POTD: August 29, 2007

POTD

Corn!

POTD: August 23, 2007

OK!

It's Savannah's favorite new word. Anytime you ask her something it's how she replies.

It's also a very enthusiastic OK. "OK!"

Weekend Party

We went to a birthday party for our neighbor's two year old this Sunday.

On a side note, before we begin, this neighborhood is lousy with two-year old girls - it's fantastic!

They were brave enough to have a travelling petting zoo in their backyard, followed by cake and punch. Here is the petting zoo action



Savannah is still talking about the two baby chicks she held. It was a big hit with the kids.

Then, we moved on to cake where our story gets a little more interesting.

Look at her face in this picture. She is excited about that cake. I instantly knew the wheels were turning and that it would result in trouble.

Happy Birthday Olivia! here is your cake. At this moment, I believe Savannah was thinking something along the lines of "It's so close, and there no one close enough to stop me"

"If I just put one finger in there, surely no one will notice. "

This picture is actually after the first time she stuck her finger in the cake, but gives you a good idea of what happened.

And then look what she started. So, so cute.

Who could ever be mad at that face?

The End.

Last Few from the Dallas Weekend

Here is Savannah at a block party with my parents. I was working and showed up later.

POTD: August 17, 2007

From Friday

POTD: August 18, 2007

Savannah and Daddy watching the Cowboys preseason game.

Does she look like she's in mid-season form or what?

Hip Update & Explanation

Hip update with explanation.......

As everyone always says, "So what's the deal with her hips again?" here is an explanation. I know, I know, you didn't come here to learn, but bear with me.

Savannah has bilateral, congenital, hip dysplasia. At the checkup in the hospital right after they are born, the pediatrician does a check of the baby's hips by flexing them in their sockets. When our ped did the check up, Savannah's right hip clunked out of the socket. It didn't hurt her, but was a problem we needed to get checked out by an orthopedic doctor.

We had an ultrasound performed on her at 5 weeks (lots of times kids have them done earlier) and it was found that Savannah's hip 'ball' was too shallow in it's socket. At she grew this would have meant that the hip socket wouldn't have developed normally (it would have been flat, instead of a nice round circle). She would have had some trouble walking and doing fun kid stuff like running and jumping and eventually would have had pain and a double hip replacement sometime in her 40's. Yikes!

So we had her put in a Pavlik harness which correctly positioned her legs and hips for optimal growing. She responded beautifully to the harness (almost 90% of kids do) and was out of it in six weeks. There are lots of angles and ratios of the hip relative to the socket involved - I won't bore you with that part.

Why did Savannah have this problem? Well, she had pretty much every risk factor there is. Hip Dysplasia typically affect girls (I think it's like 1 in 300 live births v. 1 in 1200 for boys), the first born child, breech babies (which Savannah wasn't), large babies (Savannah was 22 inches at birth) and children with a family history of hip problems. Gaga B had undiagnosed hip dysplasia and had a hip replacement some time in her 40's. It also mostly affects Caucasian and Asian kids, with a high skewing of towards kids of Irish, English and Scottish descent. Basically, the poor kid didn't stand a chance.

Savannah's last checkup went pretty well, but there were a few things the doctor wanted to monitor. Savannah has asymmetrical thigh creases, which can be nothing, but can mean that her hips are out of alignment. I have been obsessing over these thigh folds for the last six months.

At this point, if things weren't progressing correctly, we would have been looking at surgery and Savannah in a body cast (from right below her ribcage to the tips of her toes for FOUR months) and I wasn't really sure how any of us were going to deal with that, so I was nervous.

I also was really missing our ortho doctor in Seattle. He was so wonderful and was so good at explaining things and reassuring us. He was also spectacular with Savannah. Our new doctor is very nice, but I had a high bar set and felt like he didn't really 'know' us. He is really a very nice man.

We showed up for our appointment and the staff was WONDERFUL! The X-Ray tech let Savannah push the buttons to turn on the machine and made shadow puppets and then gave her TWO stickers when they were done. There was some crying involved, but not much.

Then we waited for the X-Rays. It was a very nerve-wracking 10 minutes waiting for them to be ready.

The PA popped in and put them up on the computer and said that they couldn't look more fabulous, but she had to have the surgeon come in and double check them. She jiggled Savannah's (and Frank the Frog's) legs around to make sure there wasn't any clicking.

We were all very proud of Frank - he was really brave and was an excellent role model for Savannah.

The doctor came in and also said everything looked great. The word 'perfect' was bandied about and he told us not to come back for two more years! That should be her final checkup with regard to her hips.

It was one of the best days ever, so we went for ice cream.

More from Dallas

First carousel ride - we had to go three times as she had so much fun.

From the Dallas Weekend

Here are a few snaps from our weekedn in Dallas. Starting with our little water bug. She LOVED the pool. I wasn't sure she would as she is a cautious little thing, but we had to drag her out.

More to come.

Perfect Hips! Perfect Hips!

More detail later, but Savannah now has perfect hips and there will be no need for surgery!

Woooooo!

On the road again

I'll be in Dallas until Monday.

See you all then!

A few more

from the Ga-ga's camera.

And....

I finally made it to the end of Harry Potter last night! So good. I stayed up late to finish it up.

I'm sad to see the book end, but hope that someday Savannah will want to read the series and I can bring Harry back into my life.

I also am so happy that I didn't get spoiled about the ending (which I will write about no more as Conor has yet to read the book). I had to run away from any news report on the book.

Pictures of Ga-Ga Week, Part II

Pictures of Ga-Ga Week

So.....

Conor and I had a wonderful evening out for dinner and a night at a lovely hotel last night courtesy of Austin and Bridget (It was our Christmas present).



It was my first full night away from Savannah, which was a little weird. She survived just fine, of course. Although it made me very sad that she cried "mama! mama!" when I left.



Anyhoo, we were at dinner at this place: http://restaurantjezebel.com/ and it was amazing. Good food, we had a wonderful seat right by the window, nice service......and then the protesters showed up.



Apparently, the animal rights people have been targeting restaurants around Austin that serve foie gras because the way it's made is kind of inhumane. There is force feeding of geese involved.


Although I'm sure the owners were mortified, this gave us a great topic for dinner discussion - what do you feel passionate enough about to go protest? I love animals, but I also love steak.


All I can say is that I'm glad I didn't order the veal, which I almost did. I had the Sea Bass - amazing! Plus I had Creme Brulee and an awesome Merlot - Jekel Vineyards. Yum.


I didn't get a picture, but there was this one girl that was totally the uninterested protester. See how this guy is holding his sign up high? She was holding hers in one hand and kept looking at her feet and leaning against the parking meter. I told Conor that she looked like she was regretting the shoes she wore. Then we laughed, because, if you're going to protest, then you should at least wear comfortable shoes. Even I know that.


Thanks for a great night out Gaga's Austin and Bridget!!!!