handsful

Lainey already has a hobby…daddy downhill skiing! (great view of her cleft, eh?)

As of today, Lainey has had all of her in-office doctor visits required before her palate surgery can be scheduled. Here’s the low-down on those visits…

ENT: Lainey has fluid in both ears, and will most likely need tubes placed during the palate surgery. I say most likely because they weren’t able to repeat the tympanogram (first one done during the clinic appt on 3/20) during the ENT visit, so they will do that prior to surgery and if it shows she still needs them, they will place the tubes.

Plastic Surgeon: The surgeon wants to close Lainey’s entire palate in one surgery, if possible. He’ll do that by making incisions on both sides of the cleft, and pulling the muscle flaps over the cleft, closing it. At least, that’s the way I’m understanding it! There will still be a gap between the front of the palate and her clefted gumline. That’s where the dentist comes in…

Dentist: She was a superstar patient for the dentist, allowing them to clean and polish her teeth and get great views of her gumline and teeth. She has 2 teeth on the left side (cleft side) and 4 (all that should be there) on the right. Her 2 year molars aren’t in yet. He’ll do x-rays in 6 months to see what permanent teeth she has, and the timing of her gumline surgery will depend on what he finds. They will, sometime between the age of about 4-10, take bone from her hip and re-build her gumline where the cleft is. So, the dentist doesn’t need to be involved in her palate surgery.

Now, we wait to hear from the surgery coordinator. Our clinic coordinator is sending us a packet of info on what to expect both before, during, and after surgery. Two things I’m anxious about are feeding her for those 3 weeks after surgery AND keeping her hands out of her mouth. She’ll be on various levels of a liquid diet, fed either with a syringe and tube contraption of regular cup (NO sippy cups!). She’ll wear devices on her arms that are referred to as “no-nos” to keep her arms in a straight position. The ones we’ll use can be seen here, www.snugglewraps.com.

Here are a couple more pics :)

Another view of her trick…work those abs, girl!!

We were visited by some mallard ducks the other day.

Look at this adorable bow holder and bows! My ladybug group held a hairbow swap, and Kim sent this…couldn’t believe how many bows there were and she made the holder!

It would go something like this:

Mom: Lainey, mama and dada aren’t feeling well…could you please sit quietly and play with your toys for a bit so we can rest?

Lainey: Yes, mama, rest as long as you need to!

Mom: Oh, thank you darling!

End of dream sequence…

Truthfully, toddlers don’t care if you’re sick. And, it’s been a rough couple of weeks around this household! It all started when we went home to NC. Marley, Ethan, and Abbey were all sick and had trips to the urgent care. The next week, Payton and I were under the weather. Last weekend, Randy joined in and had a whole weekend of feeling absolutely horrible. I decided for a second helping and have been sick this whole week. Ugh. Thankfully, I’m feeling much better today…maybe the plague is leaving??

I’m so glad that Lainey has avoided ALL of this so far, and pray that she stays well. And honestly, she’s been great. The other kids have been great helpers, playing with her when we couldn’t. She’s also started playing more with her toys lately and having fewer breakdowns, which has definitely made this week easier than it could have been. God in his wisdom also saw fit to make sure that Randy and I were NOT sick at the same time.

Here are a few pictures that we managed to take in between feeling cruddy…

Yep, she was.

We start homeschooling early around here.

Hey, I got it RIGHT!!

EJ trains her in unloading the dishwasher (after taking the sharp knives out, of course!)

Two months ago today, we received an amazing gift! In a way, it feels like so much longer than two months…almost like she’s always been here. She’s changed a lot since that day in Hefei!

The other morning, Ethan asked if Lainey was up yet. I told him I was going to get her in a minute. He asked again about a second later and I asked him why he was so anxious. Without blinking, he said “cause she spreads joy”. The big kids rush to see her in the morning, love playing with her during the day, and insist on giving her kisses before nap and bedtime!

A few notes on how she’s doing these days…

* her sleep is consistent, naps and bedtime. She doesn’t fuss at all, just smiles and waves at us from her crib. It wasn’t always like that, so we’re thankful.

* she still eats great, and likes pretty much anything we put on the plate. She loves fruit (mandarin oranges), veggies (carrots, sweet potatoes), pasta, rice, yogurt, etc. We give her daily antibiotic to her in a few spoonfuls of yogurt each night. She gets so excited when she sees it’s medicine time!

* She’s doing well with her signing…more, all done, food/eat, water, milk, shoes, want, ball, night-night, daddy (which she seems to use for both of us), and please

* “umma” and “ma-ma-ma” are still her main vocalizations. She does have a first word that she started using about a week ago. She points to her eye and says “eye”. She can now say “oooh” and “ohh”, but not too often. She will purse her lips together for kisses.

* She can point to her eyes and nose and sometimes mouth. She understands lots of words, too many to list. She’s still not consistent understanding mama and dada, but we work on it a lot.

* She’s been off the bottle totally for more than 2 weeks and is doing perfectly with a sippy cup (no spill-proof valve, though, she can’t suck due to her cleft…so drinking can get messy).

* She’d still prefer him to stay away from her face (we call him the “lick-headed mutt”), but she actively approaches Jack all the time now. His new favorite place is directly under her clip-on chair at the kitchen table…wonder why?

* Remember at first she hated soft things…no blankets, pillows, and she really hated stuffed animals. Loves them all now. Especially her toddler sized pillow (hand-me-down from big sis Marley) and pink flowery blanket.

