Rolling!

Evie has always been a squirmy kid - even before she was born. The first time the doctor tried to find her heartbeat, at 12 weeks, she couldn't find it and sent us back to get an ultrasound. And there was our baby, just doing summersaults, flipping back and forth. She kicked like crazy for a lot of my pregnancy ... and so when she was born and was a feisty little thing, we weren't surprised at all. This is one of things that made getting the cast so hard for us! How would she react to not being able to move a lot?

We quickly found out there was nothing to worry about. Her arms and upper body are still as active as ever, and are becoming more and more coordinated every day. Her feet have come to be affectionately called "helicopter feet" - she just spins them around and around. She even will do sit-ups when she is lying on her back.

Of course, though, the cast does inherently limit quite a bit of her mobility, especially since it goes down to her ankles (well, almost. Her legs seem to have gotten quite a bit longer since getting the cast on). It is hard for us to see other kids her age sitting up, scooting around, crawling - knowing that she would love to be doing those things herself! So when she rolled over yesterday (twice!) I was super excited for her (as you can tell in the video). She is also doing this thing where she sort of lifts her cast up off the ground like she wants to scoot around in it. When she gets the cast off for good, I can't wait to see her take off!

(Side note: It was Wednesday that this video was taken/post was written. On Thursday and Friday, she rolled over no less than 25 times each day. Totally incredible!)

Thankful

I have been feeling really thankful lately. There are so many things that I could list here, but here are a handful that come to mind ...

1. Stevie (my sweet husband). He is constantly loving me & Evie so well. He takes great care of her. The big news in the "Daddy" department is that Ev has started saying da-da-da-dy. It is the greatest thing ever.

2. Reuniting with friends! What a treat it was to have so much time to spend with friends from near and far (Birmingham, Philadelphia, and Romania!). We haven't seen most of these friends since before Ev was born (and Steve & I had yet to meet two of the six kids we saw), so it was just special to get a chance to visit. We are thankful for these friendships that have persisted despite many miles between us and months & years between seeing each other. It was refreshing to have long conversations and spend leisurely time with friends on this trip.

Evie and Brynn are less than a week apart

Zeke in Spring 2008

Three years makes a kid grow up fast! 

Victor & Ava in Spring 2004

Whoops! No pic of Victor! Ava & Tim last week!

Frerichs, Deaton, and McLean kids

3. Traditions. We have spent each Memorial Day since 2007 at the Jersey shore with the McLeans. What a treat it always is to gather and be with our family there. Of course it was a special treat to have Evie there with us (last year we had just found out that we would be having a girl!), but somewhat bittersweet, as ever since we knew she was coming into our family, we imagined her sitting & playing in the sand for hours on this trip. As things turned out, she just loved watching the water and riding in the boat - and being held by grandparents, aunts, uncles, great-grandparents ... probably the best part for her! She had a grand ol' time. We are thankful for family that love her so much!

4. Time flying by. It is hard to believe that it was only a month ago that she was in surgery and got this cast on. In many ways it seems like this is such a normal part of our lives now and it is almost hard to remember what it was like to hold her before (every time I hold another baby it just feels ... weird). But it has gone quickly!  Only 11 days until the new cast gets on, and then somewhere between 2-6 weeks in the new cast (pray with us for less than four weeks!). We are so thankful for the timing of all of this - it is early enough that she isn't miserable at being immobilized, but late enough that she can hold herself up in the cast & be in different positions comfortably. And also that at the end of this, Lord willing, she will be 100% and ready to crawl and walk just like every other kid!

Ahh

We are having such a great time here at the beach. Lots of family here means it is not always me who is holding her. She is quite heavy, so this is a very good thing. Here is Ev with her Aunt Holly, Aunt Jaclyn, and Uncle Tim. They love her so :)

It seems like there is not much to report! (But then I wrote this)

Ev has been in the cast for 3 weeks, one day now. Life with the spica cast has been rather uneventful lately ... good thing because life otherwise has been busy busy.

The last week has been full - over the last nine days we have had: seven family members over for the day, dinner for nine, ten house guests, one graduation party for a friend (at our house), one wedding, one date, one flight to Philadelphia, two nights staying with friends there, two pets for Ev to LOVe, one day reuniting with college friends (six adults and six kids age 7 and under), two breakfast sandwiches from the best food truck on Penn's campus, one drive to the beach, and two grandparents *very* happy to see Evie. We will continue this fun until the end of the week. It is great.

