Hello,
outside world... I know you still exist, even though I've been a hermit in my
house for weeks and weeks. Caleb is still officially in his
"isolation" period, which means he can't go anywhere besides the
occasional visit to grandparents' houses (in order to keep our sanity).
The isolation period lasts for 3 months after transplant, which means
only a couple weeks left of being hermits and then we can emerge... kind of.
He still won't be able to be around crowds until flu season is over, but
at least we can go to a friend's house, and hopefully at least make an
appearance at church even though he can't go to his class with all the germbags
other kids. We’ve mostly enjoyed these
weeks at home. Now that it’s Christmas
time and we have a tree up, the house feels so festive. The boys love it, and I can’t believe how
little Caleb knows about Christmas. It
makes sense; last year he was in a hospital and the year before he was still a
baby. It’s like he’s experiencing
Christmas, like everything else in his life, for the first time. When we got out our stockings, he didn’t know
what they were. It’s a lot of fun to
watch him get excited about every little detail of this season. You can’t help but smile and get enthusiastic
right alongside him.
Despite
our status as hermits, today we actually had our first outing as a family of
five. Our doctor gave us permission to
attend the annual Christmas party for all Riley heart transplant recipients and
their families. Maybe to YOU a
transplant Christmas party sounds like a real downer, but believe me, it was
awesome. And we were all SO excited to
go! We got to see so many friends and
just being in a room with 100 other people who live in the same world we live
in felt really comfortable. I wish it would have lasted much
longer. Here’s a picture of Caleb and
one of his transplant buddies, Logan.
Don’t they look alike? They’re only
a couple months apart in age. Logan got
his new heart in 2012 and we have become friends with his awesome parents. When there was a group picture of all the
transplant kiddos, Caleb and Logan sat in front and held hands. Observe:
You
probably notice right away that both of these gorgeous boys have surprisingly
bushy eyebrows. It’s from the steroids
they have to take to help suppress their immune systems, it causes hair growth
out the wazoo. I hardly notice Caleb’s
eyebrows, because I’m with him all the time, but when I look at older pictures
of him I can’t believe it! To me, it
makes him all the more adorable. I kiss
him about a hundred times a day and tell him he is the most adorable thing I’ve
ever seen. Of course, Jonah is the other
most adorable thing, and so is this one:
So
back to the transplant party today. One
of my favorite things they did was have each kid come up front and say how long
ago they were transplanted and what their favorite things to do are since
they’ve gotten a new heart. It was
awesome to see kids that had been transplanted this year, all our friends, and
kids that were transplanted 20 years ago and have graduated college. When it was Caleb’s turn, Daniel took him up
on the stage and said, “This is Caleb Kinnaird, he was just transplanted in
September. And Caleb, what’s your
favorite thing to do since you got your new heart” and without missing one
beat, Caleb leaned right into the microphone and said, “Eat”. I absolutely belly-laughed
because Daniel and I had not prepped him for that at all. That was just Caleb’s genuine response. It really didn’t surprise me; Jonah has been
asking him all week what he wants for Christmas and I swear to you, every
single answer he’s ever given has been food.
Candy canes. Pickles. Grapes and apples.
Jonah gets exasperated and tries to explain that Christmas gifts are
supposed to be toys, not food, but I am convinced that Caleb would genuinely be
happy to open up a box of candy canes on Christmas morning. What a good reminder to me about the
importance of being thankful for little blessings, which are really big
blessings.
The
highlight of the experience for Caleb was sitting on Santa’s lap. He has been talking about this for days and
walked right up to him. When asked what
they wanted for Christmas, Jonah said he wanted some bug-catching gear and
Caleb said, of course, candy canes. And
we snapped this cute little family pic.
