Bella and the Beach

Before Bella was born, Jeff and I had a plan that our children were going to join our life and all the things we loved in it! Although we were somewhat naive about how our schedule would not budge and our children would simply fall in without protest, we have done our darndest to stick to it. Bella was born on June 18th and was on the beach at Bonnet Shores within a week of us bringing her home. She was such a good, calm baby that she actually did fall right into our long, lazy days at the beach. But don't worry, Zackary has snapped us back into reality!

Little did we know that being a docile, calm baby would later fit as a symptom of Retts Syndrome.

But I digress...from those first days up to yesterday, the beach has been Bella's favorite place. She absolutely loves being there. Whether it's the warm salt air or calming ocean noise, the beach does something magical to Bella.

It never seems to fail, as soon as we pull into the parking lot and unbuckle her out of her car seat, it's an instant smile. Yesterday we actually set a record and got out of the house at 9:30 and set our toes in the sand shortly after 10am! I kid you not, Bella left the beach after 5pm!

As I have previously written about, we have seen precious moments of progress with Bella, which has given us all such hope. While only on her medication for three weeks the progress we have seen is remarkable to us. Of course the hazard with this is me expecting the medication to be like some kind of magical light switch that when flipped will have my Bella walking miles and quoting Shakespeare. It is once again a lesson for me in patience and taking one day at a time....because, it just doesn't work that way. I have felt a slow down in the progress over the last few days, Bella was quiet again, perhaps if only from my somewhat warped perspective. And of course my nerves went into overdrive...was this it? Will the medicine not work? Fear set in and grabbed me around the neck.

But then, yesterday, with the sun shining so bright, Miss Bella surprised me once again...while sitting with Poppi, her bum on the beach chair and legs dangling onto the sand, Bella started kicking the sand up with her feet! Now I know it may be hard to understand the "hugeness" of that simple move...but for us to see that from Bella, it nearly made me cry.

And she didn't stop there...Bella has always had a hard time biting and chewing food and would instead put a much too large piece of food in her mouth. This was another warning sign to me that she just couldn't master that skill. So I have been paranoid with not giving her whole crackers, pieces of bread etc. One of Bella's favorite snacks are Veggie sticks...I have given them to her in pieces as she was not able to eat the whole stick properly without the risk of choking. Well yesterday, right before my eyes, Bella took a whole veggie stick, bit it into a bite size and continued until it was gone!!! I nearly passed out with happiness. I truly can't and wish I could explain what seeing that is like. And then to top it off, she took the veggie stick, snapped it in half and put ONE of the pieces in her mouth. Forget fireworks, that was the sight to see for me this Fourth of July.

And once again, I am reminded that it's the little things, the almost unnoticeable things, that matter most in this life, not just with our Bella, but with everything around us. Thank you Bella, for that gift, among the countless others you give me daily.