Workin' on those abs!

That would be Lynsey, not me (if she does get a six-pack it will most certainly be the result of hard work and not because of any genes that we have passed down to her).

Ever since her leg started feeling better, she has started doing crunchies when she's lying down - a lot. She had started doing this sometimes before her leg got broken, but she was obviously not able to do that while she was in her harness. It seems she is making up for lost muscle-building time now - we can hardly get her to lay flat in the bathtub! She still hasn't rolled over, but we are working on that with her - I don't think it will be long.

The cereal experiment seems to be a success - with the exception of one night, she has gone 8 - 9 hours between night feedings since we started. I'm giving it to her in the mornings now as well, although she doesn't seem as crazy about it in the mornings as she does in the evenings. I put her in her highchair for the first time yesterday and she looked so funny in it - still a bit small! I discovered the shoulder straps this morning and it worked a lot better. She also tried out her new Exersaucer yesterday, since the surgeon told us it was now okay to start putting weight on her leg. He says that now we just let nature take it's course to straighten out her leg. Apparently she will have a bit of inequality in leg length for a little while, but he says it will not affect her walking or any other development at all. Of course when I hear leg length inequality I think she's be walking lop-sided, but apparently 60% of people have uneven leg lengths and they don't even know it. He did say though that she would only have this inequality "for a little while" so I'm taking that to mean that it will even out over time. I guess we'll see. In any case, she is thrilled to have mobility back and is working away at strengthening her muscles. Our biggest challenge now is figuring out a sleep schedule for her. She sleeps long at night, but now I would like it if she would have somewhat regular naptimes. One step at a time I guess!

My sweet baby is almost better!

Lynsey's leg is getting stronger every day! When the harness first came off, her leg still wouldn't move much, but every day that leg moves more and more so we are very encouraged. We are still making sure we don't put any weight on it, but I'm thinking it won't be long and we'll be able to get her jumping in her jolly jumper again:). I am so thankful that she has healed so quickly! We can put her on her tummy again so she can work on her upper body strength. She still not doing pushups, but she is holding her head up for quite a long time so we think it won't be long and she'll roll over for the first time. I know that her being in the harness has set her back in that department temporarily, but I'm sure she'll catch up in no time. She had her four month immunizations today and they had to poke her in her bad leg, and she did so well! She cried, of course, but not for that long - after about 20 minutes she was back to her normal self and I didn't even have to give her any Tylenol!

On Sunday night we gave her rice cereal for the first time! Saturday night was a bit frustrating because she got up at 12:30am and needed to eat. I tried for half an hour to just soothe her instead of feeding her, but she just cried until I fed her. My thinking is that she is old enough now that she shouldn't NEED to eat every three hours at night, so I decided to give her some rice cereal. She did really well actually! She swallowed a lot more than I thought she would - still pushed a lot out, but swallowed as well. Yesterday she did even better so I'm anticipating tonight to be even better. She slept 7 - 8 hours both Sunday and Monday night, so that's encouraging. We'll have to see over a longer stretch if this is actually helping her sleep longer since she is so inconsistent with her nights anyway.

On the whole she is becoming a happier baby all the time! She's getting so cuddly - I swear she tries to hug and kiss me sometimes:). It's gotten to the point now where if she is really whiny, it is almost always because she hasn't slept enough and while we are still struggling with getting her onto a good sleeping pattern during the day, at least we know what is wrong! She plays with toys a lot more and I can't WAIT until her leg is strong enough so she can get back into her jolly jumper and try out her new Exersaucer!

"Look Mom no harness!"

Well as you can see, we had a great visit to the surgeon this morning:). The x-ray showed that there was a lot of new growth around the break and it had already straightened a lot from last week, but I never thought he would tell us she was ready to get rid of the harness! I was so excited! The first thing we did with her when she came home was give her a bath. She's been a bit of a mood-swinger today - she seems to be happy that she can kick again (although her left leg is still not kicking the way her right one is) but she's been a bit whiny for the most part. She did have a giggly moment earlier that I managed to capture on video for a change (attached at the bottom of the blog). Another positive thing to report is that for the last 4 nights she's been sleeping better again - at least 6 and a half hour stretches. That has been a great relief!

