The Journey is Never Over

When you are diagnosed with craniosynostosis you hear the saying "welcome to the other side" or something a long those lines. You hear about the other side of craniosynostosis quite frequently. To me, it implies that after surgery you don't have to worry about craniosynostosis anymore and your child is now okay. Your child is "cured" from craniosynostosis. 

While it is a lot easier to handle being on the other side of craniosynostosis it doesn't mean the journey is over. It doesn't mean that your child will never have to have another surgery. It doesn't mean that you don't have to see doctors and specialist or worry about your child anymore. If anything after the surgery starts a new beginning of things you have to do.

Today my son is 3 months post-op and want to know what we are doing? Well, we are preparing for another surgery. We just got out of an eye doctor appointment and because of the craniosynostosis my sons right eye muscle is weak. The only way to fix that is through surgery. Then later we have an appointment for physical therapy. The craniosynostosis caused a head tilt so we have to go to physical therapy twice a week to try and straighten it out which the eye issue can also be a factor to the head tilt. 

Next week we are done with physical therapy. Well at least for now. They will do a check up in three months to see if he has improved and I need to do exercises with him until he is two. We have only one month left of helmet therapy because his head will be healed and we don't have to worry about him bumping it. No more than usual at least. We see a developmental nurse every couple months just to make sure there are no delays. It is more common that a baby that has no other conditions with his craniosynostosis (like Eli) can have developmental delays. We will be having those until he is three. In a couple months we have to go see the eye doctor again before we schedule his surgery. This time his surgery is going to be a lot less invasive than his skull surgery. It is only a 30 minute procedure and we will go home that day. Still though, its ANOTHER surgery! I feel like this is a never ending process with the craniosynostosis. What next?

I am starting to realize there will always be worry about another surgery. Not only with his newly discovered eye issues but what if another suture closes? It is rare that it happens but not impossible. Also there are many other surgeries we might be faced with. We might have to have holes in his skull closed if they don't close by themselves. We are also keeping track on the other side of his skull to make sure that develops the way it needs to. If it doesn't then we might need a surgery for that. There can also be sinus surgeries and a list of other surgeries that craniosynostosis can be the root cause of.

Now don't let me depress you and your journey. Being on the other side is better! We know without a doubt that we can take on any surgeries needed. We know his brain has room to grow now. The doctors appointments are not so bad, most of it is just keeping him on track. Plus a lot of babies are one and done babies. They have one surgery and never have another issue from their craniosynostosis. I'm just saying there is still a lot you have to do. Don't think that the surgery will magically make your life simple. Don't think that you will never have any other issues from the cranio. Don't think that your time of seeing doctors is over. You have been so strong and brave for your child but it's not over until the fat lady sings. Or at least until you are cleared from all doctors, most importantly your craniofacial surgeon and your neurosurgeon.

I have a lot of issues with letting myself feel frustrated. I built up this dream of the other side of craniosynostosis. One where I will not have to see doctors for this ever again and never have another surgery. I want to let you know, whether it's before or after surgery, it is okay to feel frustrated. It is okay to cry and worry. Its normal to feel like that! Don't hold it in. Talk to whoever you can about your frustrations. If you have other cranio-families you know it's awesome to be able to relate, but your friends and family will understand and let you vent too. You are not alone in this.

With all my frustrations out I want to say  happy 3 month cranioanniversary Eli. I am so proud of you and what you have been through in the first year of life. I am so happy to be your mom and what ever comes our way I know we will handle it. 

Peace and Love, 

DIY Chandlier and Paper Lantern

I wanted to post a quick tutorial on how I made my chandelier from yesterday's post about my girls room. Even though the paper lantern was super easy to make I decided to add that in here to do a tutorial on that also. I spent next to nothing to make both of these and they really make the room pop! Here is what they look like.

We will start with the most difficult one first! The chandelier was a huge pain in the butt! Honestly, I will probably never make another one as long as I live. It was worth the pain in the back and the annoyance of making it through because it made Bridgette's side really pop! Also if you have really super sharp scissors that are thin it makes it 100x easier. I didn't, so it was a pain. Cutting out the cardboard was the most ridiculous part but the rest was easy peasy. Lets start out from the beginning. 

