The Berg Family Est. 2010: 6 Months!

Somebody stole our tiny baby and gave us this playful half year old. I can't believe how fast time has gone by and I'd really like to slow it down. She has changed so much in the last 6 months. But so far, this has been my favorite age. Her personality is really shining through. She's going to be one of those "I do it" kids. She wants to feed herself with a spoon; she kind of can but it makes a big mess. She doesn't like me to hold anything for her, she'd rather hold it herself. She has quite the temper, especially if she is hungry (9 hours of not eating before surgery was scary). Travis would love to blame the temper on me, but if you've ever seen him play basketball or been at our house on a Sunday during football season, replace a few "wahs" with some other, not so nice, 4 letter words, and the blame evens out a little more. She laughs, but she really makes you work for it. Peek-a-boo just isn't that funny I guess. I've had a lot of fun making baby food for her. Peas are the only thing I've found that she doesn't care for, but if I disguise them by mixing them with sweet potato she eats them. We've gotten some great use out of our zoo pass. A couple of weeks ago we went with Kevin and the twins; everyone thought Kevin and I had triplets and it was pretty entertaining.

Favorites:

Toy- sofia the giraffe. I can't believe we survived 6 months without her.

Food- carrots, pears, and sweet potato

Song- ABC's especially when I make the sounds instead of say the letter

Family member- Josie

Baby Item: Munchkin fresh food mesh feeder, it has been great for teething relief (still no teeth but I can feel some little bumps coming) and trying new foods. They can be super messy but she has lots of fun.

Talents: Who needs rolling and crawling when you can give high fives?

Pre surgery she was a professional roller and getting pretty great at sitting too. She is definitely annoyed that she can't do those things anymore, but we are sure that she will replace those skills with other ones and once that cast comes off, she will catch up quickly.

High five- we've already proven some skeptics (aka my dad) wrong!

Drinks water out of a straw sippy cup

Spica cast scoot- it only took her 2 nights to figure out how to turn herself around in her crib

Spica cast and hips

Well we have 1 hip in and 1 to go. The worst part is, we have to do this again. Tuesday/Wednesday was probably one of the hardest couple of days we've ever experienced. But seeing all of the other kids at Doernbecher was a great reminder that if this is the worst for us, we are very fortunate. Tuesday was the hardest. Since they were over 3 hours late starting surgery, because the case before us had some issues, Rilynn went a total of 13 hours without anything to eat or drink. If you've ever seen our child hungry, you'd understand why we were just waiting for the biggest melt down, but she was surprisingly pretty good, especially since Travis did such a great job of entertaining her. We got through the night at the hospital changing her diaper A LOT and the nurse giving her pain meds through out the night. A baby on morphine is no fun; she wasn't herself at all. Even with all of the diaper changes, being on IV fluid made her pee through the sheets twice in the night. Wednesday things started getting better until OT/PT came with the car seat and we found out that because of Rilynn's special angle on her right leg she DIDN'T FIT! So we are the first people at Doernbecher to use the Hope Car Bed. But wait, there's more... an adult is supposed to ride in the back with her. I almost died when they told us this and I think Travis was even more annoyed because in my adult years I've become quite the rule follower (shocking I know). I'm hoping that in 2 weeks when we do the other hip and get a new cast, the new angles will allow for the Hippo car seat instead. Until then, I'm hoping that the rebel in me comes out and I get the courage to go somewhere with her on my own, but getting somewhere is only half the battle. The 3 of us are starting to adjust pretty well to things and figuring out what works. Diaper changes, feeding, sitting, pretty much everything is different and a little more complicated, but doable. Starting Friday morning, I stopped giving Rilynn her pain medication and she started acting like herself again. I plan to post information on taking care of a baby in a spica to help others going through this. We've gotten some amazing help from other blogs and parents on Facebook. The nurses were amazed at how much more we knew than they did about Spica care at home. Feel free to ask questions. I think I'm out of tears and am happy to give anyone information about life with a spica cast baby. If you know anyone going through this, please send them our way. I've reached out to a few hip parents and it has been so helpful.