Happy 3rd Birthday Alexis!!!

Happy Birthday to our little princess!  Here are some pics of her helping Mommy make the cake frosting, opening some birthday presents, her fun birthday party, and more!  Oh, and if you ask her what her favorite part of the birthday was?  Not presents, not having friends and family over, nope...her favorite part was having CAKE!   Enjoy!

Making frosting with mommy (more like eating it!)

Concentrating so hard on making frosting flowers for cake. 

Birthday Girl!!!

Dora Cake that Mommy made

(with Alexis' help on making the frosting!)

Enjoying her new cash register with Daddy!  Hopefully Alexis will become a better businesswoman as she grows older--when I "bought" a crayon from her for $6 (her asking price), I told her I only had a $5, so I gave her the $5 bill.  Then she gave me another $5 bill and 25 cent coin in return.  So I got paid 25 cents for buying a crayon from her.  :)

Yay, Tinkerbell!!!

"Look, I'm a princess!"

Party time!!!

Friends...

Cute cousins...

Funny Faces!

On the move!  Even Vo-vo's can't stop her now!

Chasing friends around the house...and being chased! 

I'll have to upload hilarious video of this later. 

HAPPY 3rd BIRTHDAY ALEXIS! 

WE LOVE YOU!!! 

Love, Your Mommy and Daddy  :)

(by the end of the day, and with no nap, Alexis was pretty tired,

so this is the best picture we have of us with her on her birthday...poor baby, practically fell asleep before her head hit the pillow!)

Alexis Walking!!!

So the surgeon told us not to expect Alexis to walk for 2-3 weeks after getting the cast off and to just let her go at her own pace.  Little did he, or we, know that Alexis' pace is pretty darn fast.  Let's see...Monday she gets the cast off and tries to take a few very wide legged, cowboy style steps while holding onto our hands, Tuesday I get this email at work from Chris who works from home and shared some amazing news:

FYI...Alexis has decided that she doesn't like anyone holding on to her when she walks.  She just walked (wobbled) from the end of the couch over to me by the table by herself.  Your mom follows with her hands by Alexis's sides, but not actually touching her.  She'll be running by the end of the week :)

By Thursday, just 3 days after getting her cast off, I get another email from Chris in response to an email I sent the doctor asking about Alexis' leg length discrepancy post-surgery and knee pain she was complaining about:

Forget about "wanting" to take steps, today she was playing outside on the deck going down her slide.  After she went down, she would get up and make your mom let her walk back to the slide BY HERSELF and then CLIMB back up the slide stairs BY HERSELF to go down again.

She is, obviously, still imping and walking gingerly, but she was walking a lot today!

And that weekend, she began walking with her legs and feet a bit less crooked/angled outwards.  It's now 4 weeks post-cast off and she is walking, jumping, dancing, doing the hokey pokey, and playing ring-around-the rosy with no problem.  She also began running this past week!  You can still tell she has a limp, esp. when she is tired and it's the end of the day, but I'm still amazed at the progress over the last 4 weeks!  I'm so proud of my stubborn little Alexis who wants to do things her way, on her own "by myself" as she often says.  I guess she has a pretty stubborn Mom and Dad, so who can blame her, right?  :)

Here's some pics of her walking that first week and playing ring-around-the-rosy with Daddy, vo-vo's and dolls:

Happy Easter!

 

ooh, eggs!

 

eeewww, eggs?!

 

yuck, eggs!

Cast off!

Alexis had her cast off today!  Even though we prepared her as much as possible by showing her pics of other kids getting their cast cut off and warned her it would be loud like a vacuum cleaner and vibrate, but wouldn't hurt, she still screamed and cried during it.  And after it. Here she is in the car on the way to the dr's office for the cast cutting, and waiting in the exam room for the big moment:

I give our brave little girl lots of credit though...just minutes after her body cast was taken off and she was all wobbly and mushy in my arms, with nothing but a diaper and sheet over her, she laid on the x-ray table.  Stayed still.  And when I told her to smile for the x-ray camera, she stopped sobbing just long enough to yell out "CHEEEEEEESE!"  At that moment, I realized how strong and brave our little Alexis really is.

As for what the x-ray showed us and the doctor told us afterwards, well, let's just say our dreams came true.  We FINALLY heard the words we have been waiting almost 3 years to hear!  "Her hip looks great!"  and when I asked "so no more surgeries?"  He said "nope"!  So we were aiming for an AI under 20 and guess what?  He said he thinks it's around 16!!!  Whoohoo!!!

So what next you ask?  Well, 3 month check up in June to make sure everything has stayed in place and healed well, no issues, etc. and then after that?  We thought yearly appts. and x-rays until she is a teenager and stops growing cuz there is always a chance of things shifting around and causing problems while they grow, but the surgeon said "nope, not yearly, maybe every 2 years or so".   Another Whoohoo!!!

AND, NO MORE BRACE to wear at night!   Yet another Whoohoo!!!  Sayonara night-night brace!!!  