I made a template out of a chandelier silhouette I Googled. All you do is Google "chandelier silhouette clip art" and then go to images. Find the one you like best open it up and then right click it to copy it. After that you open up paint and paste the clip art you choose in it you want to make it a little bigger. I did that by going to print and then clicking on the page set up. 

After that you want to look at the fit to part. I made mine to be 1 page by 2 pages. If you want a really big chandelier you can make it 2 pages by 2 pages or 3 pages by 3 pages. You can also change the orientation of the page if you want it to look a certain way. After you switch around the orientation to the way you want it just go to print preview and you can see how it will print out. Here is a little picture to show you what I did.

After the template is printed out you will want to find what you want to make your chandelier out of. I choose to make mine out of cardboard. Since we still have two in diapers we have a bunch of diaper boxes laying around. I did try to make it out of foam board at first but it was almost impossible to cut and make it look nice. Cardboard is the way to go.

I cut out the chandelier template and taped the two pages together to make a big template. There was the beaded part of the chandelier template the I just cut right out so I just had the base. I opened up the box to make it easier to cut. Then I took tape and taped it to the box. I rolled the tape and taped it behind the template so I could trace around the whole image without having to worry about tape. 

Honestly the cutting part was one of the hardest parts of making it. It was a very dark time for me. I became a person that I didn't want to be when I was cutting out the darn thing. I swore, got moody, and felt exhausted after cutting it out. Okay, okay I might be over exaggerating but really guys it sucked! My wrist and back hurt just thinking about it. Anyways, I cut out two of the templates. After they are completely cut out I then decided to paint them. I took regular ol' craft paint in purple and did one coat on each side. A bonus the craft paint was .99 cents at Meijer and I used it to paint picture frames too! Score! Also I cut one of the templates in half before I painted it. 

I let it dry (on top of my picture frames that I was painting) then painted the other side. You can see the foam chandelier I tried to do. I wanted to make it bigger but trust me foam is not the way to go. Plus it cost $1.00 for the foam from the dollar store and the cardboard was FREE! After the paint is dry I modge-podged purple glitter onto it. I am cheap so I made my own modge-podge out of Elmer's glue and water. Super easy you just take the glue and put it in a bowl then slowly add water to make it thinner and easier to be able to paint. The glitter is amazing! It covered up any mistakes and it makes it look so pretty! 

Glitter gets everywhere! It has been two days since I made this and I am still finding glitter! I took some grocery bags to do the glitter on then I was able to put some of the glitter back into the container and throw the whole bag away. It made it less messy but glitter is, well, glitter. By nature it gets everywhere. After you put glitter on it you have to let it dry completely. I made the mistake of not letting it dry completely and when I went to hot glue it together it was very floppy. I would definitely let it dry for a couple hours if not overnight. The cardboard shouldn't be squishy. 

You hot glue the half pieces to the middle of the big piece like the picture above. I didn't wait for mine to dry completely so I had issues with it standing up right. When it was dry it was able to stand up great. I ran the hot glue down both of the sides where I glued the two pieces together. I immediately put glitter on top of the hot glue to hide it. I also took hot glue and ran it along the edges where you could really see the cardboard then immediately put glitter a long those too. It made it look really nice and you couldn't tell it was cardboard. I hot glued ribbon to the back of the chandelier. If I was smarter while the hot glue was still hot I would have added glitter to that too so I could cover up the ribbon part. Oh well, you live you learn. The ribbon is to hang it by. You can really use any type of ribbon for it. I used a thin black one because it was one I had already for crafts I was doing for Eli's room.

After that you can glue whatever accessories you want to the chandelier. I choose butterflies I got from the dollar store and some pearl looking beads I got from the craft section of Meijer. I think it turned out really nice and went really good with the whole decor of the room. You can really glue on whatever you want for your chandelier though, its great how versatile it is. After it was all ready I decided to let it hang on my daughters door until I was ready to hang it. I did this because I noticed when I laid it down some of the glitter came off and some of the parts started to bend a little bit. I am not sure if the chandelier was still wet (a big probability) or the cardboard I used was too thin. You can also buy a clear spray from a home improvement store to lock in the glitter and it will probably make it harder. Either way it will be hanging up and not laying down so it wasn't a big deal for me. 

