My Heart Melts

This morning, Olivia and I took a walk around Coles Crossing Park with a good friend. We had bought a Groupon to Smart Drinks, and needed to use it soon, so Olivia and I headed there after our walk and play time at the park. I ordered a large smoothie and had the guy put some of it in a separate smaller cup for Olivia to have.

The guy and I were looking at a whey protein mix for Ethan, and all of a sudden, Olivia looks up at me from taking a long sip of her smoothie and says, "thank you momma." My heart melted. When she was itty bitty, we always spoke the words "thank you" and "you're welcome" in hopes of one day she would say them when she started talking. Since she started talking, we would always remind her of when to say those nice words and ask her to repeat them. But, she had never said it on her own without any prompting until today!

I have those days that can be oh so demanding and my energy is zapped by 1pm, but all of that is nothing compared to the joy I felt today with Olivia. Just one of those snapshot moments I will always cherish. I love you, Olivia.

Happy Birthday, Olivia!

This past Sunday, we celebrated Olivia Mei's 2nd birthday! It was a great day from start to finish. These images below are just snippets of the pure joy and happiness from my most favorite small person in the world.

Good morning, birthday girl!

 Morning hugs from daddy

 What's this?!

 A little smile, please!

 Getting ready for church

 Ms. Jacque, Olivia's teacher since 11 months. We are SO SAD to leave your class!

 Thank you daddy for the balloons!

 Having a chip

 Me and my two besties.

 Love this!

Forget the fork!

 Helmet for her new tricycle

 Great Grandma "GG" came in from OKC

We love you Olivia!

Dear Olivia

Dear Olivia,

Two years ago, Daddy and I were blessed to see you come into this world. And in that moment, our lives changed forever and we couldn't ever imagine life without you and your contagious smile. Daddy was literally swept off his feet and changed all of your diapers in the hospital because mommy was too weak. And mommy could just look at you forever holding you while you slept so peacefully.

From your first two years here, you might only have memories of learning to crawl, walk, run and seeing Elmo at Sesame Street Live. But mommy and daddy witness so many miracles and happenings each day with you that we will never forget and want you to know when you get older, so that one day you will be able to pass them onto your little brothers and sister and your own children....and maybe have a little smile or laugh about. Happy Birthday, sweet Olivia Mei. Mommy and Daddy love you. You are our favorite small person in the world. Here are just a few things that we love about you, Olivia:

- We love your smile and soft skin.

- We love the way that you run to us at full-force to give us a hug and kiss. You know that we are always there to give you a safe landing.

- We love the way you love on Purple Bear and other baby dolls. One day, you are going to be such a sweet and caring older sister and mommy.

- We love the way you try to be polite, especially when you scream "No thank you!" when you are opposing something.


- We love how when we say our goodnights, you immediately respond with, "No crying." She definitely knows that mommy and daddy don't like midnight house-calls.


- We love watching you dance to Taylor Swift songs and sing, "Someday, I'll be...(blah....blah)...why you gotta be so mean?"


- We love how you know that Jesus lives in your heart and that when we pray, you always include your friends' names.

- We love all the words you say that just sound SO CUTE coming from a toddler, such as: "Otay," "Alrighty." The other day you wanted to stay outside to play with daddy so you said to mommy, "Go inside and cook dinner, mommy." Ha!


- We love the way you strut down the hallway with your shopping cart, arms fully loaded with bags and dress-shoes on. When we ask where you are going, you say "HEB."

- We love the way you find the oddest of places to chill and read a book

- We love how you like to wait at the front door in the morning to watch the school bus pass by and say "Bye bye friends."

- We love watching you play in your kitchen and when we ask what you're cooking, you always respond with "macaroni and fruit snacks."

                                                                ____________________

Mommy and Daddy love you Olivia and we wish you the best second birthday! We just don't have enough kisses to give to your sweet self. We can't wait to see what the future brings to our little family!


Love,
Mommy and Daddy

Things that would rock - vol. 3

Things that would rock....

1. A full-service salon and spa that provides childcare for regular people like me. I'm not joining The Houstonian Club anytime soon... 

2. To have been on CBS' "The Amazing Race" with Brendon and Rachel from Big Brother! The newest season began last night. Set your DVRs and always extend your recordings an hour. We've learned the hard way...

3. To have never watched "Hoarders" and "Strange Addiction" on tv late last night. They make my skin crawl and shoulders tick. I should have known never ever to return to TLC after "Jon and Kate Plus Eight." It used to be so good and wholesome.....

Valentine's Week

Here are some highlights from the past week or so...

 

Sports Jersey Day at church for the Super Bowl

Headed to breakfast and Sesame Street Live

Breakfast at Avalon Diner

Inside the Playzone (one hour before show)

It was an awesome show!

Our little family

It's Barney's turn to get all the attention

Olivia's new phrase: "Look at me!"

Valentine's roses from Ethan. We're heading to Mark's American Cuisine on Friday for date-night. We haven't been there since our wedding, over 6 years ago!

Monday Storytime at Lone Star Library

Jogging, swinging and taking advantage of the awesome weather outside on Tuesday.

________________________________________________

The Fink's Farewell Party on Saturday:

Bindi, where are you?!?

Friends since college

Cupcake fun!

BFF hugs

We will miss you Amy, Andy, Abigail & Emily!!

 

------------------------------------------------------

Pre-School update:

Olivia was able to get into St. John Lutheran and Lakewood United Methodist. Both GREAT schools, but we have decided on sending her to Lakewood on Tuesdays and Thursdays starting this Fall. I am happy with where God has placed her (especially after a week of sleepless stress for mommy...testing of patience duly noted, Big Man upstairs :), but I am sad to see Olivia growing up SO fast!

