Last week, Stevie crossed (or maybe ran into) another hurdle.

His feet are bad.
We knew it from the moment he was born.
They were going to be a problem.

Last year he had leg braces but unfortunately, he refused to walk in them.  At that time, we decided getting him to walk was the most important thing, so we put the braces aside and focused on getting him on his feet.  Now that he has been walking confidently for about 11 months, we decided to make his life difficult again and get him into some stretching casts.

I honestly had no idea what they were when the orthopedic doc said he needed them.  The sooner the better, he said, because as he gets older, his feet, leg, hip and muscle development will just get harder to correct.  So here we are:

They look pretty intimidating to me.  He definitely hates wearing them.  When we first put them on, he had a couple good spills.  He has to learn how to balance all over again.  He can’t run and they are really heavy. They will be part of his life for the next 6 months or so.  These are not permanent casts, they actually come off. I guess they are technically “splints”.  But he is supposed to wear them a few hours a day and walk in them and stand in them and just try to be a regular kid in them, which is kind of impossible.  But he’s trying.

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But I also need to give this kid a TON of credit.  Within 30 minutes of wearing them the first day, he definitely impressed me.  He kept signing to take them off, off, off!  But he still walked to the park and tried out the playground.  Along the way, I would help him and encourage him and be his cheerleader.  And then when he got tired, I would pick him up and profusely apologize that he had to do this and tell him I was proud of him for it.  He’s just a little rock star and I’m really amazed at his stamina.  Let’s just hope this fixes the problem the best it possibly can and by this time next year, he will actually have an arch in his foot!!  Fingers crossed.