we celebrated a birthday this week.
he's 3.
oh my.
he has put me on a different path as a mother…he has taught me to let go…and enjoy the ride.
a favorite thing i love about him…his yawn. he's been making the exact same face since he was a fresh bundle in my arms.
i love this sweet boy with all my heart.
p.s. if you like a good before and after. take a look at him in the first photo. then look here.
a small miracle indeed.
we attempted to take a photo of the Masks with masks this month. I would have put on the beard, but Lincoln insisted that it was his. 🙂
I will not forget June.
This month has been a roller coaster for me. We're talking a Magic Mountain-esque roller coaster. Lots of highs with a few lows thrown into the mix. I'm pretty sure i can't handle that much emotion in one month. And really, i'm glad it's over. Here's the quick wrap up.
Summer has officially made it's entrance and I've been trying to keep some sort of routine so that we don't go looney. Dallin has been doing swim team in the mornings, I've been teaching a Let's Play Music summer class, Ella has a play group, and Lincoln & Christian hang on for the ride. I'm not very good at keeping a schedule but i think this is saving my bacon somewhat. As long as everyone knows what to expect from day to day, life seems to run more smoothly. I know schedules are good…why oh why can't I stick with them!?
Jeff's birthday was the first celebration this month. We showed up at his work with some goodies. I think it's crazy that almost every time I go to his work, he has moved desks. Luckily someone directed me to his new desk so I could spread out some love. I suppose it would have been just as funny to leave it on the wrong desk. Someone would have enjoyed it!
Father's Day came next. I always feel bad that his birthday is so close to Father's Day. Usually one of the two days gets a little shafted. Case in point…I ordered his Father's Day gift online and it still hasn't arrived yet. Oops.
Lincoln had his surgery. Everything seemed to go well at the hospital. The hardest part was seeing tears of blood. I can handle a nose bleed, but the eyes are a different story. I think I almost lost it right there in the parking lot. He slept most of the day after we came home. I wanted to lay next to him and hold him close just to make sure he was breathing. He did well the rest of the week. It is amazing for us to watch his head tilt change. I'm glad I took a picture the day before so we could see the difference. It is incredible.
The week after the surgery was more difficult. For me, at least. I noticed his other eye drifting inward and immediately panicked. I knew the eyes might have trouble tracking together but I didn't expect to see this. We checked with the doctor and he explained that this is normal. It may correct itself or we may need to correct it eventually. This is all so hard for me. It is hard to watch. It is hard to make decisions not knowing a definite outcome. It is hard to be a mom and hurt for my children. I am grateful for a knowledge of God's plan that gives me hope. It is what I hang onto when I am hurting.
Then my baby buddy decided to turn one. This past year really did go by in a blink. He is pulling himself up. Not quite ready to walk yet, and I've got no problems with that. He is my baby and I'm happy to keep him a baby for as long as possible. I love how he wraps his arms around my neck and buries his face in my shoulder when I pick him up after a nap. He has me hook, line, and sinker.
And to add one last thing to the pile this month, I am now a year older too.
thank you all so much for your thoughts, prayers, and kindness to our family. can't seem to thank you enough!
Lincoln is doing well. he's doing his usual thing. i'm amazed at his resiliency! it will be weeks to months before we see how effective the surgery was in changing his torticollis. as i watch him, i can see him trying to make sense of what he is seeing. it has to be weird for him.
it's nice to see Dallin and Ella care for him too. it brings this mom happiness when my children show love for each other. i saw Ella and Lincoln exchanging a little conversation today on the stairs. made my heart happy.
tomorrow morning this sweet boy has eye surgery. i wish i could say i'm not scared. but i am. eyes are on the same level for me as the heart or brain. kind of indispensable. i might be bordering on terrified. but fear is the absence of faith, and i can't go there. i need all the faith i can get.
i am sure he will be fine. it's me they will need to hook up to oxygen. 🙂
we'd appreciate your prayers so much. thanks for all of your love and concern.
xoxo
truth: the internet is bad.
truth: the internet is good.
today, i say the internet is amazing.
there is a lot of talk out there about blogging. good talk. and bad talk. i've done my share of thinking about it. maybe too much sometimes. after going around in circles time and time again, i always seem to come back to the same thought. there are still more good people out there than bad.
and that is why i continue to share my life here. and i'm so grateful that i do. so very grateful.
let me tell you why. here's where the story begins.
