Playing around with my blog design

Please be patient as I futz around here.  I'm debating about how to handle this.  Do I want to pay to completely customize my blog? Do I go back to Blogger since they have better free themes? I don't know.

We'll see how this goes for now.

A week's vacation from the DOC Band

Last Thursday, during Little Man's final adjustment at Cranial Technologies, his clinician said that if the red marks on his forehead don't go away during the hour break for cleaning (the helmet) and bath time, then I should just discontinue use.  Well, that happened. There were major marks on his head and his last day in DOC Band #1 was that night—February 18th.

His second DOC Band won't be in until this Thursday, February 25th, so Little Man is enjoying a week off from his helmet.

I'm sad that he lost a week's growth and I hope the weather forecast of snow holds off until AFTER his appointment on Thursday. I don't want to lose any more time.  Little Man will be nearly 6.5 months old (6 months two weeks) when he gets the second band.  And while I want him to get as much out of it as possible, I hope he'll only be in the helmet through April.  It would be nice for him to graduate before the warm weather.

And by going forward with a 2nd helmet, he'll be wearing one during our vacation for my 40th birthday in April.  While most people have been kind and encouraging, I wonder how he'll be received.  I hope in the same manner.  I guess the decorations help.  I'm not sure how I'm going to decorate this time. I'll probably just get stickers this time, from Michael's (does anyone know of any  other places to get stickers?) and use the Modge Podge to seal.  But I still feel that Coree at BlingYourBand does a great job and I'd buy a second design from her as well.

Not much else to report.  I'm sleep deprived again because I think more teeth are coming. The first two are out and there are 18 more to come. Wish me luck.

Six Months!

It goes by oh so quickly.  There are moments when I forget what it was like to not have Little Man in my life, but then I think about last year at this time and I was only just in my second trimester and still didn't look pregnant and hadn't felt the baby move yet. Then in late March, my gut feeling of "it's a boy" was confirmed and both myself and Dude began to feel Little Man's kicks.  And the hiccups... oh, boy, did he get those all the time.  And, actually, he got the hiccups a LOT the first few months.

The newborn stage is so fleeting.  And my baby was so big—9 lbs at birth—so I didn't really get that tiny newborn that I was afraid of dropping.  I feel somewhat melancholy in part because of the fact that Little Man is an only child.  I won't have this again.  I don't really want to go through the sleep deprivation a second time, to be honest. I don't know if it's age talking—I'll soon be 40!—or something else. But that part was hard to get through and I'm so grateful that Little Man generally will sleep. The nights he doesn't, really sucks.

So half a year later, my darling boy is rolling over, sitting up and reaching out to be held.  While I do miss seeing his sweet keppie, I know his helmet is doing its job in reshaping his head. I can handle two more months for a lifetime of results. Though I DO take it off for photographs. I take one every month using these stickers I bought from Picky Sticky. Here is my happy boy at six months—on Valentine's Day.



He's a big boy, my Little Man.   He weighed 20 lb 12 oz (95th percentile) and was 27-1/2 inches long (80th).  And thanks to the helmet, his head went from the 30th percentile to the 50th! He's happy and healthy (poo-poo) and I look forward to the next six months.

Teething Hell

So on top of the teething, Little Man also has a cold (unless the congestion/coughing is teething related). That meant I was up nearly every hour last night. 10:30 pm. 11:30 pm. 12:30 am. 1 am. (only 1/2 hour then). 2 am (even Dude woke up).

Then he gave me a 2 hour stretch and the 4 am cry only lasted a few seconds and he fell back to sleep. Another cry at 5 am. At 6 am I woke up to go to the bathroom and my DH to get ready for work (earlier than usual due to the snow). Little Man  woke up at 6:30, as usual, because he was hungry.

I'm SUPPOSED to go to Cranial Technologies at 10:30 for his helmet adjustment and digital image scan for helmet #2. I'm barely functional right now—yet online, go figure—and am waiting for him to fall back to sleep (he's signing, a sure sign of impending sleep) so I can shower.

I truly feel for all you mamas who deal with this on a daily basis. I got so spoiled by the STTN. I'm shaky from the lack of sleep.

Getting DOC Band #2

Being the assertive Aries that I am, I have convinced Dude to get Little Man a second helmet to get his head shape closer to the "mean".  He has done amazingly well so far—his cephalic index (measurement of brachycephaly) went from 100% to 92.2% in only six weeks.  The mean is 78%.  I had Cranial Technologies do a 2nd photo study and take measurements last Thursday.  I'm not going to bore you with the other numbers, but I will say that his CVA (cranial vault index) also decreased from 6 mm to 4 mm.  That was the mild plagiocephaly he also has on his left side.

Here are the photos. Pics on the left were taken 3 weeks before he got his DOC Band (on 12/23/09).  Something spooked him, so he was SOBBING and, thus, looks so sad in the second set of photos.

While the financial burden is going to be hard to handle, I know I'm doing the best for Little Man.  Our future may include fantastic jobs and our situation can change. But there is only a short window of time to correct my baby's head shape.

I should try to blog about something else, but getting my son's head reshaped has been my main focus of late.