August 10

Today we learned that some dear friends lost their two year old little boy last night. I cannot even put into words how devastated I am for them. Please pray for our friends Brennan and Janna and all of their family right now.

It definitely puts life into perspective. It makes me want to hug my girls a little more tightly tonight. And it makes me feel silly for all this worry about the shape of my daughter's head.
With that in mind, here is how our physical therapy appointment went today:

Our physical therapist was extremely nice and helpful, and we had a good appointment. She confirmed what I already suspected (based on my internet research): Isla has brachycephaly, a form of plagiocephaly where the head flattens uniformly in the back. The therapist thought she likely developed this condition before she was even born.

The therapist did not think that Isla has torticollis, which is a common cause of flat heads. Isla can move her neck in both directions, though there were some minor concerns with the end range of motion. She can't quite turn her neck all the way to the side in either direction. The therapist sent us home with two stretching exercises to do with her. Other than that, it doesn't sound like there is much physical therapy that they will do with her. We have a follow up appointment next week, and then she will let us know if she thinks Isla will need to continue to come back for therapy.

So that's good news, I guess. It's also bad news....if therapy is not really an option for treatment, then that leaves the helmet as the only other option for treatment. We asked her what she thought Isla's chances of wearing a helmet were. She was hesitant to answer, saying that Isla was really young and there is still time for her head to reshape on its own. But then she said she would give her a "fair/moderate" chance of having to wear a helmet in the future.

One of the symptoms of having a flat head is facial asymmetry. As the flatness causes the skull to reshape, it can also cause facial features to reshape...specifically the eyes, ears, and jaw. In Isla's case, you definitely notice the asymmetry in her jaw. Notice how the right cheek/jaw is fuller and more filled out than the left side.

The therapist noticed her jaw shape and asked about Isla's eating habits. We told her that she is a very slow, sometimes fussy eater. So she called in a speech therapist to come in to make sure that there was not a muscular problem with her jaw.

As soon as I started to feed Isla her bottle, the speech therapist noticed the problem. It was not a jaw/muscle problem. It was a problem with the way she was sucking and breathing while eating. She showed us what we can do to help her learn to feed better, and immediately Isla's feeding improved drastically.

So the visit with the speech therapist was probably the most helpful part of today's visit, even though it had nothing to do with the shape of her head! I just feel dumb that I didn't seek out help sooner. I didn't know that this was a problem that could even be resolved with help!

August 9

I've been reading a lot about plagiocephaly. I'm probably spending way too much time thinking about this, but I like to be well-educated. It's actually been really comforting. There are all kinds of plagio support groups and websites out there. I enjoy reading other people's stories about this process and what to expect. In all of my reading, I learned about the Noggin Nest (the hot pink thing in the picture above). It's basically just a pillow with a hole cut out of it, which helps to take the pressure off the back of the head when babies are on their backs. I found one at our Babies R Us this morning and decided to try it out. All of the reviews I read about it were positive. Everyone kept saying how their baby's head was so flat, but after a few weeks of using this pillow, it was nice and round! I'm not expecting results like that, but if we can at least prevent her head from getting any worse, I will be happy.

I've been stressing out about putting Isla in her carseat or swing or bouncy seat because I don't want to put any unnecessary pressure on her head. But the truth is, she is going to have to be in those things at least a little bit every day. So we're going to try out this pillow with all those things and see what happens.

I'm also going to start using the baby carrier more out in public and even around the house. Anything we can do to get her off her back will hopefully help her head improve naturally without the need for a helmet. It will be easier when she is able to hold her head up and sit up.

If we do end up with a helmet, I found this website tonight. This lady makes hats that cover up the helmet completely! She also sells velcro bows and flowers that you can attach to the helmet. I love that Isla could still wear bows even with a helmet! There are a lot of tacky looking helmets out there, but I can guarantee that Isla's helmet (if she needs one) would be stylish!

We have our first physical therapy appointment in the morning. I'm curious to see what they do with her and what they tell us. Her appointment with the helmet specialist is not until September 7, so we won't know much more about what will happen next until then.

