October 31, part 2

Part Two: Isla is 5 months old!

Wow, five months old! I really can't believe that she has been with us for five months. It seems like just yesterday that we were impatiently waiting for her to be born.
Isla's latest trick is blowing raspberries. She makes a funny high pitched noise while doing it and she gets drool all over herself! But it keeps her entertained for long periods of time. I have a video of this...I will try to upload it sometime.

I really think she is a pretty mellow and happy baby. As long as someone is paying attention to her, she is happy and smiling almost all the time! She is also starting to do better with playing by herself...blowing bubbles, kicking her feet, eating her hands, playing with toys...she can entertain herself for quite a long time. I think that is a skill that is a necessity to learn early when you are the second child!

She is still not rolling over from her back to her tummy. I'm trying not to worry about that too much. I know there is a pretty wide range of acceptable ages for reaching the rolling over milestone. Especially since she had a rough start with her flat head and the subsequent neck muscle problems, I figured she would not roll over right away. She is getting much better with the range of motion in her neck. Still not quite there on the left side, but she has made a ton of progress in the past 4-6 weeks.

And the helmet? Really, it's not a big deal at all. I think we are on Day 11 today. She now wears it 23 hours a day, every day. The first three nights that she slept in it were rough, but the past few nights have been much, much better. She doesn't seem to notice it at all, and honestly, I don't really notice it at all anymore either. I'm surprised by how quickly I got used to seeing her wear it. Now, when we take her helmet off, I feel like she looks funny without it!

October 31, part 1

There is too much going on today! Audrey's third birthday, Isla's five month birthday and Halloween! I'm going to split today into three parts otherwise this might turn into the world's longest blog entry.

Part 1: Audrey is three!

Today, Audrey is three years old. I don't know how she managed to get so big so fast; the past three years have passed so quickly!
She had her three year check up on Friday. She weighed in at 31 pounds (55th percentile) and was 37 inches (39th percentile).

The nurse always asks about their temperment. Is she happy, content, independent, clingy or fussy? My answer: all of the above!! I think it is fairly normal for most kids this age, but Audrey's behavior and emotions are all over the place. Today was a prime example. She woke up super grumpy, but then she was super happy. Then she was grumpy again, and then she was happy again. Over and over again all day long! She is such a drama queen! =)

Some of Audrey's favorite activities right now are singing songs, dancing and drawing. She talks nonstop all day long. I can understand most everything that she says, but other people have a harder time understanding her. I am constantly amazed at the funny and clever things she says. She is also like a sponge...soaking up everything that she hears and then repeating it back to us.

For her birthday today, we took her to Build a Bear. I have always thought of Build a Bear as an expensive, out of our budget kind of place. But if you get the cheapest bear and no clothes, it is really fairly affordable and a fun outing with a preschooler. Audrey loved the whole experience!

October 30

My poor blog has been neglected for the past few days. I'm going to try to get back on track.

Audrey's third birthday party was yesterday! I am the first to admit that I go way overboard on birthday parties. I am also quick to admit that I do it purely for selfish reasons. Yes, I want Audrey to have a fun and memorable party. But I know she could have a fun and memorable party without the theme and decorations and stuff! I just love party planning. If ever I could get a job as an event planner, I would LOVE it!

I do try to pick a theme that I know fits with what Audrey (and soon Isla) would like. Except for the first birthday party, which doesn't matter at all as the kids don't know what is going on. For Audrey's first birthday, we had a Little Miss Birthday themed party. For her second birthday, we had a goldfish themed party. At the time, she loved goldfish (both the real fish and the crackers), so it was a fitting theme for her.

This year, I picked a "Paint the colors of the rainbow" party. Audrey loves to paint and color and draw. So I knew a paint party would be a hit with her. And I have found so many cute rainbow ideas lately, that I thought it would be fun to incorporate them in some way as well. The result--my favorite birthday party so far!

These streamers (directions found here) were my favorite decoration. I wish I would have had time to make more because they were so cute and fun.
We had lots of rainbow colored food...

We had some paint activities for the kids. Face painting was a big hit with all of them, especially Audrey. She had a cupcake on one cheek, a balloon on the other cheek, a spider on one hand, and a rainbow on the other hand.

