handsful

Home from her appt. with Dr. Glassman…Payton loves having his picture taken with the little one. 

Lainey had her appointment with the surgeon today, so he could see her fistula and tell us “the plan”.  He looked in her mouth and saw the small fistula smack in the middle of her palate.  He was not terribly surprised to see it for two reasons, (1) her repair was “tight”, as he told us right after surgery and, (2) most surgeons would have done her palate in two seperate surgeries, but we tried to get the whole thing repaired in just one (we all decided this), so a fistula is a chance you take. 

The good news…he thinks it will shrink up SOME on it’s own, he does NOT think it will get bigger, and she does NOT need a seperate surgery to correct it.  Whew!!  He said it can wait to be repaired until she has her nose and lip revision, which should be around age 4.  We also talked about having her left ear tacked back a bit (it sticks out more than her right) and he said it could also be done at the same time.  Wow, 4 procedures in one surgery.  Now, if I could just share the operating table with her and get a tummy tuck at the same time?  I digress…

He doesn’t think this fistula will adversely affect her speech development, because it is so small.  She has no new restrictions because of it, we can continue trying a straw (with lots of supervision!) and keep using a sippy cup.  He also said we wouldn’t have to deal with no-no’s for this next surgery, since she’ll be old enough to be told to leave her mouth alone…another praise there! 

So, all in all, a great visit.  We were preparing ourselves for another surgery and we’re SO happy to hear that isn’t the case. 

Here are a few swimming pictures from the other day.  Did I mention she has NO fear of the water?? 

That face makes me just melt…

No, Randy isn’t doing this, SHE is.  Everytime he held her out front, she’d dunk her face in, over and over again and come up laughing.  Payton isn’t thrilled about this picture, but he consented to have it in the blog.  Thanks, dude. 

Just the thought of her jumping into the water makes her giddy…sorry, I couldn’t time it right to get a shot her jumping in.  Maybe next time…

 

No longer the youngest kid in the family and loving his role as big brother. 

See the look of pure joy on her face?  For those of you worried that Randy is MAKING her do these things, be assured…she gets BORED when we put her in her floaty and almost immediately asks to be taken out (signs “all done”).  Randy has spoiled her rotten and become her water entertainer.  I’m much more boring laid back in the pool, so I’m not her preferred playmate. 

Two challenges we have with her in the water…she will NOT put her legs down when we try to teach her to float, they stick straight up in the air!  And, we’re having trouble teaching her to CLOSE her mouth when she goes under.  She thinks thats the time to open wide…needless to say, her diapers after swim time fill up fast :) 

Lastly, we have a new member of the family.  Marley decided to spend her birthday money on a new pet…a hermit crab.  We bought her the cage for her birthday, and she bought everything else including Herbie the hermit crab.  She insists it’s a girl (I hear it’s nearly impossible to tell, unless you’re an expert in hermit crabs), so the name confuses me! 

Her shell is very decorative, they come like that! 

A closer look at little Herbie…the pet store said she’s a baby.  Awwww…

 

 

So, what do you think of our new place?  We’re still unpacking boxes (i.e. tweaking things here and there), but we’re thrilled with our new look.  Randy has worked HARD, making lots of changes to an existing WordPress design to make it look just like we wanted.  He always amazes me at how skilled he is in the “computer arts”…and, if he’s not sure of how to do something, he figures it out (or asks his college roomate Alan). 

One new thing you’ll notice is the button at the top called “Community Forum“.  We’re trying our hand at having a place where you can start topics (i.e. ask a question, make a suggestion, share an idea, etc) which others can then see and reply to.  By doing this, a conversation happens among those choosing to join in.  We think it’ll be great . . . as long as LOTS of people are there.  When you click the “Community Forum” button, a new browser window will open for that site, so you can shrink or close it to get back to Handsful.  Check out the post in the Admin section at the bottom, from Randy.  It’ll give more of an idea of what we’re trying to do with the forum.

Now, back to regularly scheduled blogging…

Since we last posted, Lainey had her 2 week post-op check for her cleft palate surgery and all is well!  She’s healing perfectly, no problems there.  She was able to kiss those no-nos goodbye…woo hoo!  She’s still not able to have a sippy cup (dang) yet, and has to wait until her next post-op check at the 5 week mark to see if she gets her swimming privileges back.  Not sure of the delay on that last one, but I guess I’ll trust the surgeon knows what he’s doing.  Here’s our happy “I can bend my arms now” girl getting caught doing something she loves…climbing anything and everything she can find. 

