Christmas went good. Leila liked it, but wasn't overly thrilled. She's getting better, but she still doesn't really know how to play with toys. We think it's because she probably never had any before. She has a few that she likes, but for the most part - she'd still rather play with paper than toys.
We went to Columbus yesterday for her 1st appointment for her mouth. It went much better than I expected, and I feel much better than I did beforehand. I was very impressed with them.
We were only there about 3 hours. (They had said to plan on all day.) One dr would go out and another would come in. It didn't take nearly as long as I thought it would.
They're supposed to call us to set up her surgery.
AND, I don't have to have her off the bottle. I thought I was going to have to take that away before the surgery. It's not that she's so overly attached to it, it's just that with not being able to suck, she would have to have a sippy cup w/o the no-spill thing in it. I think she would make a terrible mess, and I was worried about her getting enough to drink that way. I've tried the cup a few times, and she does NOT like it. But our dr said it didn't matter, the bottle will still be okay. Now, I can wait until after her surgery and then go to a regular sippy cup gradually.
AND, she doesn't have to be on a complete liquid diet afterwards - just soft foods for 2 weeks. He said nothing more than stage 2 baby food. We can do that. She won't be thrilled, but she'll survive. (I'm telling you, this kid LOVES to eat - anything and everything.) If she'd had to go with only liquids, she would have thought she was dying! We may have to hide from her when we eat, but so be it - at least she'll get to eat.
They also mentioned doing a lip revision at some point down the road - not sure when, but sometime in the future. I don't think her mouth looks bad, but they said they could make it look better. That's okay too. I'm sure when she hits those teenage years, she'll be glad.
I asked about the fact that she's not even attempting to talk yet. They said that it may be because she's been doing SO much catching up with her motor skills, that she's not able to totally concentrate on both that and the other at the same time. (Remember she couldn't even sit up when we got her in Sept - now she's walking.) She understands us and all, so now that she's sort of caught up with some of the other, she may start some with the speech. They said that if she isn't trying to talk in the next 3-6 months, we'll look at that again then. Otherwise, not to worry about it yet.
When they do the surgery it will only take about 2 hours. That's just amazes me. She's got a huge hole in her mouth. I mean, almost the whole roof of her mouth isn't there. And they're going to fix all that in 2 hours! Wow! She'll be in the hospital for 1 or 2 nights. Not too bad either.
I do feel better about it all - for now anyway. When they actually get ready to do it, that will probably change though. I know they do these all the time, but it's not MY baby then - this one will be.