* Just today, she has started reaching out to us to give us hugs and kisses. Tonight, she was lying on the couch and I had my head right at her head. She grabbed the back of my neck, pulled me close to her face, and gave me a kiss. Does it get better than that?

Happy 2 Months, Lainey.

Monday morning came, and it was time to head back south! We took our time packing up since Lainey had more family to meet. Randy’s dad and Kathy had just arrived back from Hawaii the day before, and were anxious to see Lainey before we had to leave.

I think she looks really proud to have now met all 3 sets of her grandparents!

The kids said one last goodbye to Grant and Katherine…

Our first stop on the way home was for lunch and we had this planned for weeks. Let me explain…as kids, Randy and I both grew up spending our summers at the same lake in NC (though, we didn’t know each other then…) and there was a burger joint in the next town called Melvin’s. It was very popular and had THE best hamburgers…ever. Recently we heard that Melvin’s had actually franchised and amazingly enough, there was now a Melvin’s in Raleigh!

The big worry about something like this is, will it taste JUST as good as it did years ago?? Answer…Yes!!! Lainey approved whole-heartedly.

As did Abbey, Marley, Payton and Ethan!

Now, since Melvin’s was right across from NC State Univ (Randy’s college), we stopped by at the bell tower for a quick picture of the kids.

Next was the JC Raulston Arboretum a few miles from NCSU. Back when the 4 kids were almost 4 and 17 months old, we had professional photos taken of them at this arboretum. We had the idea to take them back and take new pictures of our own, with all 5 of them. We had to find a bench like the original one. That was easy.

This was a little trickier…We had to find a fence with holes at the top. Last time, we held up the kids to the circle openings and had close ups taken of them. We asked the lady at the front desk if they still had this fence (there had been a lot of renovation over the years). She wasn’t sure, but directed us to where they could be if they still had them. We walked and walked (in some drizzly rain, by the way) and had almost given up when I spotted them…”I SEE THEM!!!!”

We were so happy to get these pictures, after talking about trying this for a long time. It was such a lovely place (and the drizzle stopped), so we decided to hang out a little longer and…guess what? Get more pictures…

High-five lil’ sis

So many gorgeous flowers…

These boys love her to pieces…

By this time, we were all a little chilly and Randy’s camera was smokin’ from over-use. So, we loaded up the truck and (do you hear a tune in your head?)…drove home. Lainey pretty much did a repeat of the drive up. Slept for a while, watched a little TV, fussed-cried-whined-fussed for a couple of hours, and then we stopped for dinner. Belly full, she fell asleep and slept the rest of the way.

If you’ve made it this far on this post, you have way too much time on your hands. But, thanks a lot!

Sunday, 4/13. Lainey loved her first Easter egg hunt at Gram and Pa-Paul’s house! They’ve done this for the grandkids for years, and with Lainey, the kid-count is now 11 between just us and Randy’s brother’s family! The kids really look forward to this every year because Gram hides LOTS (I believe the number was around 280?) eggs with money and goodies inside each and every one. After the hunt, we divide up the eggs based on the sticker on them (each child has his/her own sticker) so everyone gets the same number of eggs. The dividing up portion is crazy, with us adults calling out “who’s the red star???” while eggs fly through the air on the way to the right kid. Fun! Here are some pictures from the fun day…

The group shot on the stairs, prior to the hunt. The big kids (4 of them) hide the eggs while the younger ones hunt. Once you turn 12, you’re a hider :)

Marley gives me a quick smile

Gram helps to break the new kid in on the hunting technique

EJ remembered to wear his camo for the hunt

Payton encourages her, as usual

I told you there were a LOT of eggs!

Abbey reads a clue during the scavanger hunt for the big kids (with tag-along little kids)

Gram (Randy’s mom) and Lainey

The dividing part…unfortunately, the camera didn’t catch any eggs flying by.

Next post, Lainey meets more family and we make a couple of stops on our way back home. :)

Lainey had her first road trip this weekend when all 7 of us piled into the truck and headed north to NC. Our families have been very anxious to meet our girl and we managed to see almost everyone during our 2-day stay. Since we did squeeze a lot into those couple of days, I’m going to break it all up into 3 seperate posts.

So, how did Lainey do on her first long (8 hours, to be exact) road trip? I’d love to say she did great, better than we expected. She slept for about an hour (we left around her nap time) and then she watched a Signing Time DVD. After that, it was on and off fussing for a lot of the trip. She kept signing “all done” to us and, when we didn’t take her out of the dreaded car seat, she fussed again. Everytime we stopped for a break or to eat, she perked up immediately and was fine. Thankfully, she slept for the last couple of hours since it was night time.

We are never short of places to stay when we head home, and this time we were welcomed by Randy’s step-sister Kim, her husband John, and their kids Grant, Katherine, Matthew, and Kendall. Our kids had a BLAST playing with their cousins, as usual. Day 1 was spent inside, with lots of family coming by to visit. Here are some pictures…

My parents came by…I love this shot of Lainey with my Dad!

She met Great Nana, my Dad’s mom. She was a little wiggly at this point, but later she hugged right up to her.

Here she is with Randy’s Memaw…she just turned 88 last week.

Here’s a shot of Lainey’s parents… ;)

That night, we ordered take-out and had a great dinner with Kim and John and Randy’s brother Tony and his wife Dee Dee. Our kids (let’s see, with all of our kids, that would number 15!) had pizza and then played while us adults ate.

Next post…Gram’s Annual Easter Egg Hunt (a little late, as planned, but well worth the wait!).

…for leaving me out of the last post!!