11/07 3eme semaine/ 3rd week

Je pars travailler une journee plus tot cette semaine, le retour de fetes oblige, et la compagnie recherche des volontaires, dans cette periode. Florence, installee dans ma valise, est prete a partir sur la route avec moi. Elle promet de ne pas prendre beaucoup de place, dit-elle...

Cette semaine, nous avons remplaces la table ou nous changions les couches, ainsi que son lit. Il y'a de cela un an, nous avions achete ce qu'il y'a de moins cher, economes que nous sommes. Helas, de nos jours, tous se paie de tout maniere, et il a bien fallu se rendre a l'evidence que pour ce prix la, nous avions des meubles branlant, voire dangereux pour notre petit egernumene qui a l'air de vouloir se tenir debout deja. Alors, quatre fois plus cher, on a un peu plus solide, mais ca reste quand meme le genre Ikea, donc je doute que nous demenagerons avec ces meubles. C'est affolant le manque de qualite que l'on trouve de nos jours. Soit le public est habitue a ne pas paye cher, ou alors il faut y mettre un prix fou!

Frankly, I'm so tired I don't even know what week this was. Oh, last week. Well, Florence has taken to walking and standing, having given up crawling nearly altogether. She's attempting to settle into her helmet but, frankly, she hates it, as do I. She is happy each time I take it off and cries each time I put it back in. She's still learning to sleep with it on but still doesn't sleep nearly as well when she didn't have it. All in all, she's a happy, content little girl. We are very, very lucky indeed.

Back to not sleeping!

11/07 2eme semaine/ 2nd work

Un rhume cette semaine, ne m'aura pas empecher de voler, encore que j'aurai du, c'est quand meme pas prudent pour les sinus, meme si en avion pressurise!

Un bon quadrillage cette semaine, puisque nous sommes passes par le froid de New York, ou j'ai attrappe le rhume, puis retour sur la cote ouest et temperatures plus clementes a Las Vegas. Novembre est aussi le signe des premieres neiges dans le Wyoming, ou nous avons eu a degivrer l'avion a Jackson Hole. Bref, l'hiver arrive, alors profitons des soleils couchants a Palmsprings, Californie pendant qu'on peut encore!

11/07 1ere semaine/ 1st week

Decoree aux couleurs des "Thunderbirds", la patrouille aerobatique de l'armee de l'air Americaine, Florence s'est vu munir d'un casque special dont nous avions mentionnes quelques semaines auparavant. Le but du jeu est d'elimine ainsi un applatissement du crane. C'est assez leger, ce qui fait qu'elle le supporte assez bien, et c'est tant mieux, car elle va dorenavant porter ce casque H24, et ce pour les 4 prochains mois environ.

Above is Florence, in her therapeutic helmet, the purpose of which is to control the direction of growth of her skull in order to put it into better symmetry. (we decorated it with the Air Force Thunderbirds logo since we live right next to the home of the Thunderbirds - Luke Air Force Base and because it's about flying).

Essentially, it's like a football helmet. And since she has to wear it 23 hours a day, for up to four months, you can imagine how uncomfortable this would be.

Her first night was awful, crying the whole time. And who could blame her? Not just the discomfort of the pinching helmet, which restricts movement, etc, but also the fact that she's burning up in the thing - sweating like the proverbial pig. Literally, sweat is beading down her face nonstop. So, to help her adjustment we lower the temp in the house so cold that we're wearing knit caps and scarves. Poor girl.

First night finally ends. Who says there's no mercy in this world. The helmet doesn't quite fit right yet (they make weekly adjustments) so she has pinching in different areas and it pushes her left eye closed all the time. Not good. This will interfere with her development. Must get that fixed!

Second night. She sleeps much better. I don't sleep at all. She is so miserable to find a comfortable way to sleep (the helmet thickness makes her head unable to rest in alignment with her sleeping body, so she can't get comfortable). So, she takes to sleeping on her face - literally. I test to see if her nose and mouth have air flow. Her mouth is closed and her nose seems pinched off. Egad!

So, I stay up, all night, again literally (its the new word of the hour, its the new wherein!) setting my clock alarm at three minute intervals to check on her (because supposedly after that without air is when permanent brain damage will ensue), attempt to turn her back to her back, attempt to turn her face so she can get air. But everytime I turn her she reverts back to sleeping on her face (the clinician told me this is common when babies get the helmet because the front is the least thick part of the helmet and, thus, the babies are somewhat less miserable laying on their face). Well, maybe they are less miserable but I am beyond miserable.

