I'm That Parent

I have multitasking down to a science. I got double the dose of the organizing (some might say anal) gene then most people in this world. I am charitable and loyal and determined. I am a lot of great and noteworthy things. But of all the wonderful character traits that I've cultivated in the 32 years I've been alive, patience is not one of them. This trait is missing. Absent. Nearly unheard of in my world.

Sweet Oliver's neck was jacked up when he was born ( by c-section) and was only able to turn his head to the right. Since he only looked one way, his neck muscles and back muscles were pretty underdeveloped and started causing him some serious issues at around three months. At that point, his problems began to steamroll -- because he only looked one way his head shape was distorted and he needed a helmet, he couldn't play on his tummy because he couldn't lift up his head, he only minimally used the right side of his body because it was literally out-of-sight-out-of-mind, etc.

Mentally he was right on target, so it was frustrating for him to see things he wanted and not be able to even roll over to get them. This might make me a total loser, but it was disheartening for me to see other kids younger than him crawling over top of my beautiful boy while he just laid there in one spot watching them. Until about a month ago, I had to lay him in the grocery cart because I couldn't put him in the sitting seat. He had to eat from his Bumbo instead of a real highchair. I had to hold him in the sitting position so he could play with big boy toys. When I was unavailable to help him he would just holler in frustration.

And, let's be honest, he had no way to fend himself from the Abster! He was literally living and breathing at her mercy.

I was aggressive in getting him first, second, and third opinions. I drilled the therapists on techniques and did tons of research on alternative therapies. I NEVER left their office without assigning myself homework.

I know I drove them crazy. I drove Oliver crazy. I drove myself crazy. I even drove Jeremy crazy over the phone fussing about it.

I'm embarrassed to admit that I think I have learned much more than Oliver has over these past seven months. I've learned that we all do things at our own pace and the only person we have control over is ourselves. Sometimes the best thing we can do as parents is to back off and let our kids figure things out on their own. I wanted to swoop in and rescue him at the first sign of distress or discomfort. My final therapist taught me the best lesson of all: you aren't progressing if you aren't struggling.

We have now been able to drop two of his therapy appointments and he just has one therapy session every Wed for 1.5 hours. It looks like his helmet will be on a few more months than we anticipated, but his head is already looking fantastic. He can now sit up on his own for 30 seconds at a time and he has just started attempting a pretty good crawl this week. He obviously can't pull himself up yet, but we'll (I mean he'll - old habits die hard) get there eventually.

In the picture I took yesterday (below), Oliver is 10.5 months old. And dare I say that a sitting Oliver is seriously gush worthy....

Check out his sweet moves. Notice he still favors the left side of his body more. We're still working on it. Ignore my dog checking out his sweet moves. That dog thinks she needs to be in every video :(