Going to the mall just to walk around and window shop.
Going swimming.
Attending parties with friends and family.
The occasional dinner out.
Even something as simple as taking an hour to yourself to go grab coffee with a friend.
When Liam was born with CDH everything changed. It's taken me awhile to realize how much the little things mean and how badly I need them.
No this is not a post to rant and rave but to celebrate the little things. It's taken 2 years and 10 months now to get back some of those little things.
We recently tried taking Liam swimming. We knew he loved water because he never wanted his baths and showers to end but we weren't sure how a pool would go over with our little lamb.
Turns out he LOVES the pool. As of Friday he's been swimming 3 times. We only have two issues:
1) Liam has no fear!!
2) Liam's stoma isn't too fond of the chlorine water. He's good for about an hour and a half at max before his stoma gets seriously angry red and starts bleeding. After this we spend the whole day trying to keep him from pulling out his tube. Neosporin helps. This is an issue that I will be bringing up to his pediatrician and his GI at the next visits.
Besides those issues, Liam is a guppy when he hits water. His natural instinct when he hits water and his feet don't immediately touch bottom is to kick his legs! I am very very happy about that.
At the pool at our gym there is a kiddy side where the deepth ranges from a few inches to 2 feet. There's also a frog slide. Liam climbs up the slide on his own then slides down into my waiting arms. I let his body get halfway submerged and even then his legs just kick as fast as he can.
I figure this is really great excersize to strengthen his weak little legs. Since we started taking him to swim he has slowly tanned. He's not dark by all means but a shade or two darker than ghostly pale. It's a bit strange seeing some color on his for in the past he's never been allowed outside long enough to tan due to allergies or he was always stuck in a hospital room.
Was our pediatrician right when he said he thinks this is our year? That things would be different from here on out? (This was said in December)
Honestly? I believe so.
He's eating.
He's active.
He doesn't get sick often.
We can truely enjoy him being a little boy now with much less worrying about what could happen.
The following pictures were taken Thursday (his second trip to the pool). I hope that in these, even though they we're taken at a distance, that you can see how much fun he was having and how much joy it brought me to watch him.
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