Oops, she sees me…

We had a rather eventful day last Thursday.  We were driving home from Lainey’s appointment, when the big kids called us on Randy’s cell phone.  They’re hysterical, telling Randy it’s raining in the house.  Huh?  We assume they’re exagerating (most kids do) and there must be a leak in the pool bathroom again.  He tells them to get a pot and put it under the leak, when Payton says they’ve run out of pots!  Oh dear…so we race home, walk in the door, and hear it raining in our office.  Water is literally POURING from the roof, around the chandelier, and filling up the glass fixtures which are overflowing and also pouring water on the floor. 

The picture doesn’t do it justice

Remember when we mentioned we were having our roof re-done?  Well, the leak started when a tarp they had laid down flew up during a big rainstorm (yes, it has indeed rained EVERYDAY since they’ve been working on the roof) and water rushed in under it.  After putting more pots, etc. under the office leaks, we walked around and found others…about 7 rooms total had either break-through leaks or water obviously pooling on top of the ceiling and bleeding through.  A water/humidity removal company arrived that night and set up 17 (yes, that many) industrial sized fans in the areas with the most damage, as well as 4 HUGE dehumidifiers to try and dry us out and get the moisture out.  Have you ever tried to sleep with the sound of helicopter blades whirring beside your ear?  Of course you haven’t, and I hadn’t either until that first night with those fans.  I mean they are LOUD.  I had to wear ear plugs!  As of today, they’re still here but we were promised yesterday that they’ll be here today to take them out, our air/walls are showing acceptable amounts of humidity now.  Whew.  Next, we’ll have carpet cleaners come and take out the water stains, and then the painters will come and repaint those areas that need it.  I took a picture of Lainey with the fan in her room, and a shot of Marley beside one of the dehumidifier “beasts”. 

Not exactly a gentle breeze!

Our floor is a tangle of about a gillion cords…loving that. 

So, that’s been our excitement of late!  But, we’re seeing the light…the roof should (ha) be done today, the fans will be packed up and out’a here, and we can get back to normal.  Well, our normal. 

We did have a nice Father’s Day with Randy on Sunday…he spent a lot of it messing around with this new website, but he loves that kind of stuff.  He got a bunch of “Pop” goodies…Pop-Tarts, popsicles, Corn pops…get it?  And, I made him a collage picture of the kids at Shutterfly.  Here he is with his crew of 5. 

Glad to be back!  Now, I can finally catch up on all of the blogs I read! 

No real “theme” for this post, just tid bits on what we’ve been up to. Since Lainey can’t get in the pool, we ran the sprinklers for the kids to enjoy. She wasn’t quite sure what it was, kinda just stood there and let the water spray her face. Abbey and Marley tried to show her the “ropes” of sprinkler fun!

Lainey has a new best friend…a white tiger. She swiped him from Abbey’s huge stuffed animal collection and there’s no sign she’s giving him back anytime soon. Tiger HAS to be there at nap/bedtime, HAS to ride with us in the truck (though, she’s fine to let him nap when we get where we’re going), and she HAS to hold him when I hold her.

A few pics I took while we all hung out in the driveway yesterday…

It can’t be summer without?some time sitting in the grass, doing hand rhymes.

Good defense, Payton!? Yes, that’s a big dumpster in our driveway. We’re having a new roof installed.? It’s been miserably dry here for weeks and weeks, hardly any rain to speak of. So, what did it do today?

Torrential rain, buckets and buckets. It rained for literally hours, with lots and lots of wind (see the roofers broom that blew off the roof and into the pool?). Randy saw them trying to put a tarp down and the wind nearly carried one of the men off…yikes. Funny thing is, when we got the roof job scheduled, Randy said THAT was when the rain would come. The roofers might not have appreciated it, but I know our grass did.

Tomorrow is our last day of regular school, and I promised the kids a trip to TCBY (yum). Thursday, Lainey has her 2-week post-op appt with the surgeon and we’re really hoping that she can take off those no-nos. I guess we’ll fine out then :)

the blue laundry basket!

