Freedom! June 19, 2009

We got great news yesterday: River’s hips are “looking great,” according to her orthopedist, and she doesn’t have to wear the harness anymore. She spent a lot of time yesterday and today flailing her little legs around in celebration of her newfound freedom.

While she is happy to be out of the harness, another thing is happening that is making her not so happy: she is working on a couple of teeth. I wasn’t expecting her to start getting teeth for several more months; her pediatrician says that 7-9 months is a more normal age for a baby to start teething. So poor Riv has been spending a lot of time crying because her gums hurt. We’re doing everything we can to help her out, but she is pretty fussy still. Hopefully it won’t be long before those little teeth finish cutting through her gums.

Just a quick post to share more pictures May 22, 2009

River LOVES going on hikes with her dad, and he LOVES taking her with him. When they go on hikes, I usually stay home and take the opportunity to get some much-needed sleep.

Our household is slowly adjusting to having a new member. The cats still aren’t huge fans of River, though. They’re totally jealous of her.

We took her to the Buddha’s Birthday celebration of our local Zen group. She was definitely the littlest kid there (except for the statue of the Baby Buddha).

She sleeps really well, as long as she’s within touching distance of Mom or Dad. She will roll onto her side so that she can face me while she sleeps. And in the morning, we get to have great family cuddle time.

I don’t know who these clothing manufacturers are or why they had such gigantic babies, but these pants are supposed to fit 0-3 month olds. On River (who now weighs over 10 pounds) they are pretty ridiculous.

We found out last week that River has hip dysplasia in her left hip, so she has to wear a harness for a couple months to reshape her hip socket. It turns out that for first-born girls who are breech and have a family history of hip dysplasia (which apparently there is in my extended family, although I don’t know the details of that) the risk is pretty high–1 in 30. Luckily her hip isn’t all that bad. The socket is just a little too shallow and the head of the femur is sitting a bit too loosely in the socket. River’s orthopedic doc, who fitted her for this harness on Monday, says to plan on having her wear the harness for three months, but it might be shorter than that, depending on what we find out at the monthly ultrasounds to check on the progress. River isn’t a huge fan of the harness, so we’ve had a tough week, but she’s gradually getting used to it and accepting that she has to wear it.

Also, in this picture note her awesome tie-dyed onesie that her mama made for her. 🙂