At the end of February, we went in for Kenzie's second arthrogram. The doctor was pleased with the progression of her hip. Mackenzie handled the anesthesia much better than the first time. She wasn't teething the days following the procedure. After the procedure, the update was basically the status quo - one more month of the brace, 23.5 hours per day, hope that things continue to improve. The way the doctor was talking, she was confident that by the next appointment (which thankfully only needed to be an xray and not an arthrogram), we could reduce her brace time to just when she was sleeping. All it all, it went much better than round one.
Fast forward to this past Tuesday (March 29th), when we went into the doctor's office yet again to check on Kenzie's hip. The xray showed even more correct development of the hip socket and the femoral head. We could free Kenzie from her stupid restrictive brace!!! False. Apparently, the progress was good but not enough for the doctor to give us sleep-only restrictions on the brace. Instead, she is allowed to be out of the brace for 6 hours a day (three 2-hour stints with at least 2 hours of brace time in between). Although it is not ideal, it is still 12 times the amount of freedom she had the last couple months.
Starting on Tuesday, we have been getting her out of her brace for a while. She is normally a happy baby, when the brace comes off, she gets even happier. It is amazing. We think that crawling is going to happen soon. She scoots backwards and kind of rocks forwards. She can go from a crawling position to a sitting position with no problems. When you only get a few hours a day to practice, it just might take a little longer.
On the positive side, the rest of her development is going extremely well. She says several words in context, including mama, dada, baby, dog, hi, and bye. She has also said a few other words randomly that surprised Sarah and I or Grandma when they came out of her mouth. The other day, she was watching Grandma's dog walk around the room when she clearly said, "Nikki". Sarah and Grandma both heard it and were amazed. Pretty neat stuff. She loves to read books and is finally learning that books are not for eating. We took her to her first music class this weekend and she was slightly intimidated, but we think she will grow to love it. She loves music and will dance like crazy when the tunes are on. She has her two bottom teeth that she has had for a while now and her top ones are about to pop through.
She is also getting a little sassy. The other day, her grandma Linda stopped by Grandma's to have lunch with her granddaughters (Jaiden was there, too). Jaiden was hungry, so Linda took her into the kitchen to get some food. Kenzie did not like the fact that (a) her grandma had left her in the living room and (b) that she was talking to Jaiden and not her. Grandma picked her up to take her to the kitchen to see Linda. The refrigerator door was open and Kenzie grabbed a bottle of hot sauce and threw it on the floor. That will teach Linda to ignore her ever again! And it really means that Sarah and I are in big, big trouble. Attitude at 9 months? Crap!!
As you can see, things are going well for the most part. We can't wait for the day that we can toss the stupid brace to the side for good. I'm just thankful that Sarah caught it early enough that it wasn't worse.
Until the next post,
Mikey