Pink bubble-gum astronaut pumpkin football player

Ethan pointed out to me awhile back that I never did explain on my blog about why Olivia had a helmet between October & December of 2010. So here it goes:

We all know that babies who are born vaginally tend to have elongated skulls, which usually is rounded out in the first couple months. We noticed that the shape of Olivia's head was taking awhile to round out. At the same time, we noticed that she would always fall asleep with her chin tucked down towards her neck on her left side, which explained the flat spot that was forming on the back of her head. When she was about three months old, we decided to take her to the pediatrician to check it out.

The doctor diagnosed Olivia with torticollis, which is a damaged neck muscle either from trauma during delivery or from her placement in-utero. When babies are so young, they don't have much control over their neck muscles, so her neck would always sit in a way which comforted her muscle the most. At the doctor's appointment, you could feel the knot on her muscle formed on the side of her neck that was injured. Olivia screamed in pain as the doctor poked around. If you imagine a sore muscle you get from either lifting weights or running, which you never stretch out and heal from, you tend to move your body in ways that would less irritate it. And that's what Olivia did. Her damaged neck muscle limited her neck movement and caused her to have "flat head" syndrome from only laying in a single position on her back, also known as plagiocephaly.

Torticollis left untreated not only can cause a flat spot, but also facial deformities, so we were definitely interested in all ways to treat her condition. The doctor recommended some stretches to do with Olivia at every diaper change. So how did this work? You guessed it; Olivia hated every minute of it, and I think I had a piece of my heart torn out every time I had to stand there and make her cry like that.

I did research on tort online, and found that we should look into pediatric physical therapy. I told my doctor that the stretches she had shown me wasn't working, so I was able to convince her to write a "prescription" to see a therapist. Easier said than done. After a long round-about with Kelsey-Seybold and the insurance, we finally switched to a new pediatrician and was able to get Olivia into therapy at TEAM Approach Pediatric Therapy not too far from our house.

The therapists at TEAM Approach were nothing less than awesome. Torticollis is very common, and many diagnosis go unnoticed depending on how how the neck muscle is damaged. In fact, our therapist was seeing two other patients at the same time. She showed us ways to hold Olivia (football cradle and against our chest) that would stretch out her muscle and maker her feel comforted at the same time. I wish we had taken some pictures of her stretching. Thanks be to God, in less than 2 months of weekly visits to the therapists and stretching at home, Olivia's torticollis was cured. But, we still needed to get the flat spot on her head examined.

Now, it had been about 2-3 months since her initial tort diagnosis. Our new pediatrician recommended that we visit a pediatric neuro-surgeon down in the Med Center. Hearing the words "neuro" or "surgeon" in any situation makes me cringe. But, we knew what to expect: the neuro-surgeon was going to examine to see if Olivia's flat spot would ever round out. By the end of the visit, the surgeon recommended that Olivia would benefit from having a helmet, but did not require it. After much thought and praying, we decided to get her fitted for one. We thought that it would be better that we get it done now when she's so young, and not regret doing it later when it would be too late.

The surgeon wrote us a prescription to have a helmet made at TMC Orthotics. After months of going to many doctors appointments and therapy sessions, I just prayed that the entire process with reshaping Olivia's head with a helmet would go smoothly. At the first appointment, they scanned the shape of Olivia's head with a 3-D transmitter. They essentially put a pantyhose on her head with the transmitter at the top. The orthotist used a hand held scanner to provide a topographical image needed to shape the inside of her helmet. With those measurements in place, we came back in one week to have her fitted. They provided us with a schedule that would allow Olivia to break into her new "accessory" and wear it it 23 hours a day. The first week we worked from wearing it 3 hours to 10 hours a day. After one week, she would start wearing it to sleep at night. That morning, Olivia woke up with a bruise on her face that really had me disheartened. That's when I started to feel a little regret with making this decision to have her in a helmet. But, she never bruised again, because we visited our orthotist every week, and he was able to adjust the inner styrofoam of the helmet based on the growth and rounding out of her head slowly over time. Actually, you could see positive results after only two weeks with the helmet! I began to be relieved.  We loved our orthotist, Stoney. He was always so sweet to Olivia and comforting to me.

Stoney recommended that Olivia only needed to be in her helmet three months. I have to say, that she was REALLY a cute baby with the helmet! When out in public, I caught people staring with perplexed looks, probably wondering, "head injury?! What a careless mom!!" One time, a mom came up to me and told me her daughter had just gotten out of her helmet and had a wonderful experience. At church, kids walking by her nursery room would call her a robot baby, ha!  We were right in the middle of NFL football season, so we taught her how to raise her arms up and say "touchdown" with her pink helmet. Halloween passed, and we dressed her up as a pink bubble-gum astronaut pumpkin.

Surprisingly, after only two months, Olivia was free from her helmet. Just in time for Christmas!! Stoney said that she was simply outgrowing the helmet. Looking back, my emotions were every where. Olivia's head is not perfectly round, but it's SO MUCH better than it used to be. With our next baby, we will perform the stretches no matter what so that we can avoid all of this. Here are some pictures from our experience. Most were taken from my cell phone camera, so the quality isn't that great.

Olivia's flat head.

 First ride home in the helmet.

Bruise from the first night in helmet.

 Chillaxin'!

 Getting her Bible on.

All the kids at Tiny Tots and Tunes wanted a piece of the helmet.

Pink bubble-gum astronaut pumpkin  

 Gig 'Em Ags!

 One of my most favorite pictures of all time. Just look at that smile...

 Touchdown!

A Tellatubby! Olivia's final head scan before ending her treatment.

 First week out of helmet!