3 Spoons

This is our first Christmas with Maggie and it has been fun initiating her into our traditions and making new ones. Every night we turn out the lights and light our advent wreath and sing “O Come, O Come Emmanuel” and “O Come Divine Messiah”. The kids have loved this but Maggie isn’t a huge fan of the dark (it signals bedtime) so the kids usually say, “Let’s keep one on for Maggie.”

I am grateful for moments like that, when I see our kids acknowledge each other in mercy and bend their preferences to fit a sibling in. I see our kids make extra efforts with Maggie. They stop to visit with her amidst their play, when she is crying they go to her and console her as best as possible until I can pick her up, they offer to get her dressed or watch over her while I sneak in a shower. I love all of my babies but when they care for each other my heart feels as if it is going to burst.

One particular moment happened this last weekend. Maggie had her first meal of cereal. She is 9 months old and has been thriving on nursing but I could see she was interested in food. With encouragement from friends, I put my worries aside and bought some oatmeal cereal.

I had been concerned about her aspirating food, or choking because of her low muscle tone but all signs started pointing towards “go” this last week. She was trying to sit upright on her own, her neck control has been more steady, she has been practicing waving “hi” and interacting really well. All of these have been signs to me that cereal was going to be a good next step for her development.

When I came toward her with that spoon full of food she was shaking with excitement. “Finally, I get to use one of these things!” She happily licked the spoon clean and then refused to give it up. I had to get another spoon just to feed her more and we alternated the rest of the meal, I’d give her a full spoon, she would give me the empty one.

And then the big kids piped up, the kids that I have been trying so desperately to teach about selflessly giving, “I want to buy Maggie a spoon for Christmas!” “Me too, she needs two!” “Me too, I want to give her a spoon.” And so Maggie will be receiving three spoons from her siblings this Christmas.

And so Maggie’s progress continues. Her helmet is continuing to work in shaping her head and the left side of her forehead is starting to even out with her right. Her hands are healing well and we are about to schedule the next surgery for February. The last piece from the neurosurgeon and plastic surgeon was that they are watching her growth and will wait to see if she will need a fronto – orbital advancement (sorry about the autocorrect, I’m over here cracking up at “frontier- orbital advancement”) around the age of two. They would basically move her forehead further out over eyes and put in a temporary plate that would eventually dissolve into sugars.

We are hoping to avoid it and we have taken the route we have in the hopes that we might. We are hoping that her endoscopic surgery and her helmet along with natural growth and plenty of grace will give her the boost she needs to avoid another major skull surgery. It has happened for other kids, and who knows, maybe it will happen for Maggie. I mean honestly, we have a God who has blessed us immensely in Maggie’s healing, friends and family who support us beyond anything we could have ever imagined, well, why not tack on another miracle, Lord?