Monkey Business

Arianna may have faulty hips, but that doesn’t stop her from climbing and exploring everything. It took Austin about 3 years to figure out how to climb over the safety gate into the kitchen. It’s taken Arianna only 2 years. She is climbing on chairs. She is climbing on the desk. She is climbing up on the PUB table. And the latest…. She is climbing OUT OF HER CRIB.

 The first morning she did it, I didn’t even realize what happened at first. I went into their room finding her out of her bed, playing on the floor with Austin. “Ok”, I thought. “Maybe Daniel let her out of her bed before he left for work. I’ll have to call him later and ask him about it.”

 It didn’t even occur to me in the moment to ask Austin what had happened, being that he is such a useful source of information these days. I did get around to asking him though, and it went something like this:

“Austin, did Daddy get Arianna out of her bed this morning?”

“SHE JUST GOT HERSELF OUT.”

“She got herself out of bed? Did you help her out?”

“NO SHE GOT HERSELF OUT BY HERSELF.”

“Did she hurt herself when she was getting out?

“SHE JUST JUMPED ON HER FEET”

Well, there you go folks. An eye-witness account of what happened. Except I was still a little confused on how she made it down safely, without say, BREAKING HER ARM!

 A few days went by without her attempting to climb down again, but that couldn’t last for too long, could it? I finally caught her in the act.

This is how she is climbing down!

Ah, there it is. Of course she’s using the drawers to help her down. I don’t know why I didn’t realize it sooner. At any rate, I spent half the morning assembling her crib into a toddler bed and rearranging the room. I’m very proud of my craftswomanship!

And, Arianna is pleased as well!

Even with the safety rails, the bed seems a little high to me, for a toddler bed. But if there’s going to be a fall, I’d rather it be one foot off the ground instead of five.

Tragically hip

  It’s been a week and 3 days since Arianna’s last appointment at Shriners Hospitals for Children in Tampa. (And can I just pause for a minute to give a big shout out to the people at Shriners and say what a wonderful place this is? If you’re not familiar with them, go check out their website. They are truly amazing!) We’ve gone there for almost 2 years for Arianna’s Hip Dysplasia to get X-rays of her hips taken. (If you’ve never heard me talk about it before, I wrote about it here, here and here. We’ve been there many more times, I’ve just failed to write about them all)

 Arianna’s hips had been slowly improving over the last year and a half, but for whatever reason, have come to a stand still in the past 6 months. I’ve prayed for her to continue getting better, but the X-rays they took last Tuesday reported otherwise. The Doctor who showed us the films explained that while no improvement wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, they didn’t want to see her hips regress. They recommended that Arianna wear a brace at night to help her bones form correctly. So they sent us to the Orthopedic Doctor on the other side of the Hospital to get her fitted for a brace. She has to wear it every night for 4 months, until her next set of X-rays in May.

It’s a tough adjustment, this brace thing. The first few nights especially. As you  can imagine, Arianna absolutely hates it. It doesn’t hurt at all, but it restricts her movement and requires her to lay on her back with her legs spread apart. The first night I tried putting it on her, she cried and cried. She managed to take it off, I put it back on, and it went back and forth like that a few times until I realized, with a will as strong as her Daddy’s, this could go on all night. I waited till she fell asleep, then I put it back on. Thankfully she didn’t wake up and kept it on all night.

 So, she’s been wearing this brace every night for the past week and a half. It was really hard putting it on her the first few nights, not just because of the fight she put up on the first night, but because I felt so bad for her. I’m sure it’s not comfortable sleeping with a brace on all night long, not being able to move. I wished I could take it all away and go through it for her.

 It’s gotten easier every night. She usually stays asleep when we’re putting it on her, so that helps. And I know that this could really help her hips to improve. That makes me feel a little more optimistic about the situation. I keep reminding myself that we are really blessed that Arianna’s hips aren’t worse than they are, like a lot of kids that come into Shriners Hospital. Some kids can barely walk, or have to wear braces all the time, not just at night. Arianna has never had any physical problems yet because of her hips and I’m very thankful for that.

 Her next appointment is in May and until then, I’ll be faithfully putting her in the brace and praying for the best!