August 8

We are working hard on tummy time around here. The doctor wanted us to get in 20 minutes a day, but I'm trying to get her to do 30 minutes a day. The past couple of days Isla has been doing really well with tummy time. Look how much she is pushing herself up in these pictures! It's like the threat of the helmet was enough to get her to start getting her head up off the ground!

Whenever she lifts her head for a long time, Audrey and I cheer and say, "Hip hip hooray!" Audrey enjoys being Isla's cheerleader for the first few minutes, but then she wants her own turn doing tummy time.
Notice Audrey crying in the background in this one.
Once Isla was finished, Audrey FINALLY got to have her turn. While Isla's tummy time lasted for 10 minutes, Audrey's lasted for about 10 seconds. After all her fussing, she quickly lost interest and was ready for something else.

August 7

Time to record more of Audrey's fun/cute sayings. I really feel like I could write down just about everything she says, but I'll settle with this list for now.

• To baby Isla, "Aw, what a cutie baby!"
• After Isla spit up, "Stop spitting Isla. That not nice!"
• A conversation before lunch-- Audrey: "I want french fries." Me: "We don't have french fries. How about peas?" Audrey: "I want peas. They are kind of like french fries."
• If she wants to emphasize something, she uses the modifiers "really so very" all together. Like when she wanted a snack the other day, she said, "Mommy, I really so very hungry. You really so very hungry too, Mom. We need snack."
• When she is really serious about wanting to eat, she says, "I want something in my mouth." (usually with a big, whiny voice!)
  
• I think she learned this one from Daddy. One morning she said, "Let's watch the news. See what's happening today."
• Audrey: "Mommy, I so proud of you." Me: "Why are you so proud of me?" Audrey: "Well because...you're my mommy!"
• Yesterday she was jumping up and down and said, "I a bunny rabbit." I said, "You are a bunny rabbit??" She said, "No Mom, I just pretending I a bunny rabbit!"
  
• Talking about the goats we saw at the zoo: "Goats not nice. They not my friend. They stinky."
• We have been watching/listening to the Wizard of Oz to get ready for the upcoming Muni Show. Audrey likes to run around the dining room table and sing "Follow the Yellow Brick Road." Occasionally she will stop and roar and say "I the lion. I go see Wizard of Oz and get some courage." Then she runs down the hall to the piano room and comes back saying "I got some courage!"
• To me (or Daniel or one of her stuffed animals): "Aw, I love you so much." This is usually accompanied by a hug.
  
• 

August 5, Part 2

After Isla's appointment, we decided to do something fun. Really, I just wanted to get out of the house. We've spent a lot of time there lately, and I needed to go somewhere. So we packed up and went to the Miller Zoo in Bloomington.

The Miller Zoo is a nice little zoo. I really want to go to St. Louis sometime, as their zoo is huge and free. But the weather in St. Louis was not looking favorable, so we chose Bloomington instead.
I will say that going on outings like these with two little ones is about twice as exhausting as it was with just one! I had a headache before the day began, and it grew as the day went on. But I'm still glad we went, because it beats sitting around at home all day long.

Audrey has been in a phase lately wear EVERYTHING scares her. So I wondered if she would like anything at the zoo, or if she would just be scared of the animals.

She was scared of some of the animals...especially the goats! I thought we made progress back in February, when she was willing to pet the goats at Animal Kingdom. But, she is back to being terrified of going near them now.

However, there were a lot of animals that she was not scared of at all! Her favorites for the day were the pig, reindeer, the alpacas, the bear, the otter (he swims upside down!), and the wallaroos (we called them kangaroos). It was funny, because she was terrified of some of the animals that were in cages or behind glass. But then we got to the wallaroo section, and they weren't caged at all. They were just standing behind this little rail, right there in the open. I was a little scared when we walked in and saw this right next to us.

But Audrey wasn't scared at all! That silly girl was ready to walk up and give them a hug. She kept pulling handfuls of grass and holding her hand out to feed to them.
My favorite photos of the day have nothing to do with animals. We stopped for an ice cream break, and Audrey was eating a popsicle. The light was just right for pictures, so I photographed her popsicle eating!