So, hour one, hour two, hour three, hour four, etc. etc. all the way until five AM I get up to check on her, refusing to let her suffocate for such a silly thing. Do I take the helmet off? Do we forgoe treatment? After all, who needs a lower jaw which aligns with an upper jaw? Eventually, I take her in my arms and set her to sleep on my lap, where she is more comfortable due to the lap pillow being so squishy. There she stays until morning.

Ah, what to do? The clinician says its no big deal for her to sleep on her face. Of course, this is not her baby. Not even sure she has kids at all. But I do not know if her sense of suffocation is intact enough to wake her up. So, for now I will continue to get up or keep her on my lap. I see a physician tomorrow to discuss this. After all, babies die of SIDS while sleeping on their stomach. And I'll be damned if Florence is one of them.

No Kobayashi Maru in this house, by God.

But, oh, am I so tired. Sigh.

10/07 4eme semaine/ 4th week

D'habitude, je commence ma semaine par un avion de ligne qui m'ammene a mon avion quelque part dans l'Amerique du nord, mais parfois, il arrive qu'un avion se trouve a Phoenix meme.

Du coup, Florence en a profite pour revetir son uniforme, et s'est servi de l'occasion pour jouer au parfait copilote. Photo classique dans une compagnie aerienne, ou tous les papas pilotes exploitent ainsi l'occasion de photographier leur progeniture aux commandes d'un cockpit.

In the top pic you can see that Miss Florence sits up now. She was sitting up assisted for a few weeks then suddenly was able to sit up all on her own. (She can't get to a sitting position on her own, but she can keep vertical without help.)

Also in the picture you will notice, on her lap, her Sophie, an infant chew toy, as it were, that actually hails from the French Alps. Cost a fortune to get it here but it has been worth it because it is the best for times of teething. Truly, it's just like a dog chew toy. Squeaks and everything. Loudly! Should have just gone to Petco. Would have saved a fortune!

We've been rocking on the tummy time, wherein she now averages 150 minutes or so a day, a far cry from the days when we were lucky to get two minutes, which usually included screaming bloody murder.

We've had to switch to doing her torticollis stretches while she's awake. She had become too big for me to hold in my arms and perform them, all without waking her. Unfortunately, she cries such big sobs that your heart breaks. And I swear she gives you this look that says "Mommy, why are you hurting me on purpose?" I hate it. I worry she'll have permanent psychological scars from this and needs loads of therapy. Everyone says "no worries" that she won't remember. But then why does she scream every time we put her down where we always perform the exercises. Not like her to scream that way. NEver did it before we did this while she was awake. And, no, we don't switch it up and try different locations because when we did that she cried every single time we would put her down. No good way to live for her. No good at all!

And she's just oh so close to crawling. She was still doing her crab crawl until a while ago but has made great progress (it's something we've worked alot on - because it will be key to helping her torticollis). She can even crawl forward - slowlyyyyyyyy. For better for worse, she's so darn close and so excited to get moving that for the last week she has made it a habit of waking up in the middle of the night to practice. And each night I have to go in and rescue her because she usually ends up working herself into a corner in some contorted position that, in the pitch dark, she can't seem to get herself out of (ever have those moments when you get up in the middle of the night and are so disoriented that you think you're trapped - can't find a doorway or light switch or anything. Well, this is what's happening to her. So I rescue her. Golden Rule and all that.) So we are practicing crawling big time so that she can make her final breakthrough, which should calm down the light night wakings. But, until then, sighhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

I hope, sometimes, that she can save herself. On that behalf, lately when I hear her cries for help I'll go into her room commando style, wherein immediately upon opening her door I drop to the floor and crawl soldier style using only my arms, dragging my legs behind me, so that she will not see me over the edge of her bumper pad. Then I slllloowwwwwlly raise my head to peek at her. The goal is to see if she's in trouble again or just awake, laying normally. So there I am, in the glow of the minute light from the radio. Sloooowwwly raising my head, attempting to keep my joints from creaking, thus alerting her to my presence (No, she can't smell me, as they say, because when Richard's gone I sleep in her room and she's never the wiser.) Raising my head, raising my head, raising my head just to the tip of the bumper and peering over the side. And, loll and behold, right in front of me is two bright eyes peering back and a little cute mouth open and breathing quietly. Turns out she was just there in the corner right next to me, quietly waiting to see what was approaching her from below! I say "Hi sweetie!" and she smiles, relieved. Caught. Stealth fighter I am not. No Navy Seal commission for me. Ah well. Guess it will be a long night.

Next week Florence will be starting solids with the commencement of her six month birthday. Can't imagine how long she'll grow on solids considering she's already on her way to three feet! (Ok, she's 27 inches long but OH MY GOSH!)

Out! Cold!