Physical Therapy

This photo has nothing to do with physical therapy but I LOVE IT! She has had all of these wonderful clothes that my sister handed down to me from my niece but of course she hasn't been able to wear any of it. So now we are. The problem is that she is 12-18 months in pants to get the length right and her shirts are 6-12 months. We don't always have a full outfit but we make due. We roll alot of sleeves!

She started physical therapy this week and she is doing great. She has been able to roll over again. Only to the right so far. Can't seem to get that left leg in far enough to roll left yet. She is sitting better and better every day. She has regained alot of her flexibility. So more of the same. Balance and range of motion.

I can SIT!

It has only been a few days and she is sitting up without much problem. Eventually she falls forward but we are shocked at how quick she has picked up learning to balace herself. She does pretty well if she is leaning forward but backward is a different story. She has had a rough week having to deal with the pain of moving her legs that have been in that cast for 3 1/2 months. Ibuprofen helps but you can tell it still hurts. She is not able to bring her legs together enough to ride in her car seat yet so we still use the one she had for her cast but every day we see improvements. Look at that smile. She looks happy to me.

Bathtime?

Why don't they have a warning on the box that says, " Giving your child one of these teething biscuits will not only require a bath for the child but a change of clothes for you!"

Comin' around the mountain

With the new year brings a new perspective. I have decided to change the way I keep the blog. I have been using it to keep family and friends, namely all of you, updated on what is going on in our lives. I think I am going to try something different this year. I am going to keep this blog for Laney. I want her to look back on it as a journal of her childhood. So the blog will still update you on what is going on in our life but the main focus will be to document Laney's life for her. (Actually it is so when Kevin and I are old and can't remember stuff we can cheat and look back!)

The major development for this week was the removal of Laney's cast. We went in on Monday morning and the Physicians Assistant (not the nurse this time!) Took off Laney's cast. She screamed and cried the whole time. Then to add insult to injury they wanted an X-ray of her pelvis. You have all seen the position that her legs have been in for 14 weeks. Well that is how they stayed when the cast came off. Well they wanted her legs down and straight. It was the most excruciating thing I have ever seen. I can only compare it to someone forcing you down into the splits right now! She screamed and I cried. I have just about had it with people inflicting pain on this kid. Necessary or not! The fact that I just worked three nights in a row and had not slept yet didn't help. Finally, that was over. I wrapped her in a blanket and we walked and looked out the window till I didn't feel like slugging someone.

Then to add insult to injury her doctor came in and told us we had to put her in another cast. "WHAT!?" I don't think I swore but it is highly possible. He misread the file and didn't realize we had already done the second cast. "take her home and let her stretch herself out" he says. So we will let her rest for a few days and start physical therapy! Another milestone achieved. The X-ray of her hip said everything was fine.

2009 We laughed, we cried, we CONQUERED!

I can't believe that it is over. It really doesn't seem possible. At this point last year my water had just broken. We were in the hospital and they told us our little girl had a 5% chance. We were in such a different place. I have never been more grateful for this little girl than I am on this aniversary when we thought we had lost her. Words cannot even express the rollercoaster of extreme pain, worry, hope, and joy that we have gone through in the last year. Looking back it feels like someone elses life sometimes. But the past is the past and we have so many wonderful things that have come out of such difficult times. We have a renewed appreciation for each other, wonderful new friends, and comfort in knowing that we are surrounded by so many wonderful people that have done so much to support us over the last year. (You know who you are!)

So this New Year was a much anticiapated one! So much to celebrate and look forward to over the next year. Who better to celebrate the New Year with than some new found friends. We have become good friends with one of Laney's primary nurses. Jen and Heath are great people and Jen was even the one that admitted Laney to the NICU the night she was born. So we went to their house for some fabulous food and lots of fun. There was music, played a little pool, and did a countdown to the ball dropping in Times Square! Here are just a few photos from that night. Happy New Year Everyone!

Rewind to the end of 09'

Lets just start with the holidays and I will update from there....

Lets see...We spent Christmas at home this year. We were fortunate enough to have our family come to us. My mom, dad and grandma came to stay with us for a few days. It was great to have full time babysitters! Although I didn't really see them when we were up at night? I worked on Christmas Eve and was home bright and early Christmas morning to see all the stockings filled by Santa and watch Laney open her first Christmas presents. This special event went much as everone said it would. She received lots of brand new great toys (Grandma and Grandpa rock!) and her favorite you ask? You guessed it some little green plastic brace that held in the first toy she opened. She was not interested in anything else for a couple of days! Everyone said it would happen so we expected it but we will try again next year. As for presents from Mom and Dad well, we got her a new bathtub seat in the anticipation of the cast that is due to come off on January 4th! We used to LOVE bathtub time so hopfully we will love it again. Christmas day brought lots of fun. My aunt and uncle that live here in Boise came for Christmas dinner. We had a delicious prime rib with all the fixin's. We topped it off with some Baily's in the coffee and a couple rounds of pinochle. Christmas just isn't Christmas without some sort of game of cards being played. Laney spent the day playing with her new green plastic brace and chewing on her Great Grandma's oxygen tubing. What can I say, she is teething! All in all it was a wonderful first Christmas. I have to say I am already a little excited for next year.

Hope you had happy holidays,

The Meyers

Time Flies....

Wow! It has been a while... We are all doing fine and enjoying ourselves this holiday season. I need to back clear up to Halloween to update this blog. That is terrible I am a little ashamed. Oh well! I will make it short and sweet.

Laney was a Dragonfly for Halloween this year! It went well with her purple cast. She stayed home and handed out treats to the trick or treaters with her dad. I had to work. Mostly we have just been hanging out at home trying to keep her from getting sick. Knock on wood it has worked for the most part. She was able to get her swine flu shot in mid November and just our luck I ended up coming down with the swine flu one week later. How miserable. But fortunately she had her shot and it really didn't seem to bother her. I missed a few days of work and it meant that we spent Thanksgiving at home. We of course missed seeing family and friends but I have to admit it was nice to just have a quite day at home.

The end of November brought us to the midway point of Laney being in her cast. This meant it was time to go back in and have it taken off and changed. We weren't sure if they were going to have to do an actual surgery to change anything or just change the cast. We got lucky! Things looked great and we ended up just changing her cast. This time we went with RED for Christmas! It was a pretty easy trip in and out of the hospital for once. So now we are scheduled to have her cast taken off on January 4, 2010. All things considered these last 9 weeks of her being in the cast have gone quickly but we are looking forward to getting it off. I can also say with confidence that Laney is excited too! She wiggles and squirms like she knows she is supposed to be able to move but just can't.

Let's see...I don't know if we mentioned that Kevin went hunting this year and brought home an elk and restocked the freezer for us. I have been working at the hospital. I work nights and mostly on weekends so Kevin is able to work during the week and we have been fortunate enough to work that schedule out so we don't have to put Laney in day care. I am sure I am forgetting many things but that is a general update for now. I may have to make a New Year's resolution about keeping up better with this!

Happy Holidays!

The Meyer's