....The Man

When it comes to baseball......
Scottie is THE man! He is so talented. I just can not believe how passionate this kid is about sports. My in-laws and I watch him and wonder if his mannerisms are inherently natural or a learned thing by watching his father and ESPN. When Scott gets up to bat, he does this little wiggle thing....Scottie does the same thing!

I think he may have learned an important lesson this last game. He was upset because as he slid into homebase, he got called out. He was devastated. He sat in the dug out and cried. He tried to be tough and fight back the tears, but he lost control. He was a little embarassed and didn't want the other boys to see him. He just couldn't believe he wasn't called safe.

That same game, a boy around his age, got up to bat. Everyone watched in amazement as this little guy with one arm gave all he had just to swing at the ball. He didn't hit the ball, he didn't even come close, but he sure tried. After the game Scottie's sadness turned into anger. "I should've been safe, that stupid UMP didn't make the right call. He's dumb, he should be fired." We tried to remind him that at least he made it on base, not just once but twice. We tried to remind him that at least he had two opportunities two score and did one of the times. We tried to remind him that sometimes you lose and it's okay. We also reminded him this was a team sport. He just wanted to be angry.

The next day he softened a little. He said to me "Mom, do you remember that boy with one arm who played yesterday?" I replied "I do. Wasn't that amazing?" His response gave great indication that he thought about his whole experience and attitude the day before. He said "He tried his hardest Mom. Every time he swung, it could've been called a ball, but instead he just wanted to hit it and he tried his hardest." My heart felt happy and I gently reminded him "Now you see, not everyone can even make it on the base everytime."

Great lessons can be learned through the smallest experiences.

Oh Me Oh My

Yep, another month...come and gone. And we're still keeping him. And no, you can't buy him...he's not for sale! Lincoln's 7 months old .... His adjusted age is 4 months!

We still have our occupational therapist, vision specialist, and nurse coming every month for check ups. The OT say he's doing really well and everything that is expected of him. The nurse feels the same way. In fact, the last time she came he had gained 10 ounces in less than two weeks and she was SUPER excited about that. The vision specialist feels Lincoln is on track as well. But when we went to the neonatal follow up clinic, the opthamolgist observed that Lincoln definetely had an injury from either the brain bleed, hydrocephalus, infection from the shunt, or the actual pressure. He diagnosed him with Cortical Visual Impairment. Now, how severe is it? We don't know yet. We do know he can see though. The opthamolgist said just the fact that he makes eye contact and tracks things is HUGE. He diagnosed him with having 20/200 vision or worse, which is considered being legally blind. I think we'll know and see the bigger picture when Lincoln can communicate with us what he is seeing. So for now, we'll just keep hoping for the best and trying to teach him the best ways possible to learn to see!

Can't wait to see him running around in these one day!

Overachiever

Scott and I were getting ready to go with his parents to put some flowers on a few family members graves for Memorial Day. I went outside to get the kids in so they could get ready. Here comes Luke up the street on a bike with no training wheels. On a princess bike, nonetheless.

I was SO taken back! I had to blink my eyes and squint multiple times to double check what I thought I was seeing. I giggled to myself in excitement and ran in to tell Scott and get my camcorder. He was pretty proud of himself, as you can tell. I asked Scottie and Savana how he learned and they said "well, he just needed some help up on it, then we told him to pedal and he did!" How amazing!