Then we got a hook and hung it from the ceiling. All together this project cost me around $3! You could buy them at Walmart for around $19 and I think I found them for not too much online. I think it was like $8 but then you had to pay shipping. It was worth the extra work I had to put into it and I love the way it turned out! Now lets talk about the paper lantern. This will be a super short tutorial because it is super easy. First you buy a paper lantern from the dollar store. I had to look a round at a couple of them to find one. 

After I had the lantern set up all I did was add some daisy's and butterflies to the outside of it with hot glue. When you hang it, it will make it lopsided. So you can take some small marbles or some type of weight and then glue it to the inside on the other side so it hangs straight. After that, all I did was use a fake pearl stranded necklace and put it on the hook to hang it up with. I really liked the look of it and it made it hang a little better. I twisted some of the strands to lock it around the hook.

See easy peasy! All together I am guessing that this costed around $3 too. I am really bad at math but thinking about them I am pretty sure they even cost me less to do.You could make a couple of these and pair it with tissue paper balls (super easy to make) and make a really cool decoration to hang from the ceiling. 

Peace and Love, 

Making the Girls Room Pretty

My husband and I have been working like crazy people over the past week to re-do our girls room. Bridgette and Emelia share a room. There is an age difference between them so we don't know how long we would like them to share a room but for now they are LOVING it. Emelia doesn't sleep half as well when Bridgette is not here and they have a blast together.

Well, Bridgette was on spring break for last week and she went up north to her dads for the whole time. We decided to surprise her and re-do their room. It was hard waiting for Bridgette to come home and see everything. I even had Brad go and get her from her dads because we both know I would blab and tell her about it.

This was the room before. Sorry its kinda not a good pic. We of course forgot to take before pics when we started but thanks to Zillow we were able to find at least one pic from when they put our house for sale.

Our whole house had this bland tan walls. It is gross. We definitely painted as many walls as we could. The only places now that are left in that color are the hallway and our front living room/dining room. We will repaint those soon too. We have been here for a year now and finally had time (and an idea) to do the girls room. I didn't know I loved decorating as much as I did. My back hurts and some things were ridiculously hard to do but in the end it is worth it 100%.

That picture only shows a portion of the room but our after pictures show a lot more. Trust me, you are not missing out by not seeing the rest of the room in that picture. Now I wanted to show you what the room looks like now. We will start with Bridgette's side.

I got most of the things for her side from the dollar store. I cannot say enough how much I absolutely love the dollar store. It is one of my favorite places to be. Without sounding trashy, the dollar store is my Target lol. Well except the "dollar" stores where not everything is not a dollar. Those just make me sad. Seriously, when you use the word dollar in the name and call it a dollar store don't have things that are for $5. That is what 5 Below is for. Anyways, the Hello Kitty wall decals we got from Menards a while ago. The B I also didn't get from the dollar store. I made that myself with a wooden B from Michaels, silver paint, and some ribbon decals. That was the most expensive thing in the room and it was only around $6. The top wall hanging we had from a while ago so we didn't get that from the dollar store and same goes for the chandelier. Speaking of the chandelier....

Yeah, that's right. I hand made this thing! It was an absolute pain in the butt and I will probably NEVER make another one as long as I live but in the end it was so worth it. Especially since Brad told me I wouldn't be able to do it. Excuse me! I am an American woman, we are fantastic with crafts. Or failing at crafts but whatever. Hello, home of Martha Stewart here. In all honesty if he would have never said I couldn't do it, I might have given up on it. I'm stubborn and sometimes that stubbornness pays off. Needless to say my amazing husband was extremely impressed with my crafting skills. If you want to make your very own chandelier and bling out the paper lantern you can find my tutorial by clicking here. 

Now its time for Emelia's side. I kept Emelia's side a little less glamorous and more flowery. I figured the glam side was perfect for a Hello Kitty lovin' 7 year old and the flowery side would be better for a sweet two year old. Here is Emelia's side.

