Supporting Davis

Recently a very close friend of my sister's gave birth to her second beautiful son. After a completely normal and relatively uneventful pregnancy Davis James entered the world on July 20, 2011 and was met by two loving parents and one excited big brother. A few days later (and I can only imagine how long these days must have felt to the Kohl's) Davis was diagnosed with Trisomy 21 or Down's Syndrome and the entire course of their lives changed. While Davis is doing fantastic and meeting all his growth milestones he will still have open heart surgery somewhere around the time of turning four months old. I think about him more often than I don't and pray that everything will go smoothly in the coming months. As a parent I cannot even imagine what Stephani and Jared are going through in terms of caring for Davis, worrying about Davis and just being plain scared. I worry when Evans does something pretty normal like throw up so I know that I would be a total wreck if I knew that he was facing open heart surgery. Even from my limited interaction with the Kohls (I mainly get updates through my sister) I know that they are handling the situation dealt to them with strength and grace. Everyone take note, more parents could stand to be like them in the world and Jackson and Davis are two lucky little boys.

The point of this post is that Stephani's sister, Chelsea, has come up with a really neat idea to help raise funds to ensure Davis' medical care is top notch. She has designed the above bracelet which is featured on her Etsy Shop online. The hyperlink should take you to her webpage where you can read more about Davis' story and more about her mission to raise funds. The bracelets are really fun and anyone would enjoy having one. You can choose your own words and it can be anything that is meaningful to you. I wanted to order one that would remind me of Davis so that I could remember to send up some special prayers for him and I also wanted to be reminded about how blessed I am to have my son in my life. My bracelet will be engraved with "evans deaner" on one side and "djk" on the other side. If you are a mother of multiple children you could have all your children's initials put on the bracelet so that they were constantly close to you. I just really like the idea. When Evans was born my mom gave me a sterling necklace with a pearl disk and two silver disks engraved one with an "R" and one with an "E" for Evans. I really liked wearing my two boys initials around my neck and feeling like they were always with me. Then of course I leaned over the carseat one day to get Evans out and my necklace got caught on the seat and broke but that is besides the point!

Check out Chelsea's Store HEREand help support a great cause. 100% of proceeds go to Gigi's Playhouse in Atlanta where Davis will be receiving physical and occupational therapy. You can't pick a better cause and you get an awesome bracelet out of it! I can't wait to see mine when it is done!!