No More Sitting on the Side Lines

I feel like for the most part I have accepted the reality of Logan's heart, and I am okay with our reality. We have adjusted our lives as needed, but every once in awhile I feel the "unfairness" of it all. This has happened a few times in the last couple of weeks. One time being when the gym I work at hosted a Triathlon. It was for adults and kids. It was an indoor tri, and I was in charge of the biking segment. It was so fun to see people achieving things they never thought they could. I saw so many people do something for the first time, the kids actually made me tear up as they rushed from the pool, jumped on their bike and pedaled their little hearts out. My first thought was Logan will never be able to do this, but then I thought.... why not. Maybe he will be able to do this, he might not be the fastest, but I will let him try if that is something he wants to do.

Which leads me to the title of my post.... No more sitting on the side lines. Yes, Logan is still young, and there are lots of things he can't do. But I am tired of him having to sit on the side lines because of his heart. Ashlyn is off track right now, and is such a good sport about being okay with being home. We don't go many places because we don't want Logan to get sick, or he is constantly taking naps! But last week the kids asked when we could go swimming again. In one of my moments when I was thinking I was superwoman I decided we could go swimming. So I attempted to take all 3 kids swimming by myself. I usually will leave Logan with his babysitter when we do things like this, but I thought again how unfair it is. He is either at our house or his babysitters house ALL the time. The poor guy is bored and never gets out! So I brought him along. He was in total awe just walking into the rec center. Looking at all the people and things. He got really nervous and made me hold him. When we got to the pool he stared with his mouth open. He was so scared. I couldn't get him off the bench. I didn't push him, and we sat and watched the kids play for a minute. I kept asking if he wanted to go play and he would aggressively shake his head no! After about 15 min. of watching I convinced him to venture to the edge and just splash the water with his feet. Anyway, the whole hour we were there he never dared venture into the water unless I was holding him. I know this is "normal" for kids... water is frightening. But the whole experience left me feeling the "unfairness" of his heart defect. He was more nervous than normal because he NEVER gets out. Then when he finally got wet he turned so blue from the cold I had to wrap him in a towel and try to bring some color back to his lips and limbs. All the while his brother and sister where running around crazy completely oblivious to any kind of discomfort. As we sat by the side of the pool I realized I don't want Logan sitting on the sidelines his whole life. I want him to be able to live and run around crazy with his siblings. Brad and I talk all the time trying to figure out how to make this happen. How do we protect him, but at the same time not make him afraid of everything.  We want him to know his limits, but at the same time we don't want to make him paranoid and scared of trying anything new. When someone has that answer will you please share it with me!

As for now we will keep him in the game as much as possible.
Here he is playing the X-box Kinect- he won't let you think for even a minute he is too young to figure that out. It is a riot watching him jump and mimic what his siblings do.

And the car slippers were a gift from his babysitter... he insisted on wearing them ALL the time when he first got them!  He walks around the house saying "vroom vroom" holding a little match box car almost constantly! 

CHEESE!!  Look how big I am getting!

We took this picture on the 3 year birthday for a little Heart Angel Jake (his blanket is barely showing, but he was displaying it!  That is what you get when you have your 7 year old take the picture).  His mom started an incredible service of giving "Jakey's Blankies" to heart warriors.  Logan LOVES his Jakey Blankie.  To donate to this awesome service visit the button on the side of my blog for Jakey's Blankies.