Eli's Journey

The question I hear most often, "how is the walking?" I have to tell you that the walking is SLOW. Those of you who read every post know that my optimism had Eli walking by Halloween. I'm pretty sure the likelihood of that is nada. Here are our problems: The folks here think the prosthetics are too big. So, our current "help Eli walk" PT isn't even putting the legs on him. Not good. The prosthetics are held on Eli by that strap around the waist. It does a very poor job of keeping them where they are supposed to stay.  We are meeting a local prostheticist this week. I hope we can figure out some solutions to help Eli master this new skill quickly. I'll add this: He is healthy and happy and that makes my heart leap. Last night at dinner, David was telling Eli, "I'm going to kiss your head." Then, he would come at Eli making smooching noises. Eli said very definitely "No you are not!" With a giant smile and an arm up in defens...

Eli might be ready for WDW!!! The Mouse came to Eli's school for a visit. Look at that giant "I'm not scared of you one bit" smile! Love, Melissa

I don't know what you worry about when you obsess over your kid's future, but I worry about Elijah's eyesight. We've had a lot of conflicting opinions over the years as to how poor his vision is, but for the most part, he seems to see what he wants to see. He recognizes every person, every color, every TV show, every toy. Still, the worry nags at me. Tonight, Eli called out to me in the dark, just a few minutes ago, in fact. Since he was a little wired, we decided to take a nighttime stroll in the backyard. I thought we might see the moon, but she won't appear for another few hours. And here's the first thing Elijah says to me: "Ooooh, stars! Hello, stars! We love you, stars! Clifford loves stars! Ruff ruff!" That was with his glasses off. I took my own glasses off and couldn't see the stars. So his vision was better than mine tonight. And for a final poignant note to the story, I'll add this. Last night about 2:30 a.m., after I got Eli back to...