We are still in shock about the wonderful news all around and just can't be happier that Alexis' hip journey looks to finally be coming to an end and we see the light at the end of the tunnel.  And here's to our brave little Alexis, going through more surgeries and trials in her 3 years of life than either of Chris or I have in a lifetime!

Here we are throwing away the Rhino brace in the trash and Alexis thinking "what?  really? we really get to throw it away?"!  Very exciting after about 2 years of wearing it every single night!  We won't miss it, that's for sure! 

Here she is going "whoohoo, no more night-night brace!"

Alexis' attempt at photography...not bad!

Bathing in a Spica

Almost 6 weeks with no bath and really missing it...

here's the spica cast version of a "bath", which means washing hair and arms in the kitchen sink...the good news is Alexis loves to help mommy wash her hair!

Oooh, all clean!

Hip Dysplasia Update

It's been over 5 weeks since Alexis' hip surgery so here's the update:


We got home from the hospital and Alexis was very upset that she couldn't take her "hard pants" off. She was fine with it at the hospital and we had shown her pictures of spica casts and explained that she'd have to wear them for a while to fix her "boo-boo" (the boo-boo she insisted was all fixed and didn't hurt, etc...hard to explain to a toddler why something that doesn't hurt them now has to be fixed so that it won't hurt them later). Anyway, we got home and the first few weeks were rough. She'd have a fit when she wanted to sit on the floor but couldn't. Or wanted to sit on the couch and couldn't. Or wanted to walk or go potty in the bathroom and couldn't. She was very frustrated. She is an independent little girl and was having none of this. Oh, and she had really nasty sores/blisters on her butt/backside under the cast which were nearly giving me a heart attack since they were bleeding, gooey and gross...and being under the cast didn't help meaning they were hard to keep dry and hard to keep pressure off them. Made diaper changes painful for Alexis...they finally healed after about a week or two, thank God! We were really worried they'd get infected or something.



Luckily Alexis has come to terms a little better with her spica cast situation. She has less tantrums when she wants to do something and can't. Now she calmly says "I can't do that because I have hard pants on." I'm quick to tell her though, "that's right, but you'll be able to do that soon when your hard pants come off!" and she responds usually with a "Yay!" :)

So, less than one week to go! We are almost there! Hang in there little Alexis!

Yes, those are doorhangers on my arms! What's wrong with that?

Flipping over in the spica!

On the move!
Modified couch sitting position! Hey, whatever works!

Tea party with Dora!

Dora

'Nuff said...

Hip Surgery

As previous postings have noted Alexis' journey with hip dysplasia, the saga continues. Just took us a while to update here. Her pelvic osteotomy on February 2, 2010 went as planned and the orthopedic surgeon seemed pleased with how it all went. I'll spare too many details but here are some of my most memorable moments:

--The pink liquid sedative they gave Alexis before the surgery to relax her for the anesthesia part...why memorable? Because Alexis only swallowed half of it, so they still had to put the anesthesia mask over her face when it came time, but even with only half of it, she was loopy. And I don't mean silly funny loopy, I mean HILARIOUS loopy. So I'm holding Alexis and I sit down on a chair with her on my lap...she looks down at the floor and looks very concerned and says "Mommy, what are you sitting on?" Then she stares at my nose and touches it and says "nose" and starts giggling. I ask her "how many noses do you see on my face Alexis?" She says "two". We all start laughing at this point...until it's time to hand her over to the anesthesiologist anyway. Why is it that I still cried after handing her to the doctor, even though this was her 4th surgery and about the 7th time she has undergone anesthesia? Why doesn't it seem easier?

--It seemed like a very long 4-5 hours for us as we waited...but we looked around the waiting room and heard the conversations of parents who had children in surgery for last hope cancer tumor removals, for heart surgeries, for things that are a whole lot scarier than hip dysplasia.

--The sound of Alexis' cry after waking up from anesthesia...that hoarse painful sound...

--Alexis' first reaction of "take this off" referring not to the body cast as we thought she would ask, but referring to the IV cuff on her arm!

--Laying next to Alexis in her bed all night, watching her sleep, listening to her breathing and the beeps of the monitors. I didn't get much sleep, but it was a beautiful moment when she woke up, looked at me and said "hi mommy" and then went back to sleep for a little more.

--Alexis' love affair with hospital popsicles :)

ICE!

We went to go see ICE! at the Gaylord Convention Center at National Harbor. It was really Cool! (pun intended) They set up this giant tent in the parking lot and then bring in air coolers to keep the inside of the tent approx. 9 degrees. Everything is carved from giant ice blocks. They give you stylish blue parka's to put over your coat. Honestly, the cold wasn't that bad, except for my hands - I had to take my gloves off to take pictures.




ICE!



Reindeer



Walking over the ice bridge



Victorian era home.








Fireplace




Boy sneaking downstairs with his teddy bear
trying to catch a glimpse of Santa eating his cookies.



Riding on the ice sleigh.








Penguins!




Igloo entrance



Castle with slides



The ice slide



Helena and Alexis at the top left
getting ready to go down the slide



WEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!



Santa!











Nativity