And now, for something really different...

Liam was born with a clubfoot. This is what it looked like last year, after a few months of casting as an infant and a fairly standard surgical procedure--a "release"--to sever the Achilles tendon and restore up-down flexibility in the foot. All of that was done in India.

This is the foot we took to Shriner's Hospital in Massachusetts. They can work miracles at Shriner's. But we are not a severe case, and so we drive up there once a year, and the doctors come in and bend his foot for ten minutes, then leave and tell us they'll see us next year. It frustrates me. I wonder if they'd put us off if their money came from patients instead of donors; Shriner's does not charge patients--any patients. Perhaps there's a downside to the surgery; I'll have to ask next time they breeze by.

It's reasonably straight when he stands, though the clubfoot is shorter and fatter and wider than the other. His gait is off; he lurches forward in a sort of canter, apparently unsure of his balance when he stands straight. And so, as he's tilted forward all the time, it's nearly impossible for him to walk. He runs. When he runs the clubfoot kicks in toward his other leg, and he's occasionally caught it on the other leg and landed on his front teeth. Which are now all verkachte, framed by lips that have a scar on the right from the time his teeth landed on a marble door jam and split the lip an inch into his cheek. My hope is that the adult teeth come in straight; it's $500 to even talk to an orthodontist.

Liam walked to the bus stop with me this morning and told me that his foot is crooked. Somehow it just struck him lately. "Look," he stops and points down. "See how that one turns in?" A little boy on his bus said to him, "Hey, you have buck teeth!" and now Liam will only smile with his lips clammed shut--a painful, unnatural look for him, born with lips and a grin like Julia Roberts. Only her teeth are straight, or straightened.

I want to straighten that foot and those teeth, and remove that scar on his heel and those compression dents on his ankle. I want to kick the kid with the commentary on the bus, though Liam insists he's a nice boy and they're friends. That reassures me and, simultaneously, makes me fear that Liam's a bully pleaser. I kiss the foot and tell him it's my favorite one--that it has a road map of his life on it, and how magical it is that we can look at his body and it tells us a story, etc. After all, we didn't even meet until he was nearly 8 months old; a person can live a lot of life in 8 months.

I'm calling Shriner's tomorrow; we're coming up early. Enough.