Lincoln. my son. he was born almost 3 years ago in the heat of an Arizona summer. everything seemed to go well with his birth…nothing abnormal which we were so thankful for.
at about 6 months, we started to notice what seemed to be a cute little head tilt he would do. and that's all i thought it was. just something cute.
as more and more people started to ask me about it, i began to wonder. that's when i went back and started looking through every picture i had of him. and in every picture, the tilt was the same. worry set in and i made a phone call. to a chiropractor.
that was over two years ago.
since that time Lincoln has been evaluated by:
a chiropractor
a pediatrician
a physical therapist
an optometrist
a neurosurgeon
another physical therapist
an MRI scan
another pediatrician
another chiropractor
another optometrist
and of course, two parents who were constantly stretching his neck muscles through many, many tears. oh and don't forget the collar that we made him wear for months. poor kid.
you could say he's been around. 🙂
but even after all of that. no one. no one could explain why he continued to tilt. he's an anomaly, they said. he'll grow out of it, i was told. and just keep stretching him and maybe someday…
after many prayers and tears of my own, i decided i just needed to put up a white flag and stop trying to change him. i felt like i needed to accept him just the way he was and hope the world would treat him the same.
not more than a few days later, i received a comment on my blog that said this:
Your kids are adorable -I just wanted to mention something about congenital torticollis -I'm sure you've gone down this road, but just in case, has your son seen an eye specialist? This is to rule out Superior Oblique (eye muscle) Palsy which can manifest as a head turn in very young toddlers/babies. Kids with this will actually tilt their head in order to align what they are visually seeing as double into a single image.
-Connie
I had taken him to get his eyes evaluated. twice. but i was told he was fine. immediately I googled the palsy she spoke of and spent hours reading. yes. yes. yes. i thought. this could be it.
the next morning i made another phone call. to a pediatric ophthalmologist.
with great anticipation i took Lincoln to the appointment. it took the doctor all of 5 minutes to tell me this is exactly what Lincoln has. what he has always had. this Superior Oblique Palsy which causes one of his eyes to drift upward, impairing his vision, which as a result causes him to tilt his head to align his eyes.
all the way home i cried.
could this be the answer after two and a half years?
i was happy. i was sad. i was grateful. i was angry. i was relieved. i was worried.
but after all those emotions boiled up, the one that surfaced was gratitude.
for connie (who is an optometrist). a stranger who doesn't know me or my son. but she was here and she cared.
now we are on the road to surgery. a frightening road indeed. but we are back on a road that i once thought was a dead end.
so many thoughts in my head at this moment.
what i want to say most is thank you.
to you who are reading and know me…thank you.
to you who are reading and don't know me…thank you.
thank you for caring about one girl and her family. that's all.
just thank you.
(most photos by tara whitney)
these are moments that happened today.
but there was one moment today that i don't want to remember.
at the same time, i don't think i can forget it.
i had to hold my boy as he was sedated for an MRI. watching him struggle, eyes roll back and then his body go lifeless…no, i don't want to remember it.
but i will. because it's one of those moments etched in my mind that makes me grateful for
all the other moments that seem trivial, or difficult, or crazy, or all of
the above.
all it takes is one moment like that.
i've never been so happy to see him scream.
edit: thanks so much for all your love! lincoln is doing well. he had the MRI to further investigate the cause of his torticollis. we don't know the exact results yet but we do know that he seems to be a mystery to the medical world. we've been down every possible avenue but nothing has really worked. the good news is he has great range of motion, which means he can easily move his neck in all directions. but…he likes it just where it is. it's a hard habit to break (sing it, chicago!) looks like it is going to be a long road for us and him.
if he won't straighten it for us, maybe he will do it for a girl. ;)
yes. you read right. botox.
okay. okay. before you think that i have defected to the dark side of nipping and tucking, let me calm your fears. the botox? yes, it will be used. but here's the kicker…not by me, but by the youngest member of our family. let me explain.
we noticed quite a while ago that the wee man has a head tilt. you may have noticed it in the pictures you have seen here. and you may have thought it was cute, or charismatic, or just Linc posing for the camera. in the beginning, that's what we thought too. but as time went on, it just wasn't right. it's called congenital muscular torticollis. basically his little head was cramped too long in my belly and the muscle just didn't work right from the beginning.
we started to research it, visit a doc, and start stretching techniques in attempts to lengthen and strengthen the muscle in his neck. after a few months of little improvement, we were referred to a physical therapist for more aggressive treatment.
so now we're on this road with him. trying to make it better. and exploring all the alternatives. today i was presented with some scenarios. the most surprising one to me…as you might have guessed…botox. to say the least, i was a bit shocked when i heard that word from the PT. when i think of botox, the first thing that comes to mind is joan rivers gone bad. i'm firmly opposed to plastic surgery stuff. but that's for another day.
so the good news is that Linc won't be trying to get rid of those wrinkles anytime soon but rather trying to loosen that muscle and help his little head straighten up.
bottom line. he's still a cutie any way his head goes!