Paint with water. I don't know if the kids thought this was that much fun, but I liked it because it was not too messy!
And they also got to paint a pumpkin.
A rainbow cake would have been the obvious choice for a cake at this party. But I have not had the best experiences making cakes for Audrey's parties in the past, so this year I decided to stay away from cake. I was going to make rainbow cupcakes, but then I found boxes of Funfetti cake mix on sale at the grocery store and decided to take the easy way out this time!

Each kid did get their own paint pallette with a cupcake, and they could "paint" their cupcake with sprinkles. This idea (found here) was the basis for the whole party!
Audrey had been talking about blowing out her three birthday candles for months. This was a big deal for her...even though she couldn't blow them out!
In the past, opening presents with Audrey hasn't been the most pleasant experience. But this year, she did great. She was super excited about everything she opened (both toys AND clothes), and she thanked everyone who brought her a present.
While saying thanks to Mimi, she ran to give her a hug too!
Overall, I think Audrey and all her friends had fun at the party. Audrey was super excited and happy the whole time...until the party was winding down and we started cutting off the sweets. Then she completely melted down and lost it. I suppose that is to be expected after a busy day with not much napping and lots of sugar!

Isla's one year birthday party theme is already decided...only 7 months until the next party!

October 27

It was Costume Day at Sprouts today. Lindsey and I had the brilliant idea of trying to get all the kids together for a group picture. We only got about 1/4 of the kids together and this was my best shot. Obviously, it was a huge success.

Audrey wore part of her butterfly costume. I wouldn't let her wear her new, special wings because I don't want them to break before Monday. So she had to wear some old dress up wings that we already had. She kept talking all morning about her Halloween costume. She would go up to other kids and say, "See my Halloween costume? Do you like it? I'm a beautiful butterfly!"

I really didn't manage to get any good pictures today. But here is Audrey with her buddies Spiderman and Raggedy Ann (aka Elliot and Anna).

October 26

Here's a little Halloween sneak peek for you. Does she look like a caterpillar? Because she is supposed to be a caterpillar. Hopefully, people will get the idea.

I already had the caterpillar idea started when we got the helmet, so I had to find a way to work the helmet into it. I got this stocking cap at the dollar spot at Target. It would probably look more like a caterpillar if it was red (a la The Very Hungry Caterpillar). But all they had was pink, and I was too cheap and lazy to look for something else! And the pink matches her helmet better. =)

Audrey is going to be a butterfly, but we didn't try on her costume tonight. The kids are wearing their costumes to Sprouts tomorrow, so I had to scramble around today to get everything finished for the girls.

October 25

Here are Isla's official "before the helmet" pictures...even though she has been wearing the helmet for 5 days now!

I think it is hard to get a good view of her flat head in a photograph. It seems so much more noticeable to me in person than it does in photos. So I just took a bunch of pictures from several angles to have a few points of view to compare with at the end.

My biggest fear is that we will go through all of this with the helmet, and nothing will change. Really, that would just be awful.

The orthotist says by the 6 week point we should be able to see a visible difference. So that will be our next set of pictures...we shall see if anything changes by then!

(You can also see the yucky rash she has on her face in these pictures. The doctor is going to prescribe us something to use on it, but she wanted to do some research first. Her normal prescription isn't optimal to use with the helmet.)

October 24

Today was day 4 with the helmet. All seems to be going fairly well. Isla doesn't act like she minds it at all. She was a little on the crabby side today, but I don't think that had anything to do with the helmet. She was the crabbiest during the hour this afternoon that I took it off!

She is still not sleeping in the helmet at night. I think that will start on Wednesday according to the schedule they gave us. She has woken up the past two nights in the middle of the night. Maybe she is just missing the helmet? I do wonder if she will go through helmet withdrawal when we are done with this whole process.

The only bad thing about the helmet is that it is irritating the skin on Isla's face. She already had dry skin/eczema on the sides of her face and forehead that flared up occasionally. But adding the constant contact from the helmet has made it worse. We are going to take her into the doctor in the morning to see if she has any ideas to help it get better. I don't want it to get so bad that she can't wear the helmet. I don't want anything to delay this process and cause her to have to wear the helmet for even longer.