Chicken Legs

Zachary has chicken legs now. Poor guy.

He no longer is wearing the hard, heavy, hot, stinky, awkward, green pants. We went to the doctor on Thursday, October 28. She was very pleased with his healing and said, "Let's get that cast off." We couldn't have agreed more.

I took lotion to help with the itching. I took soft jersey pants and clean socks. I took pain medicine. I took his teddy bear. I took a soft baby blanket.

What did we use? His teddy bear and the blanket.

As the nurse was sawing the cast, Zachary was frightened. He was trying to get away, but he wasn't crying. The nurse said most children cry.

After the nurse removed the front part of his "pants," she described what she wanted to happen when she took him out of the back part of his pants. She said to have a diaper ready to put right on him. Then we would immediately (no lotion, no pants) pick him up and put him right on my hip. She said the lack of support on his hips would make him cry. He didn't cry. Of course not. The nurse was quite surprised and said she'd take twenty of him every day! He was even kicking his legs while he was on my hip.

We will go back to see the doctor in three months.

When we put him in his car seat, he sat the whole way home with his legs spread as far apart as he could. So, I'm sure his hips still wanted to be in that form.

As soon as we got him home we put in him the bathtub. We were glad to finally bathe him. And, we also did it to help with the itchiness. He sure smelled better afterward.

We originally put him in sitting up. That hurt. And it really hurt when he suddenly moved his right leg (mind you, this was the injured leg) backward! It looked so painful. He screamed. I jumped.

So then we tried laying him down in the tub. He hasn’t really been sitting and he hasn’t really been lying down for almost six weeks. Both positions were obviously painful. But, he finally calmed down after a while. And then he finally started enjoying the tub. He even enjoyed kicking and splashing again. That sure made me a happy mama.

We were told by the doctor and by many friends that we shouldn't expect much as far as movement from Zachary for quite a while. Well, of course, Zachary proved everyone wrong again. (Apparently he is not typical in so many ways.) When we got home, within the first hour he was up on his hands and knees at least a couple times. The rest of the evening, he was found up on his hands and knees on occasion.

Zachary was super happy when Mark helped him walk. That made me a happy mama as well.

Friday he could be found standing up to our couches or to the kitchen chairs. I turned and looked one time and he had climbed up on the rocking chair and was rocking back and forth—with a huge smile spread across his face!

Yes, he is definitely moving a lot. I'm surprised and pleased.

However, he is super, ultra, mega grouchy. My hypothesis is that he wants to be doing everything he was doing before the cast and he doesn't have the strength and it HURTS. His joints aren't quite as limber as before, and they hurt. He really has been hard to deal with because he is so frustrated. I hope this grouchy phase doesn't last too long. I miss my happy boy.