I got the flowers, the pictures, and the paper lantern from the dollar store. For the paper lantern I just hot glued flowers and pink butterflies that I got from the dollar store to it and hung it with pearl beads. Super easy. The E I did the same exact way as I did with the B from Bridgette's side. That was also super easy. The frames I got from Meijer for under $2 a piece. I couldn't even find the frames that cheap at the Salvation Army. They were white and brown so I decided to paint them with purple craft paint. Two of them when the paint was still wet I decided to sprinkle glitter on them and I love the way it turned out! 

My husband found pink and purple valances and I think it really pulled the room together. Bridgette picked out the color of the room and we really love the pink. It is soft and girly and best of all not boring tan! I wanted to do a before/after collage. Just so you guys can see the difference.

It is such a difference between the two! Now its time to see Bridgette's reaction. 

I love this picture. It shows how much in love she is with the room. She was nothing but smiles and giggles. We also got a video. 

I love how excited the girls are. Really just Bridgette is excited and Emelia is copying her but it definitely made us feel good about how much work we put into it. I am really proud of how it looks. Hopefully it will stay as pretty for a while but I guarantee it will be a mess by the end of the day! If you are re-doing a little girls room maybe you can get some inexpensive ideas from what we did. I know we spent less than $100 on the whole room including paint. I think the paint is what cost us the most and that was around $40. The rest I want to say we got for around $30.

Peace and Love, 

The Comparison Game

You never really know how much you do or say something until your children start doing it. Some things are a wake up call immediately, like swearing for instance. The moment your little one utters those horrible words you know that you need to stop. Some things creep on you slowly and they are little things you notice overtime. I never knew how much I compared myself to others before my eldest daughter started to compare herself to others.

At school if her friends won something the first thing she would say is " I didn't win anything, but they did." She compares her hair to her friends and how tall she is. She compares her clothing and the things her friends have and she doesn't. It makes her miserable comparing herself to her friends and classmates. At first I thought it was just her being a kid. Now I realize she is getting that from somewhere and I notice how much I do it now.

I compare my hair to others and wish I had easy to manage hair. I compare my clothing to others and wish I could have an expensive wardrobe. I compare the size and look of my house to other peoples and think what I could do with just a little bit more room. I compare my stomach and legs to others. The fact that I got cursed with stretch marks on my stomach and my legs have horrible varicose veins while other people were lucky that they didn't get that from pregnancy. I compare my business to others and think of how well they are doing and why am I not doing that well? I am friendly enough, and I love what I sell enough? I am knowledgeable enough, why are others making higher ranks faster than I?

I thought that it was good to compare myself to others, because that gives me a goal to strive for. That was until my daughter started to do it. Then I realized that it makes the goal look unachievable. It makes you want to give up quicker because you aren't in the place that others are. Whoever made the quote "comparison is the thief of joy" has it right. When we compare ourselves to others, what we do have seems less. It seems like our life is less than others lives are. It makes us feel sad, not happy. Most of all when we compare ourselves to our friends, it lessens our joy for what is happening in their lives. You want to be happy for them but you can't because of your own jealousy.

I know I will always compare myself to others in one way or another but I want to be happy with what I have. I need to be happy with what I have. I need to be happy with everything that God and my husband has provided me with. There will be down times in my life while others have up times. The thing is those same people will have their down moments too. Everyone succeeds at some things and fails at others. That's the way of life.

I should be happy that I even have hair, because some sadly don't due to illness or a condition. I should be happy that I even have clothing. Some people cannot afford to have as much clothing as I have. My house fits my family perfectly in it. Why do I need a bigger house? So that my family can be farther apart? I have great neighbors and a nice house. The fact that I have stretch marks and varicose veins mean that I was able to give birth. I am able to have three wonderful children of my own. Some people don't get to have that. I am doing well on my business. No I am not at the top, but I am also not at the bottom. Most of all I get to share with others something I love, who needs to make the next rank when you have passion. It is also helping out my family in so many different ways, for that I will always be grateful.

Sometimes it is hard to be appreciative of what we have. It seems like a lot of people have the grass is greener on the other side syndrome. They think if I could make more money I would be happier. If I have a bigger house I will be happier. If I am with this person I will finally be happier. If I take this new job I will finally be happy. Nine times out of ten those things will not make you happy. Sometimes they even make things worse. I can think of another quote that says "the grass is greener where you water it." So why don't we start watering the grass that we own?

