So as most of you know, Riley's sleep habits have been the bane of my existance for a few months now. A couple of weeks ago we were sitting eating dinner after Jacob had gone to bed and she was eating ketchup. Marc asked me if I had that picture of her after the first time she had ketchup in which she proceeded to smear all of her ketchup all over her face and head. She likes to talk about what Jacob is doing and what she did as a baby and somehow we were talking about her first time trying ketchup. As I was looking for the picture on this very blog I came across her first treatment for her clubfeet and saw this picture (she was so tiny! I have no idea how Dr H was even able to manipulate and cast her tiny feet and legs!):
Marc asked me if I had ever shown Riley what her feet looked like before treatment. I have but it had been a while so I doubted she remembered. I've also told her about her feet, she knows about her "night night shoes," and she knows Dr H is the "Bossyman." (Seriously, I can get her to do anything by just telling her Dr H said so!). So we showed her this picture and explained that she was born with crooked feet and they are called clubfeet and that's why we see Dr H routinely and that's why we have to do our stretches. She looked at the picture and the look of conern and horror that came over her face was heartbreaking. Even now, writing about it weeks later, I am filled with the emotion of seeing her face. She asked me how she could stand and walk with her feet like that and I explained that we did her treatment right after she was born so that by the time she was ready to crawl, stand, walk they were all fixed and look like they do now. She kept looking at her feet and looking at this picture. I decided to take it one step farther and explain to her that she was lucky, that she was born very different from other babies but we were able to fix it and no one knows that her feet were so different. But there are some other babies that are born that aren't so lucky and that we shouldn't stare at them and make them feel bad about it, it's ok to politely ask questions about it when we are in private but it's not ok to make them feel sad about being different. I think she took it all in well, I can tell you she absolutely 100% does her stretches now and reminds us if we forget!
Ironically, it's also been nearly 4 years since we go Riley's diagnosis. I just went through this blog and looked at her old treatment posts. What a ride it has been, fortunately it has been a happy ending for us. We've ended up with a sassy toddler with 2 straight feet that does everything that a nearly 4 year old does!