My major (Evie) priorities while we are here at the Jersey shore are two-fold. First is to keep Ev cool and comfortable. The gore-tex liner of the cast is basically like having a raincoat wrapped around her skin. Not fun in the sun. The second priority is to take her to the beach without getting any sand in her cast. I cannot imagine how terribly uncomfortable it would be to have even a grain of sand rubbing between her skin and cast. So I want her to able to see the beach and maybe put her hand in the saltwater ... But not go anywhere near the sand. We will see how that goes :)

You can actually see just about everyone there if you also look in the mirror ...

Oh the fun. Everyone should have one of these in their backyard.

Evie, Tim, and Ava. Ev LOVED Tim and his Greyhound brother Streak.

We are getting ready to relax and enjoy being at the shore this weekend! Yay!

Weekend Fun

We had a fun weekend with one of my dear college friends, Alyssa. We forgot to take many pictures, but here's a shot of us getting ice cream with my sister and her family :)

Booster Seat

The booster seat arrived! And it works :)

The pictures aren't great but my camera was upstairs ... and the one thing about this seat is that you for sure cannot leave a kid unattended in it. At least not my kid - she could tip right over if she tried hard enough.

But she can sit! Her legs sort of hang over the edge, and we put blankets or padding behind her to keep her upright enough & in case she throws her head back against the chair.

And then there is the tray. It is way bigger than I expected. It has long straps that go all the way around her & the chair. But, like the booster, it works (Sort of. You can't put anything heavy on it or anything that could tip & spill). I put cheerios on it today and she tried them for the first time. We actually may use it in the car too, so that there is something most of the way around her to catch toys as they fall.

So glad we have a way to feed her now that doesn't involve one of us holding her!

Diapering

I waited a week (can you believe it's only been a week? I almost don't remember life before the cast!) before doing the diapers post so that I had a chance to figure things out. Diapering with the spica cast is annoying but it is not as bad as I expected it to be.

One thing that helps a ton is that the cast has room to spare in critical places - you can see here that there is tons of space between Evie's belly & the cast. There is also a little extra room in the diaper area, which seems pretty important for successful diapering. I keep wondering how this will all change by the time we are close to the 6-week cast change because I expect that Ev will keep growing like a weed.

Evie normally wears a size 3 diaper, and from what I had read online, it sounded like most everyone has had to go down a size in the spica cast. I haven't found this to be absolutely necessary. I also read a lot about people doing things like lining the edges of the cast (in the diaper area) with pantyliners so that it absorbs any leaks. I can see this being important if the cast fits so tight you can't get a diaper very high in there, but I haven't done this yet.

I'm trying to keep things simple. So I have two different boxes of Poise pads - I think it's important to use incontinence pads because they're made to absorb an adult sized amount of urine, which gives me confidence that they're plenty absorbent for Ev.

Ultimate absorbency for nighttime

Moderate absorbency for daytime

As for the diapers, I use Pampers BabyDry - this is what we've used for a while and they've always done the trick. Size 2 are easiest to get up in the cast (one size too small), but I have been using some size 3 too.

When I change her diaper, I first take out the dirty diaper and wipe her, and let her air out a little while I get the new diaper ready. I take the pad (moderate for daytime, ultimate for nighttime) and tear 3-4 holes down the back of it. This is so that the urine soaks through to the diaper instead of it all staying in the pad, hopefully keeping her a little drier. Then I put the pad in the diaper, more towards the back because as she is lying down, the wetness will move back. I'm not sure about other brands, but the pads fit perfectly inside our diapers. Conveniently, the ultimate pads are almost exactly the same length as the size 2 diapers.

Then I (sometimes) tear off the tabs of the diaper so that they don't bother her. And when I don't tear them, I tuck them inside so they are not touching her skin, which could be uncomfortable.

Tucking the diaper inside the cast right now isn't too hard, so I usually do the front first (and I know it's far enough in when the band of colors along the top of the diaper is right inside her cast) and then just tuck it up the back. Occasionally I turn her over to tuck the diaper in the back of the cast, which makes it easier to get it nice and smooth.

You ca see here that the edge of the cast is lined with wide medical tape. They did this at the hospital and it is just now starting to peel a little. Seems like replacing this once a week is a good idea. I need to do it this weekend.

Also, I don't always put in a pad - if I know she'll just be in the diaper for a short period and won't be sleeping during that time, I use a size 3 diaper without a pad.

Over all of this, I put a big diaper (size 5) just to keep things all in there. It really doesn't serve much of a purpose except that if I'm holding her, the small diaper could very easily be pulled out. So the big diaper keeps everything secure. Also, it's a little protection for while she is airing out between diapers. I pulled this one out too quick a few days ago and ended up with a major pee all over the bed. Gross.

So that's how we diaper. Hope that helps anyone who is about to do this for their son or daughter!