Skip to main content

Baby steps

Button walked when he was 14 months old. He was this chunky baby, just oozing chub and so we weren't worried when he didn't meet some of his gross motor milestones. He'll walk when he's ready we told ourselves and continued kissing those fat toes.
Well, he needed help to learn to crawl and walk. Physical Therapy was a Godsend and soon he was pulling himself up and cruisin' like a pro. He took his first steps a few days shy of his 15th month, his mouth half open with concentration and trepidation. One, two steps...  little legs pumping up and down until he did that small wobbly almost-run and reached my outstretched arms. We hugged him and cheered, proud faces and relieved glances. 

I remembered every mental inch of that memory this past week when we were encouraging Button to try to walk again. His surgery went well, he came home the same day and basically chilled hard, alternating between couch and bed. We gave him his pain meds, lots of fluids and even more love. When  he looked ready to bear weight, we both held him by each arm, encouraging, goading him to take that first step. He was scared, tired and possibly filled with that undercurrent of masked pain. Walking was the last thing on his mind. His usual rewards didn't interest him and the meds made him all dull and dopey.  As is my wont, I stressed hard about when he would want to walk again. Because he has a high pain tolerance, when he did experience pain, it was downright scary for him. I wanted his first time walking to be relatively plain sailing. But I couldn't figure out how to make that happen - that fine line between keeping him pain free and having him in a semi zombie, unmotivated state. 

Two days post procedure, he woke up looking like himself. Eyes bright and smiley and finally out of that surgery fuzz. Please walk today, I breathed silently. 

And that's what he did. One step, two steps. Mouth half open with exertion - a small grimace of pain not stopping him. Face leaner, legs longer. Unsure of his balance, but certain of his ability he walked towards us.  The same half stumble before he reached my arms. We cried and cheered for him. Prouder than ever before. 

And this is just the beginning.Beautiful, imperfect, gawky steps. Baby steps.





Comments

Popular posts from this blog

20 perfect kernels of popcorn.

Button has always been a picky eater. No.... scratch that. How about super-sensitive-and-guaranteed-to-refuse-any-new-foods. That's a much better description. It's not just an autism thing. Part of it is probably the sensory defensiveness that comes under the autism umbrella and part of is it anxiety about new tastes and textures. I mean - this kid hasn't eaten candy in his entire life!! Could care less about ice cream or pizza! I know, I know - he sounds like an ideal 6 year old who only eats healthy stuff, but man, this is way worse than that. He accepts 6 foods and that's the 6 food choices he's been sticking to for the past 4 years. Its a constant cycle of dosa-pasta-rice-pretzels-chips-fries. So no....not healthy by any means. And his dislike of non preferred foods is so strong, that he will actually gag at us eating a meal. Its that bad! Eating at restaurants means taking his meal along with us and he's that one kid at the party that's eating his ...

Red Light.

Veena swerved her car, narrowly missing the pothole. The tires caught on some ice and her heart stopped. She clenched her jaw and steered hard. Finally, thankfully, the wheels regained traction. Purring on in a straight line, her car approached the traffic signal. Blink. Blink. Blink. And Red light. They would likely fire her today. The new boss didn’t care about her divorce or mortgage problems. If her ex knew, he would probably say she deserved this for dumping him. For a disorienting moment, she wished she could go back. The abuse, the cheating. Anything was better than this crushing despair.  With no real career or romantic prospects, she felt she was drowning. And so for the first time in her 46 years, Veena contemplated suicide. Why not end it all? How badly would it hurt? She was startled out of her reverie by an SUV in the next lane. A favorite tune, long forgotten blared out of the speakers. A young man, thirty at most was in the driver’s seat. With the bluest eyes...

Girls and Boys and all that noise!

In a curious case of reverse gender inequality, someone asked this question recently. Why is it considered acceptable to say “we want a baby girl”, or even “gender doesn’t matter”. If one wants a baby boy, is it still taboo to express that?