Wednesday, March 30, 2011
Good News All Around for Gwen
Monday, March 28, 2011
sNOw way!
Friday, March 25, 2011
Weekend Here We Come
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
A Pair of Smooth Criminals
As you can see, all looks quiet and peaceful as the girls are enjoying their meal. Happily, Braelyn seems to be nearly finished with all of her food.
Well, unfortunately Braelyn’s become quite the sly individual. Dad began to notice in the reflection of the microwave that Braelyn kept reaching over to Gwendolyn’s tray every time his back was turned. So, at one point he quickly turned around and captured this “drop” transpiring:
Yep, Gwendolyn’s quickly shoveling in the evidence as Braelyn unloads her unwanted scraps onto her sister’s tray.
It looks like these two have been in cahoots with the old food switch-a-roo for so long that they’ve perfected when to make the exchange and when to play it cool.
Oh boy, at least they work well together... What else can you say about those Castellano girls!?!?!?
Thursday, March 17, 2011
Going Clinical
One significant thing is that it’s already time for Gwen to get a new set of braces. These will be lightweight carbon-fiber based and will support her shins more so than her calves. They should be a little easier for her when it comes to taking steps. As she’s still developing the muscles in her gluteus, she tends to dip her bottom back when she stands, thereby throwing off her balance.
The new braces will also have a hard plastic boot that slides right into the footprint of the brace and should be easier to fit into regular shoes. As a result, one of the tasks that took place during the clinic visit was getting a new mold of her feet. As was the case the initial time this happened, Gwen was very perplexed and observant of the entire process.
We were also imformed that Gwendolyn has been approved for aqua therapy this summer. We suppose that’s as good of an excuse as any that it’s time to get our voluptuous little lady a flattering swim suit. June will be here before she knows it!
In-between our doctor’s visits, Gwen found a new friend to play with… Herself. As she filled the down time between consultations, she soon realized that her reflection was staring right back at her. It was all fun and games until she leaned in to hug this familiar looking new friend only to conk her head on the mirror. All was forgiven quickly though as Gwen followed up the tears that ensued from this self-inflected head butt by giving a big smacker to her reflection. In case you are wondering, we checked and the mirror is cleaned daily so luckily tomorrow’s clinic visitors won’t have to deal with the aftermath of Gwen’s affection.
As for Braelyn, it was yet another morning of confusion as she tried to ascertain exactly where her sister had gone off to… Luckily, Grandma McKee was there for plenty of TLC until her “little” sister returned.
Monday, March 14, 2011
A Bunch of Bull
In her research, Mom saw that some kiddos like Gwen actually got benefit from sitting on a training potty even if they were too young to fully grasp what’s going on. We aren’t sure exactly why (more than likely it has a lot to do with gravity) but it has seemed to help others like our Gwenner out. Since we are all about doing anything we can to assist her along her journey, we decided to give it a whirl. Surprisingly, Gwendolyn didn’t seem freaked out by sitting naked on a strange new apparatus with the whole family looking on... See:
In fact, we are pleased to report that Gwen has sat on her new potty twice and each time she has left a significant amount of potty and poopy in the pot. (Seriously, did we just reference potty and poopy in a blog entry!?!?!?) So, apparently it is helping Gwen thus far. Luckily for you, Dad was under strict orders by Mom not to show off all the gory details, so you’ll all have to use your imagination on the aftermath of Gwendolyn’s initial potty training extravaganza.
As for Braelyn, she’s not quite sure what to make of our family’s new addition. In fact, she can’t figure out exactly how to use this new “toy.” Hopefully for her, we’ll be able to get Gwen’s little "packages" out of there before her sister saunters up to the potty again. As you can see, Brae Bear obviously hasn’t quite grasped which way to sit on it and, maybe more importantly, where not to put one’s feet when trying to “mount” it.
Ah, the joys of parenthood!!!
Thursday, March 10, 2011
Good News (Sort of)
First the bad news, the fluid in Gwen’s ventricles had slightly increased over her scan six months ago. However, the neurologist noted that even with the increase, Gwen’s brain looked to be very “happy.” (We guess now we know why she’s started saying that word so much of late). He also noted that the syringomyelia cyst (commonly known as a syrinx) that they had found on her spine during the previous scan hasn’t changed in size or shape. That's obviously a good sign. The neurologist told us that a syrinx is pretty common for spina bifida kids (approximately 40% have them according to him) but that he was very pleased it remained constant and had not grown.
So, given the fact that she has a “happy” brain, the neurologist is merely going to follow her during Gwen’s normal clinic visit in six months. He said it’s evident to him that even with the ventricles being enlarged, Gwen’s not experiencing any side effects at this stage.
While we would have preferred to hear there was no fluid to be found in her ventricles at all, we were very pleased with the overall diagnosis.
As for her sister, Braelyn’s still been a little bit of a finicky eater but apparently that hasn’t stopped her from engaging with her toy food set. Somehow her frustration as she tries to figure out how to break the bread (or any of the other fruits and vegetables in the set) into slices is about as comical as it gets for Mom and Dad!
Well, that’s about all that’s fit to print for now… We'll update you all again soon.