Let the healing begin

Well we had another visit with the orthopedic surgeon today. Based on the x-ray, he thinks she should be out of her harness in two weeks. The bones had moved a bit more from last week, but they are still within the range where they will heal straight, and there was some healing on this x-ray. I didn't see it until he pointed it out, but there was a bit of new growth connecting the broken bones so that's a good thing. He said she should be moving her leg really soon, so I will be on the lookout for that. We are still supposed to keep her out of the carseat as much as possible, so that means another week of being cooped up at home, but he said that next week it shouldn't be as sensitive so we can take her out again. I have been able to go for walks with her (thank goodness for Calgary weather! +10 again today!) so that has been a life saver. I really just want her out of that thing! On the bright side, she had a two and a half hour nap today! Totally unheard of. Good naps are great, but I must say I am not happy with the new trend she's started at night. She used to be a great night sleeper, quite regularly giving us 6 to 7 hour stretches - even 8 to 9 on occasion - and sleeping until 9:30 most days. She has been waking up a lot more at night to eat and sometimes she's not even hungry - she just wants me to pick her up. And she's waking up at 7:30 often, which is fine if she slept all night but because she's getting up so much I'm just exhausted. I am hoping this is only a phase she is going through. If it's not one thing with her it's another I guess! Overall, she is doing well and so am I - I just want her to do everything well all at once!

Our Little Trooper!

So Lynsey has been getting better every day. We actually stopped giving her Tylenol yesterday and she's doing really well. Basically now when she cries, it's just for the normal reasons and not because of the pain. We went back to the hospital on Wednesday morning to get her checked out and she's healing well they said. In just over two weeks, they'll take the pelvic harness off and we'll just have to "handle with care" for a while. Needless to say we will be really relieved when that thing comes off! It's quite awkward holding and cuddling her, although we are starting to get used to it. She's not quite as sensitive now which is nice. We found a way to swaddle her so she looks like a little triangle hehe. She's decided that just because she can't move her legs doesn't mean that she can't do new things - she started holding on to some of her toys today! She's been grabbing her blankets for a little while now, but today was the first day she grabbed a toy that was beside her in the playpen. Whether or not it was deliberate we don't know, but we can assume yes:).

