Evie the Extraordinary and Her Mommy: The Journey As We Go

One year ago, we were already in the hospital with Evie, who was prepped for her big day.  It's not every day that your child goes in for open heart surgery. I felt terrified, excited, anxious, and confident all at the same time.   Terrified because of all the risks of heart surgery. Excited because finally my baby wouldn't be too tired from the 3 holes in her heart to do anything.  Anxious because Evie's life was in someone else's hands. Confident because Evie was already a miracle from God, and He had already shown us that she had things to do in her lifetime!  When Evie was picked up by a nurse and the nurse walked away from us to the OR, she looked over her shoulder at us and my arms felt empty.  The hours of waiting went in segments of phone calls of updates from the nurse. We wandered around the hospital, just waiting for the next call.  The hardest segment was after the call that Evie was on the bypass machine, which essentially meant that her heart ...

Evie loves books. When we say, "Evie, do you want to read a book?" She gives an excited yell in response.  Every night, Daddy reads 3 books to Evie, and she pays attention. Evie's all-time favorite book is Brown Bear, Brown Bear by Eric Carle.  Thank goodness somehow we got 2 copies of this book. One in each room that Evie hangs out in. Our developmental therapist suggested that we make a book with pictures of important family members so that she could learn their names. I thought about making my own and laminating the pages, or buying a ready-made board book and pasting pictures onto the pages, but I didn't like the thought that Evie could rip apart my hard work with little effort, or that the pages might be too flimsy for her to turn. So I found a company that does this, called Pint Size Production s.  They make board books with digital photos, so the result is a picture book of the quality that Evie is used to looking at. Evie is currently being well-ver...