August 5, Part 1

I have two long topics for yesterday, so I'm splitting this into two parts.

Today, Isla had her two month doctor's appointment. At 9 1/2 weeks, she weighed 10 lbs, 2 oz (33%), and she was 22.5 inches long (67%). She has totally shot up on the growth charts compared to her last visit! Even though I still feel like she should be eating more at each feeding, she is growing and is healthy...so that's what important!

That was the good news from the appointment. The bad news did not come as a surprise to me, but it was still not fun news to hear.

I have been worried about Isla's head shape since she was born. Her head is very flat in the back, and it is kind of crooked and funky in the front and top. It is not a normal head shape. It's normal for newborns to have strange shaped heads, so I was hoping as her head grew, it would grow into a more normal shape. But it hasn't. So, the doctor confirmed my suspicions that this is a problem. Fortunately, it is only a cosmetic problem. The doctor didn't see anything to indicate a problem with brain growth or anything like that. But, it is a cosmetic problem that needs to be fixed or she could really start to look kind of funny. Because the back of her head is so flat, it pushes everything up towards the front and can even start to affect the placement of her ears and the shape of her jaw.

Our first course of treatment will be physical therapy. I don't really know what they will do in physical therapy, but I'm guessing it will involve lots of tummy time exercises to help strengthen her neck muscles and get her off her back. The frustrating thing is that I have been much more conscious about doing tummy time with Isla and watching the amount of time she spends in a carseat or swing than I was with Audrey...probably because her head was flat from the start. I feel like I have been taking great care to do everything we can to prevent a flat head, yet her head is still flat.

I did read that one of the causes of this condition (called plagiocephaly) is restrictive intrauterine positioning. I wonder if this contributed to Isla's flat head. The doctors were so concerned about my small belly and Isla's growth. In the ultrasounds, she was always squashed over to one side. There's no way to know, and it really doesn't matter. I just wonder if her position in the womb may have been part of the cause for her flat head.
Now, here is where the bad news begins. Our doctor (our pediatrician, we haven't seen the specialist yet) thinks there is a pretty good chance that she will need to wear a helmet. I am TERRIFIED of the helmet. Ever since I first learned that helmets were a treatment for this condition, I have been afraid that one of my kids would have to wear a helmet. It is a completely superficial and selfish fear, but it is a fear nonetheless.

When people see a kid in a helmet (myself included), they don't think to themselves, "Aw, what a cute little baby." They may think, "Poor baby, has to wear a helmet." Or maybe even, "what is wrong with that child?" Helmets in our society seem to be associated with mental retardation, even though that is not the case at all when they are used with babies. Regardless, people see the helmet and not the baby. I don't want people to judge my baby or think differently about her just because she has to wear a helmet. I am so afraid of what people will think of her, even though I know it doesn't matter what other people think of her. It still bothers me. A lot.

So, with the helmet, she would have to wear it every day, 23 hours a day for months. Some kids wear helmets for up to 18 months, but I would hope she would not need one for that long. I'm already plotting that we will do most of our public outings and pictures during that one hour when the helmet is off!
I'm probably getting ahead of myself a little bit, as we still do not definitely know if she needs a helmet. We will meet with a specialist who will measure her head and give us an idea of how severe her condition is. Then she will do physical therapy, and they will continue to measure her head and watch for improvement. Sometimes, physical therapy is enough to fix the problem. Oh, how I hope and pray that will be the case for Isla!

If not, wearing a helmet will not be the end of the world. I have a feeling there may be some important life lessons for me to learn about superficiality and judging people by the way they look. But I would really prefer to learn those lessons without having to subject my daughter to months of helmet wearing!

August 4

Similac sent us a free set of these black/white cards for babies in the mail this week. I've read that babies like to look at black/white images, but Audrey never really seemed to be interested when she was a baby.

Isla, on the other hand, seems to be intrigued by the black and white. Even when she is fussy, she will often settle down when you show her one of the cards. I hooked one on to her play gym today, and staring at it kept her happy for quite a while.

And that's the most exciting thing I have to share with you from today!