General updates

Me and my beautiful niece

First I need to apologize for being a lousy blogger. My last post was so long ago and so much happened since that one, that I didn't even know how to start this post. And I even started writing this post more than a month ago and only now I am finishing it up. So well, let's start last year! Days after Gabbie got her braces we traveled to Brazil for the holidays! The trip was miserable but our time there was amazing. Gabbie does not travel well, and the journey was long. First we drove to LA (that alone is a 7 hour drive). At least we went at night and she slept for that leg of our trip. Then we had to wait for 4 hours in an airport under construction, with nowhere to go because we couldn't even check in so early in the morning, and take 2 flights of about 7 hours each to get there. It was miserable. She could not understand why she had to be on our lap the whole time, wanted to go crawling on the floor the entire time, barely took a nap - and that was only because we decided to finally let her sleep on the floor! We were exhausted when we finally got to Rio. On top of all that, Copa Airlines lost my bag - well, technically they didn't loose it, they just didn't have enough space in the second plane and had to leave it in Panama to come the following day! So we finally got to the hotel and had about 40 minutes to get ready for Gabbie's and my niece's baptism. Let's just say I was on go-go-go-non-stop mode and now I don't remember much from that day. To add to that, Matheus (my oldest) even had to go through it all not feeling well (something he ate?), with vomiting and diarrhea, but WE MADE IT. The ceremony was beautiful, my family and friends from Brazil all there! I could write one entire post just on that!

After that hectic day (or should I say hectic 48 hours) it was smooth sailing. We traveled the next day with my parents, my sister, and her family to a little hotel in a beautiful beach in Saquarema, where we stayed for 10 days. Weather was nice for 6 or 7 of them and we enjoyed the beach, the swimming pool, the sun, the food, and most importantly, each other! It was so good to spend time with my family and to give my kids the chance to experience that. It was summer in Brazil and that made it very difficult to have Gabbie wear her braces. We were afraid she was going to get hurt when crawling, because there was no way to have her wearing pants to cover her knees. Too hot for that. And we spent most of the days by the pool or at the beach, difficult places to have her with braces on too. So we let her enjoy some days without them, and maybe just once or twice in the whole vacation we put them on her. She did fine! There she started to try something new. Whenever she wanted to reach for something above her head, she finally realized she needed to go up. So she started to straighten up her legs in the crawling position, with her little buttocks in the air. Huge step for her, because the doctor said that she needed to start stretching up her knees - the contractures on her knees are mild, and he believes that, once she starts standing up, she will be able to stretch them out herself, with no need for surgeries. We were so happy. My dad almost cried seeing that.

Fast forward to today, here is her progress since (I have to fast forward or I will spend 10 posts just on the trip and the amazing time we had, which would be interesting, but not what this blog is all about, sorry). Gabbie now is much more interested in standing up. But unfortunately she cannot support her own weight, so she sits after some fast seconds. The big question in our minds is: are the braces helping? I am not so sure, but I have NOT seen any difference in the angles of her feet, they have not helped stretch at all the contractures, and it is even more difficult to put them on now, because she is very aware of them, and immediately pulls her foot up when I put them on - so is it defeating the purpose????

The frustrating part is that we do not have any appointments scheduled for follow up with any of the doctors. I think that she saw so many doctors that each one is thinking the other is following up, and she doesn't get any appointment. I managed to make an appointment with a physical therapist for next week, so we will see what she recommends. I wish we had some sort of water therapy through Kaiser. It could help her a lot, because now she is starting to understand "walking" even though she can't support her weight. Whenever we hold under her arms and support most of the weight for her, she moves her legs as if walking. So she knows what she has to do, but at this point she can't. We will also talk to the PT about maybe a walking frame to help her.

Meanwhile, she continues to be the most amazing baby! Yeah... I know, every parent probably thinks that her/his baby is amazing, but she is such a happy baby. When we go out, everybody asks if she is always smiling like that, and comments on how easy-going she is. There is nothing more relaxing after a busy day than to come home and play with her, or just watch her play. I bet that although many parents love coming home to their baby, not many can say that it is relaxing. But that is the effect that she has on us. The world stops for a while when we are with her. What an amazing baby!