Soccer and Evan

Its soccer season!  Evan surprised us all this season and told us he wanted to skip baseball and try soccer.  And while we know how good he is at baseball, and wish he were playing, we want him to feel free to experiment with different sports and teams and anything that makes him happy.

Speaking of happy, this little boy was pretty happy today on the fields watching his brother play.  

 Evan had an amazing day.  He scored two goals.  He was out there enthusiastic and energetic and dare I say, even a bit aggressive.  If you know Evan, you wouldn't necessarily characterize him as aggressive, yet, there he was lunging and running after the ball, irregardless of the other kids who were bigger!  I was so proud of him.

G is the coach and Justin was out there as a helper.  It was wonderful to see my family enjoying a nice sunny Spring day, getting some exercise and having some fun, carefree.

Things have been a bit intense for Evan at the moment.  Due to some issues he was having with his feet, we brought him back to physical therapy and he had an evaluation.  The therapist found some issues related to his hips and also his ankle muscles.  The combination of these things has put him back into therapy once a week again.  Its disappointing to Evan, who told me, "But, I graduated from here" when I told him we were going back.  Things change, kids grow, new challenges crop up.  This is life.  The physical therapist was confident that Evan will overcome these new challenges, she told me that above all else, Evan is a hard worker and his prognosis is great.

The sheer amount of commitments is what is demanding, aside from physical therapy Evan has weekly speech and occupational therapy.  I try not to let things get too overwhelming, hurrying from school to appointments and such.  I also try and keep things light and the therapists do their best to keep things fun.  Evan is getting older and he understands that not all his friends have therapies like he does.  But, we talk a lot about how differences in people make the world interesting.  How weaknesses make you stronger and appreciative.  Evan really gets this, at his young age, he has such a healthy perspective on his unique self.  It makes me feel so hopeful for him and his future and the wonderful man he is growing up to become.

On the heels of all this comes a big specialist appointment in the city, referred to by our primary care physician.  We are meeting this week with a cranial facial team to have a complete evaluation done on Evan's head/face/pallet structure.  The appointment and its implications has been weighing heavily on my mind lately.     I can't change what is, and can only hope to leave the appointment armed with more useful information than I came in with.