I got some comments/questions about the picture of Lainey in the blue laundry basket, asking did I REALLY have it long enough to have pics of all my kids in it. So, I went looking through my albums and here ya’ go. Forgive the photos, this was before the age of digital (how did we ever survive?)

Here’s Abbey, my 12 year old, enjoying some playtime in the basket? It took years for her to grow into those cheeks.

And, here is Payton, Marley and Ethan (l to r) all squeezed in together! Payton looks concerned, Marley looks content, and Ethan looks like he’s thinking of something naughty to do.

I’d love to know exactly how many baby clothes have passed through this basket…so far! :)

Who me??

We’re never sure which one we’re gonna get these days! I know I mentioned in an earlier post that Lainey has been a little edgier than normal. Well, it’s still true. I have to imagine that her little self is getting a wee bit tired of all these restrictions on her freedom…the poor girl can’t bend her arms, swim in the pool, or play with spoons (she loves dishes…). But, the hardest thing for her has been the loss of control over her food.

She has to totally depend on us to feed her, which means she can’t choose which thing she’s eating first, how fast she’s eating it, etc. She gets REALLY frustrated with us. If the syringe with milk is heading toward her mouth, but she wanted the sweet potato? You’ll get the “Lainey show” of crying, combined with throwing the head back in frustration! And, to make things even more interesting, she might throw a fuss about NOT wanting something and then when we push it away she lurches towards it like she’s DYING for it?!?! Oh, it’s fun, don’t you all with you were here??

She LOVES sunglasses…

The good news is we’re on Day 8 and she only has a week more of her no-no’s…that is, as long as the surgeon okays it on her 2 week follow-up on 6/12. We’ve been told we can now give her full-fledged baths (we’d been standing her in the tub, washing her from the neck down, and then lying her on the sink counter to wash her hair. Big pain!). She’ll love that she gets bath privileges back! She still can’t swim in our pool until the surgeon approves it on the 12th. We’ve cut back on her pain meds, and she seems just fine. And, her sleep is much better, taking naps and sleeping through the night most of the time. Whew.

Randy and Lainey, surgery-day afternoon

We’re (finally) home. Our surgeon has a habit of late discharges, but we were hopeful…nope. We finally left a little after 8pm, and that was only after we told the nurse that we didn’t need to see him and would be fine with her getting the discharge instructions by phone from him. He agreed. We felt fine with this, having spoken at length with the cleft palate clinic coordinator the day before, and she filled us in on all the feeding instructions, etc.

Surgery day…tired mom, miserable Lainey

Let me back up a bit and catch you up :) Last night, Randy stayed at the hospital with Lainey while I drove back home to stay with the girls (they had stayed at the house together all day, while the boys were still at their friend’s house). I have to tell you what my big girls did. I walked in the door and they were grinning from ear to ear. They walked me around the house, showing me all the work they’d done that day. They did dishes, made beds, folded clothes, washed counters, made sweet “we missed you” signs, etc. I hadn’t told them to do any of it! They said that they knew I’d be tired when I got home and wanted to take care of it all for me. I absolutely cried with joy and hugged them like crazy!!

I drove back to the hospital this morning. I was thrilled to hear that she was taking more liquids by mouth, her drooling/discharge was WAY better (no more bleeding!), she slept well last night (which means Randy got a few zzz’s, too), and she was acting more like herself. As soon as I walked in, I got a smile from her…way to melt a mom’s heart!

This morning, playing in her bed

We spent the day playing a little in the playroom, pulling her around the halls in a wagon, filling her up (constantly) with clear liquids, and she took a good, long nap from about 1-4.

Today, ready to cruise the halls!

We’d been told by several moms who have been through this surgery with their children that the change from day 1 to day 2 was significant. We’re amazed! She’s doing so well. God truly designed this child to roll with whatever comes to her in life. Everytime we’ve wondered how she’d handle this situation or that event, we end up watching her glide through with grace and courage. We are so blessed by this child and I think we’ve learned more from her than we’ve taught her so far.

I’ll post pics of her homecoming tomorrow! Until then, here are a few more (totally out of order) pics that we wanted to share…

changing her into her hospital gown, she looks at it like “what are you putting ON me??”

Just a little while after she was wheeled into her room

Today is Lainey’s surgery day…we’ll update as soon as we get home on Friday. I can’t help but notice, it was exactly 3 months ago today that we took that LONG trip home from China!

Thanks so much for the prayers, we very much appreciate them!