I know that I am going to look at what I do have more than what I don't. If not for me, then for my children. I need to lead by example for all of my kids. If I want my kids to act or be a certain way, then I need to be that way. It wont be easy but I know it will be worth it. Being kind, generous, and happy for others is where joy comes from. We can be happy for others and what they have, even if we don't have it. We can feel joy helping others achieve goals that we ourselves want. I want my children to know that. I want my children to have a servants heart. I want myself to have a servants heart. If we spent more times just caring for others instead of wishing we had what they have, this world would be a better place.


Peace and Love,

Finding the Perfect Frosting

Okay, so my son's first birthday is this month. I wanted to try to make his own cake but I know my culinary skills are not up to par, plus I don't have the time. Thanks Kroger for having my back on that one! I do want to make cupcakes though since, well, cupcakes are easy. You make the cupcake (from the box, I am no Betty Crocker) and then you can frost them in a matter of minutes. I think I can handle that. The thing is the frosting that comes in containers...not impressive. The last time I made a butter cream frosting it ended up tasting like sugared butter. Not tasty at all.

So, I have been doing my research and now and there are a couple different things that you can put in a butter cream frosting. I will be testing out multiple different things in my frosting to see which one tastes the best. To me, the best is Meijer like frosting. It is delish! For my first recipe I decided on simple recipe that I kind of made up myself. Don't let that mislead you though, it actually tasted good. Is it perfect? No, but it is tasty. It also did not taste like sugared butter and tears. That's a step in the right direction! Okay so here it is and I will go step by step on how I made it!

Ingredients:

1 cup Crisco shortening
1/2 cup butter (I choose real butter and did a stick)
4 cups powdered sugar
1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract (I choose the real stuff, not imitation)
1/3 cup half and half

It's pretty simple to do it just takes a little bit of time to throw it all together. First I started with the shortening and the butter at room temperature. I put them in a big bowl. 

 I creamed them together. Creamed is a fancy way of saying I blended them together. I started blending them at a lower speed then once they were blended pretty well I did a quicker speed. I blended it for 4 minutes. Yes, I know that is a lot of time but I really think its worth it. 

After that I added the vanilla in. Then I did more blending. You will be doing a lot of blending with this recipe.

After that I started blending in the powdered sugar, I blended it in 1/2 cup at a time. After each 1/2 cup I made sure to blend it in really well. It helps if you can use sifted powdered sugar. I personally didn't sift mine because I'm lazy. Oh and I don't have a sifter. So there's that. 

After all the powdered sugar is well blended you add in the half and half. I added it in a little at a time to make sure it was the consistency I wanted. 

I did end up adding a little bit more vanilla, half and half, and more powdered sugar to taste. I think I did a half cap-full more vanilla. I have no clue how much more half and half or powdered sugar I added. It was not very much though. If you wanted to add a little salt to make it not so sweet you can, I would only do a little bit and add it to the half and half and let it dissolve a little bit.  After it tasted pretty good to my standards I frosted my cupcakes. 

It frosted 24 cupcakes and I still had a cup or two left. I think it is plenty enough to frost a decent sized cake. If you wanted to color it add the food coloring at the very end. I hope you like this recipe. Let me know what you think!!

Peace and Love, 

Scary World We Live In

Have you seen the news lately? It is terrifying the world we live in. A woman cuts a baby from its mothers womb, a mother decapitates her baby, two children's remains were found in their mothers freezer, and very close to my house another store clerk was shot dead in his convenience store. I know bad things happen all the time and they have been happening for quite a while. It just seems like lately things are getting out of control! The children in the freezer and the convenience store owner were both from Michigan and within an hour away from me. The convenience store in which the owner was shot is about 5 minutes away from me. This is the second shooting within the year that we have lived here that was in my city.

I know what a lot of people are saying. The world is a horrible place and the fact that a lot of people don't follow God anymore is the reason. That may be true but I personally know some people who don't believe in God and they are good people with morals. Just because someone doesn't believe in God doesn't make them not have morals. I do wish more people followed Jesus and his teachings but that is their choice to make, not mine. There are people that do bad things who are Christians. I know that people are saying the devil is running rampant. The fact is satan might have a part in this, but these are humans committing these acts. I think satan gets blamed for a lot of things that he only has a small roll in. Yeah, he might be that little voice whispering in the background but the fact is these people made the choice to do these horrible things. They were not being possessed into doing it. It was their choice.

