Day 5 Road Trip: It's Time For Lounging at the Pool!

Okay, I'm back and I want to thank everyone for their comments, thoughts and prayers for Ben. I am always touched by the comments people leave and I hope Ben's story has encouraged at least one teenager to wear a seatbelt and understand that curfews are put in place for a reason. I continue to be forever thankful that Ben is still with us and I am slowly beginning to control my need to hug him, for which he is grateful. I want to thank everyone who has sent cards and I want to thank Wendy Eckwielen and her family for providing us with a fantastic meal! We love all of you!

I know many of you are wondering about the rest of the road trip so it's time to get back to writing. On day 5 we decided to relax by the pool, in fact, for the remainder of our trip we did a lot of relaxing by the pool. Sam was up bright and early and in the pool by 7:30 a.m. He didn't leave the pool until after 1:30, took a rest and then returned again later. In case you haven't guessed Sam loves the water.

And what a wonderful pool we had. It was big and always seemed to be at the perfect temperature. Not too warm, not too cold....perfectly refreshing.

Sam was definitely in his happy place.

He loves to swim under water with his eyes wide open and see what everything looks like from that perspective.

Sam loved his new toy frog that skipped across the water.

It quickly became evident that Sam loved the ease of mobility he has in water. It's easier to walk, swimming stretches out the tightness in the hip and the weightlessness makes him very, very happy.

I love watching his expressions and how happy he is when he's in water.

He could have spent the entire day blissfully blowing bubbles and watching Danielle and Brooke swim under water. Goggles would be great, but so far the sensory issues have ruled them out so red eyes seemed to be the look for the week.

Now normally seeing Sam float face down in the water would cause most people to panic but Brooke, Danielle and I got used to Sam's favorite pose. I really didn't think he was ever going to come out of the pool. I loved having a pool to ourselves and watching Sam move comfortably.

Sam's absolute favorite time was when anyone would swim with him and then he would happily push your head under water and say "Mmmmm" until you resurfaced. We'll just call that speech therapy.

Danielle and Brooke practiced their breath holding abilities and began to create a synchronized swim routine...which I will share with you in a later post.

Breaks were taken to suntan and catch up on our reading. It was kinda erie how all the books we were reading mentioned areas we had been to during our road trips. I couldn't have planned that.

But what struck me and made me smile was to watch Sam. He was always smiling and he seemed so comfortable, something we don't always see since the onset of Perthes. Of course if he felt you were sunbathing for too long he yelled for you to get back in the pool.

He was truly in his happy place.

And he was not afraid to let it show!

To see him so happy, healed many of the heart aches I felt as he went through his surgery and recovery. He was happy again, he was moving again, he was as close to pain free as Sam can get.

I didn't think we could top this...but Sam still hadn't seen his other love yet...the ocean. We'll save that for Day 6...you won't want to miss his expression and my realization of how painful Perthes can be. We cooked out brats and hot dogs and enjoyed a quiet meal together. I showed Brooke and Danielle one of my favorite websites, www.reecesrainbow.org. After reading about the many special needs children awaiting adoption Brooke was convinced she should adopt them all. The girls then settled in for their favorite road trip custom of watching horror movies, after two bad ones the winner of the evening was "Train". Sam and I departed to bed and Sam was sound asleep within minutes. I stroked his hair and told him how happy I was that he got to enjoy the pool and what a good swimmer he was becoming. He smiled and said in a very soft voice, "Love you Mommy". It doesn't get much better than that. Good night everyone!