me to the good news, the surgery not only corrected her left foot but for the first time ever, her feet are the same size.  Both measuring at an 8.5, on a side note, Jacob at 2 wears a size 9 so they have the same size feet.  Ri as usually was a good sport for the most part, we had a few tantrums, she hasn't been sleeping well because she was anxious about getting her cast off but other than that she was a sport, esepcially considering she just really wants to go and pick out a pair of shoes that she loves and not have to worry about an AFO.

So here are her million dollar feet, fingers crossed we are done!

Flash Back Friday

I was looking through old pictures yesterday and came across the picture on the left of Riley, this was her first full day in her brace (and her first Giants game - thinking back on it, we were sort of nuts to take her to a Giants game her first day in her new brace, but I guess we figured it's our Ri and she doesn't skip a beat), it was nearly 5 years ago!  It seems like a lifetime ago but at the same time it seems to have gone by so fast, not sure how that is possible, time sure is a funny thing! The picture on the right is the first day Riley started walking again after her surgery.  I guess you could say we're lucky, we've gotten to see her take her first steps twice!  And today, her cast comes off, hopefully for the last time ever!  Fingers crossed for a beautiful left foot!