So, because I need a little positivity today I decided to look up 5 people that are doing good around the world. I truly believe for every evil person out there there is at least 5 good people. I want to see the good in the world and believe that this world has an enormous amount of goodness to it. There are very wonderful people out there that are caring, compassionate, and all around good people. So, I hope you can read this when you are getting sad and afraid of this world and it helps to create some positivity for you too. I am an optimist at heart so I really like to see the positives instead of the negatives.

Amazing Person Number 1: Amanda Plunkett

I decided to start with one of my friends that I met through church. I told you about her heartbreaking story in an earlier post in my blog and I feel like she is the type of person you need to read about. If you want to read my blog post about her story please click here. She took her heartbreak over losing her baby and have helped out so many other families. Amanda Plunkett you are such a bright star in this world and I am so happy to know you. She makes care packages for families that have lost their babies. The hospital that she had her son at also now has something called a cuddle cot thanks to her. A cuddle cot is a refrigerated bassinet that allows the parents to keep their baby in their room with them instead of being sent to the morgue. Owens Gift now provides its care packages for numerous hospitals around Michigan. If you want to learn more about Owens Gift please click here.

Amazing Person Number 2: Lee Jong-rak

You might have already heard about this amazing person. There is a documentary that is about him and what he is doing called The Drop Box. Lee Jong-rak is a Pastor in South Korea. He had created something called a baby box after seeing how many orphaned babies are just left on the street to die. A baby box is a metal box to place unwanted babies. Inside of the box has heating lights and a thick towel to cover the bottom to keep the baby comfortable. When a baby is put in the box a bell rings. After the bell rings Pastor Lee, his wife, or another staff member come to move the baby inside. From what I have read about Pastor Lee, he has saved 652 children. He is legal guardian to 19 children, including two of his own. This man has so much love to share and he is another light in this world.

Amazing Person Number 3: Chris Rosati (Also Anna and Cate Cameron)

Chris Rosati suffers from ALS or amytrophic lateral sclerosis but that doesn't stop him from being an all around good person. While eating at a diner in North Carolina, Chris gave two sisters he saw eating $50 a piece and told them to do something kind. The girls names are Cate and Anna and what they did with the money is amazing. The girls sent the money to a village in Sierra Leone to host a feast to celebrate being and remaining Ebola-free. This is just one thing that Rosati has done. In 2014 he caught the attention of Krispy Kreme Donuts by saying he wanted to "steal" a donut truck to hand out free donuts in his hometown. Krispy Kreme sent him a cruiser and he was able to hand out free treats for a day. He also started a nonprofit called Inspire Media which created Big Ideas for the Greater Good or BIGG. What BIGG does is challenges kids to come up with ideas that make a positive impact on the world. Chris does so much good for this world and the fact he is inspiring children to make a positive difference is amazing!

Amazing Person Number 4- Ray Umashankar and his daughter Nita

For this amazing person you get two for the price of one! This daddy-daughter team are changing the lives of women and children that have been affected by the sex trade industry in India. The organization they made is called Achieving Sustainable Social Equality through Technology or ASSET India Foundation. What they do is help educate these women and children by teaching them computer and conversational English skills. They partner with non-profit organizations in India to leverage relationships with the sex-worker community and help these women find jobs. Recently they have made sanitary pads available to girls in India so that they can stay in school! They are doing fantastic things for people that have been through a lot of trauma and have a lot of negativity surrounding them! They are changing these women and children's lives!

Amazing Person Number 5- Alex McKelvey

This amazing person is only 8 years old! In a year Alex performed 600 acts of kindness in honor of her late grandmother after her family performed 60 acts of kindness over the span of a year to celebrate her grandmothers 60th birthday. Some of her acts of kindness have been giving out laundry kits with soap, leaving quarters in candy dispensers, and helping to renovate the Youth Center in Lakewood, Washington by helping paint and collecting donations. These are just a few acts of kindness that she has done. If you want to see all of her acts of kindness her mother documented them on Instagram. Her user name is @actsofflowingkindness and she uses the hashtag #FORLINDA. Alex is just getting started too. She wants to do thousands and even millions acts of kindness. This little girl brings so much hope to future generations and my only hope is that many more kids learn a thing or two from her!


