Final Week of Spica-dom

Our little beanie baby - playing the day away

I can hardly believe it has been three months of spica already! On the other hand it has felt like forever. I can't remember my little girl pre-cast...and I am certain that she doesn't remember life before spica. Can't believe that September is here already! Where has the summer gone? Oh - that's right, Addie and I spent the majority of it in the basement and strolling air conditioned shopping malls. Needless to say I am very happy that Addie's cast will be off soon (or at least we hope it will be!). We are not entirely sure what will happen at our upcoming appointment next Monday...but we are hoping for cast removal and brace fitting all in one day. And if the universe is really cooperating with us, perhaps we will even be able to get a brace that we can take off for short periods to bathe and change her...and we would feel like we won the lottery if she didn't have to wear the brace for too long! I suspect, however, that they will want her in the brace for another 3 months...and I guess that kinda makes sense. Why go through all of this and take the risk that the hips could slip out again?

Her favourite place - in her handy sitt chair surrounded by toys

Her second favourite activity - eating in her handy sitt chair!





Addie has been doing great lately, except for the past few days it seems that she has caught a cold and perhaps (it is so hard to tell!) really begun teething. She fusses when we try to feed her, and is chewing very aggressively, has a runny nose, the sniffles and is just generally a little more cranky than usual...very unlike our happy-go-lucky baby. So, I hope that if it is a cold it goes away fast and that if it is a tooth...it pops through very very soon so we can all resume regular sleep cycles in this house! Thank goodness for her new kermit the frog toy...the ONLY thing that would soothe her last night.

Showing kermie who's the boss!

In other news, we have been using a loaner carseat from the Stollery Children's Hospital here in Edmonton, where Addie had her surgery and we were told way back that once the cast comes off, we will need to return that...so, in anticipation of that, we have purchased a new carseat for her. We were so happy with the Britax Hippo that we purchased the Britax Advocate for her to ride in from now on. It is a convertible carseat that will work both rear and forward facing until she is 65lbs...she has gotten so long during the last three months that we were certain her little infant carrier was no longer going to do, and because it is a bucket seat, it certainly won't fit her if she is going into any kind of brace! So...the carseat arrived today via FedEx and tonight we will see if hubby can get it installed and maybe take her for her first ride in it! We tried it out in a local shop here in town, but ordered it online (much cheaper!)...so we are pretty confident she will fit!

Addie's new ride - in pink, of course!

You would never know she had a cast!

We are hoping she likes it because in just over two weeks we are taking a very long road trip with her to Park City, Utah for a little r and r for the whole family! If she doesn't like this carseat...that is going to be one LONG car trip!

We are almost there little girl, one more week and those legs will be movin'!

Adjusting to the Hippo Car Seat

Much happier in her Britax Hippo car seat

Well, I am happy to report that the days of loathing her Britax Hippo car seat are gone. Addison has become more and more accustomed to the car seat to the point where she now enjoys great naps in it on longer journeys (yay!). In hindsight I realize that it was probably her incisions that bothered her in those early days, not the car seat!

We found that tethering toys to her car seat helps her pass the time happily

One unfortunate thing about the Hippo car seat is that it does not have any place to attach car toys to...so we have used teething rings to tether toys to the Hippo seat for Addie to play with during car rides. We also bring along a few stuffed toys for her to play with in her seat and have installed a mirror that allows both her to look at herself (something that always brings a smile to her little face) and also allows us to keep an eye on her in the backseat!

We have had to customize the seat to allow Addie to fit. We have padded the back with memory foam and added a head rest for her to make it a little more snuggly.

The seat was loaned to us by the Stollery Children's Hospital, where Addison had her closed reduction, and it seems to me that it is meant for a larger child as we have had to pad the back of it with memory foam in order to position Addie far enough forward to sit properly in this car seat. We are very thankful to the hospital for loaning it to us, because we had no idea what we were going to do for a carseat for the duration of her spica-dom!

Playing away with her tethered toys

On particularly long car-rides one of us will sit in the back of the car with her as she has a tendency to lose her toys and get bored. With mom or dad beside her, she generally plays for a little while and then is able to easily fall asleep in the car seat (which is great news for her mom and dad who are no longer arriving at destinations with a tired and cranky baby!).

Now that we are 7 weeks into the spica cast and have a date set for follow up with her surgeon in mid-September...I am beginning to wonder what the next evolution of car seat will be? I am pretty sure she won't fit in her bucket seat we bought to use with her as a newborn...or maybe she will? I have heard lots of stories about babies who are quite sore following cast removal which makes me wonder if I will need a bigger car seat...and then there is the brace that she will be placed in following the cast removal which will keep her just as splayed out as in the cast. It might be time to start investigating new car seats!