Helmet Day

Today was a big day for the Marsh family. Jack went to get his helmet. It is going to be a part of this family for the next 3-5 months, so it was kind of an important meeting! The fit was good. Little man was a champ as always. The doctor came in and out about 3 times each time taking the helmet back to his "workshop" to grind the foam and cut the edges to make it just right for Jack.

All of the details came out. Instructions on how to clean and maintain the helmet, how to break Jack into it gradually, how to watch for redness in certain spots during his one hour of freedom a day. All very educational. Then the heart wrenching stuff came... ( for me anyway).

He will sweat A LOT at first. It is true. His whole little head is soaked when we take it off. That leads to the saddest part of all for me as the momma....the smell. Of course, with sweat, there will be an odor. It is just part of it, they said. We need to shampoo his hair and also use the shampoo to clean the interior of the helmet each night. There will be stains inside the helmet from his skin pigment. That is normal and I should not try to scrub it way. The smell will be deep in his hair folicles and will not go away until well after we hang the helmet up for good. I can deal with all that ( even though it is tough for me). The hardest part for me is that I now have to give up the little baby Jack smell forever. I am sure that when we are all done with this, he will be a big boy and that precious sweet baby smell will be gone forever....

So that is my sob story. Little Jack however seems to be much more resilient than me! Just look at that picture! We had decided in advance that we would "celebrate" the day with a new swing for Jack. Daddy got it hung just before Blue tuckered out for the night!

What a BIGDAY!