But I'm trying to look out for the tiny baby steps of progress that are being made.
Ben is 10 days out from having his tonsils removed and still on pain meds, up in the night and eating mostly ice cream. Poor kid, his throat just hurts. He's such a trooper. If he has the meds in his system, he does much better, but he has to be completely off them to go back to school. I hate that he's missing so much school (although I do so enjoy his company!). Fingers crossed he turns a big corner ASAP so he can get back into his normal routine. Tonight when he was praying he thanked God for his surgery so he won't have as many throat infections. Love that kid, he gets it.
Thankfully, the Rainbow Loom craze hit our house right before his surgery. He has literally made dozens of bracelets for himself and the rest of us as he recovers.
There's also been lots of movie watching...
And Wii....
And board games...
And paper airplane-making.
Maggie also is making tiny baby steps of progress. She has been a little more willing to drink from a cup. She also does little things like help us get her arms through her clothes, whereas before she was just floppy. In general she is more present and aware and participates in our life. She doesn't miss a thing and wants to be included in everything we do.
She's also discovered that she loves books:
Despite having no words, that girl communicates her wants and needs, that's for sure. She uses a few signs, and also uses her head and facial expressions to express what she wants to say, along with pointing her finger at things (mostly people-she really can put a person on the spot with her point!). It's pretty remarkable, she shakes and nods her head appropriately all day long. She has even started to "back talk". I'll tell her something like, "No, we don't pull Allie's hair" and she'll point her little finger in my face, say "gah!" really loud with a serious look on her face, and then burst into giggles. Rotten!
I know I'm biased, but I really do think she's a smart little cookie who is going to be just fine.
She's also really working on standing on her own, and is doing it for longer periods. I can tell she wants to take a step so bad. Which of course is so exciting and I can't help but encourage her. But we're also really hoping she holds off on walking until after she has recovered from her surgery. I keep envisioning her toddling around post-surgery and falling on her delicate little face... yikes. Let's wait on walking a big longer, Maggie Fei!
She continues to sleep great at night, not a peep. However, she has decided to shorten her naps to only an hour a day. Whether or not this is enough for her is beside the point; it's not enough for me!! But she's generally content to stay in her bed a while longer if I give her some toys and books. Plus she sleeps like this, which earns her bonus points:
As for her mouth mystery, well, that too remains mostly the same. We did have a glimmer of hope last week when we discovered there's a mouthwash and special applicators we could use to clean out her palate that we were told should help dissolve whatever is in there. At first we were all excited, but then realized just how difficult the task is to get her to let us not only see up in there, but also clean it out. We've gotten a little creative. Note the headlamp. It's definitely more of a 2 (or 3!) man job.
We were told to do this 3 times a day until her surgery. However, I'm not sure it's working. Sometimes it does seem like she smells better and I think maybe it's working, but then it will start smelling terrible again. We got a good look in there today and it's still full of gunk even after using the wash for several days. So who knows. Plus it's really frustrating that it took this long for someone to suggest us trying the mouthwash, but that's another story.
Random funny story: One day Maggie was fussing in her high chair and Jeremy grabbed a giant plastic chip clip off the counter for her to play with while we finished cleaning up the kitchen. Within seconds, she had gotten the spring out of the clip, put the spring in her mouth and the spring curved up and was sticking out her nose. It was quite a sight, in thru the mouth and out thru the nose. Thankfully I was able to quickly thread the spring back through out of her nose and back out her mouth. Quite an adventure! I feel like we're old pros already at dealing with her cleft and it's such a part of our every day norm. In fact, Sam told me he wishes he could have a hole inside his mouth so food could come out his nose!
Our big 3 kids absolutely DOTE on their baby sister. They hug and kiss her all day, help feed her and love to play with her. Everyone says how lucky she is; but man how lucky are we! She is squeezable, kissable yummy-ness!!
We took advantage of the sunshine today and went to the park for a bit.
It was her first time at an American park!
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