A trip to the hospital

We had quite the weekend. It still feels a bit surreal that this all happened, but it's starting to sink it. Friday night, Brian was carrying Lynsey down the stairs when he slipped and fell. I was on the couch ready when I heard this thump and Brian saying "Oh no!" in quite a panicked voice and I remember being very calm and telling him before I even saw her, "She's okay, she's okay". I had no idea whether or not she was okay - maybe I just willed it so much that I believed it. In any case, when I saw her, she was on her back on the landing under a coffee table (which we had meant to move upstairs a long time ago) and she was crying. She wasn't freaking out - I've definitely heard her cry louder, but she was definitely in pain. Somehow I was completely calm - I was assuring Brian that she was fine, that she was probably just scared, but he didn't believe me. We gave her some Tylenol, wrapped her up and she actually closed her eyes and sort of went to sleep. I'm thinking at this point, man we dodged a bullet, she's okay, just scared and tired. She didn't really settle completely as we carried her around, and Brian wanted to unwrap her and check her out just to be safe. As it turns out, it's a good thing we did because she was not moving her left leg - at all. It just hung there, limp - we knew something was not right and off we went to the children's hospital. We got in fairly quickly to see a doctor and he confirmed what we thought, that her left leg (femur)was definitely either partially or completely broken. We went down for x-rays and yes, a clean break. The doctor gave her some kind of drug that would give her amnesia or something (I thought those drugs were only for movies and didn't really exist but apparently they do) and went to work setting her leg. We weren't there for that - I think they thought it would be too stressful for us to see her in that kind of pain. Well, apparently she didn't hardly cry and the doctor was totally amazed. That is our little trooper! He put a splint on her and assured us that an orthopedic surgeon would be checking her out first thing the next morning and discuss our options with us. We got a room for the night (with only one bed unfortunately) but we both stayed with her that night since it was almost 3 by the time we got up there. She actually slept reasonably well that night considering. The next day (Saturday), the surgeon checked her out and told us she would be getting some kind of harness instead of a cast. Apparently for babies younger than 6 months of age this is the best option because it keeps them relatively mobile and since their bones heal so quickly a bit of movement in certain directions doesn't actually hurt the healing process. I don't completely understand it but I trust that they know what they're doing. She was quite miserable after they put her in the harness, even with Tylenol and Codeine. It was really tough to see her be in so much pain. Through out all of this, Brian and I were barely holding it together with hardly any sleep and knowing how much our little sweetie was hurting, but we managed. We just wanted her to feel better. By the evening she was already doing much better. She was getting used to the harness and even had some playtime (smiles were scarce, but she was cooing and at least trying to be happy). The worst was when she would startle herself - I wish she would just learn that it hurts when she tries to move that leg and stop! Brian went home for the night and I stayed - she did a lot better than the night before even. She was starting to get her appetite back which was good - she hardly ate anything at all on Saturday. Nursing her is a bit awkward, but I'm starting to figure it out. Carrying her at all is much more awkward and hard work - we have to sort of hold her in the diaper area because we can't put any weight on her legs obviously, and there are straps in the way. It's going to be a rough few weeks trying to keep her comfortable. They did another x-ray this morning to make sure the bone was still in place and it is, so they sent us home. She had a decent day today. We're learning how to hold her and keep her comfortable, and she slept pretty well during the day (hurray for Tylenol!) and she's had pretty good alert times, too. I just feel sooo much better today - Brian and I both slept this afternoon which was much needed. It was a very stressful weekend. It's starting to sink in that she won't be jumping any time soon, or splashing in the bath, or standing on our laps. I know that she won't know any better, I just feel so sad because she was progressing so well. We're just hoping that she recovers quickly - apparently she could be as good as new in as little as three weeks. Baby bones are so incredibly soft that a major bone like the femur can be okay in such a short time - amazing. When I think of what could have happened . . . I can't even think about it. As much as it sucks that her leg is broken, how easily she could have hit her head on that coffee table or landed on her head or something - we thank God that she is going to be okay. An incident like this definitely puts things in perspective! We go back on Wednesday morning so I'll be writing an update shortly after.

I posted some pre-incident pictures and a few of her today in her harness. She looks like a little frog the poor thing! No clothes for her for a while unfortunately - and no going anywhere except the hospital. Anytime I start feeling sad about it I just think - she is healthy otherwise and will be jumping again in no time. Things could have been so much worse. I am so thankful that she is going to be okay.

Our Jumping Girl

Well like I said at the end of my last post, we drove out to Stettler on Sunday to visit Dave and Mary and meet little Ezra. At last Lynsey looks big compared to someone else! I will now admit that she has grown a lot! We did witness one of the funniest things I've ever seen (and some of you have already read about this on Mary and Dave's blog) - Mary was changing Ezra's diaper and I'll just let the picture do all the talking:). You know as mothers we get cocky sometimes and think, oh it can't happen to me. It SOO can! We had a good laugh anyway.
I posted a video of Lynsey jumping in her jolly jumper - she is starting to really like it! She also enjoyed her bath for the first time in a long time - she is starting to realize that when she moves her legs she can make things happen and she was just kicking away, splashing water everywhere. I know now what people were talking about when they said she would become a lot more fun soon:).