Those are just 5 (okay, a couple more than 5) people that are making a positive difference in this world. There are hundreds, thousands, millions of people doing wonderful things. Some people are doing small things and some are doing large things but each is making a positive impact in this world. There is a quote out there that says "Believe there is good in the world" and some parts of the quote are highlighted to say "Be the good in the world." So, my question to you is what good things are you doing to make this world a better place?


Peace and Love,

11 Months

Today my little man is 11 months old. I cannot believe he is turning a year old next month! I mean, wasn't he just a newborn and now he is almost not an infant anymore. Now he is pulling himself up and causing mayhem. He says ba-ba, ma-ma, and da-da along with a whole bunch of other words. He can wave hi and bye. It seems like just yesterday he was a little 8lb 4oz boy and now he is as big as his two year old sister. Some days it seems like its easier to carry her around than him.

These past 11 months have been absolutely crazy. The joy of having a newborn turned into my baby has to have a major surgery in a couple weeks. That turned into meeting with various doctors and meeting multiple people that made sure he was going on the right track. Instead of just enjoying having our little boy we had to worry about him constantly. I had to worry if he was on track developmentally and then I had to worry about the complications that may come with surgery. I had to worry that we might not be able to celebrate a first year birthday with our little boy.

With all the worrying I did, I forgot to do one thing. Enjoy him. Enjoy his first words. Enjoy his little grins. Enjoy it when he learned how to crawl. Enjoy him saying ma-ma for the first time. Now don't get me wrong I took joy in all of those things but it was different than my other kids. The joy I felt was more of he was meeting his milestones. There was always this worrying that he might be delayed in some way so when he did what he was supposed to I was overjoyed. The thing all the doctors told me was to enjoy him, and I wasn't able to enjoy him in the way I wanted to. Even our craniofacial surgeons nurse (her daughter had craniosynostosis) told us to not worry and just enjoy him. It was just hard to do with constant reminders of what we were going to have to go through.

Now he is 11 months old and the surgery is behind us. There may be surgeries down the road but they wont be anything like what we had to go through. We DO get to celebrate his first birthday and it will be a major celebration. I am thinking over the top, but we will see what my husband thinks of my crazy ideas. I am making it superhero themed because the fact that Eli went through so much in his short life and still is a smiling happy baby makes him a hero. I swear these cranio babies have super powers. They light up rooms and are so strong. Their smiles and giggles are contagious!

I wouldn't give up what we have gone through in the past year. I know it sounds weird but I really wouldn't. We have met amazing people that will always have an impact on our lives. We get to spread the word about this rare condition and be able to talk to others that are going through this. We get to help support and show love to others. We get to brag about how strong our little boy was and what he has overcome. We get to HELP people. It is an amazing feeling to help others. The people we have met through this journey we will always cherish. We have become stronger through this journey and have learned to never take things for granted. Most of all we have learned to TRUST GOD. Sometimes it was hard for me to have faith, but in the end faith was what I needed most.

Just because my son already had his surgery doesn't mean that we don't have to do anything anymore. I have to take him to physical therapy twice a week for torticollis. Next month I have to take him to an ophthalmologist. He has to wear his helmet for another two months so I will have frequent visits with them to do any adjustments. A nurse still comes to our house once a month to track his development. It feels so good not to have to worry about having surgery though. There is now a peace in our household that we didn't have before. On this side of cranio our future looks so much brighter.

I am so happy that God decided to bless Brad and I with Eli. I am even grateful for all the struggles we have had. There are so many wishes I have for Eli and I have so much fun dreaming of his future. I love to dream what he is going to be like and all the great things he will do. Even though I wish this year could have slowed down I am so grateful for it.

I am so grateful for little cuddles and being able to have him fall asleep in my arms. I am so grateful for our little boy and all the mayhem and love that comes with him. 

Peace and Love,