It’s 5 pm. I’m making dinner. Music is playing loudly in the background and I can’t help but dance a little. I hear the girls playing upstairs, their laughter echoing through the house. As I stir our dinner, I feel a little tug on my pants. I glance down and see a perfect little face beaming up at me. Beckett scrunches his nose and smiles at me. I laugh and watch him as he crawls away to his high chair and pulls himself up. He looks back at me and smiles again. “Love you bubba.” I turn back to our dinner. And the tears start to fall.
I have moments like this almost daily now. Where the complete normalcy and beauty of the ordinary comes shining through. I love these moments. Moments that remind me just how far we’ve come and what we’ve learned. This week especially has been extremely emotional. On Thursday, it will have been exactly one year since B was diagnosed. One year. I remember so vividly the fear and worry that we were experiencing. And now our lives are so happy and joyful. A year makes such a difference.
Things at home are so perfect. Sure we have our ups and downs but overall life is just so wonderful. The changes that have occured over the past couple months are huge. His picc line was pulled out. No more lipids! We went from twice weekly blood draws to once a week. This has been great since we don’t have the picc line and have to poke Becks each week. We have been going to the doctor every 2-3 weeks instead of weekly. His belly has been staying stable and we introduced fats into his diet. He did great with that so we introduced milk. He hated it at first but once we introduced him to chocolate milk, he’s been doing just fine. We’ve gone from 15 meds down to 10 with a couple more looking like they will disappear soon. We’ve discontinued more than 5 but have added a couple in. It’s fine though because we discontinue heavy meds and add in simple ones like a multivitamin. So many people take multivitamins!!! I’m thrilled that some of his meds are simple ones. He has gone from barely drinking 1-2 ounces of water/apple juice to drinking 25 ounces, 20 of that is milk! Because of this we have cut back how much he gets through his feeding tube. He was getting 17 ounces but now only gets 5-7. We are hoping the feeding tube comes out soon. He eats 3 meals a day and has a couple snacks. He likes pretty much everything!! Just over a month ago I was feeling discouraged because he would barely put anything in his mouth. Our speech therapist was pretty stunned the last few times she came and he had made huge leaps. He went from not being able to sit, to sitting, army crawling, real crawling, pulling up to his knees and now pulls to standing. He is even letting go of the furniture with one hand and has rock solid balance. He is catching up so quickly. I am astonished.
One year ago, we were about to embark on the scariest journey I have ever been on. I kept thinking why us? Why Beckett? But now all I can think is Why NOT us? Why NOT Beckett? Look at how our lives have changed. Everyday is beautiful. Everyday I see the beauty in the ordinary that I never noticed before, at least not with any regularity. I see it in everything we do. I cry tears of joy almost daily thanking my Father in Heaven for his abundant blessings and his wisdom in teaching us a very valuable lesson. A painful one but one that changed my perspective and has made me a better person, wife, and mother.
And so I look forward to future little tugs on my pants, and my heart. Constant reminders of how blessed we are and how wonderful life can be if you’re willing to look for the little, ordinary, perfect moments.
#loveyaBeckett 