The Only Thing that Separates Us from the Animals is Our Ability to Accessorize

We picked up Campbell's DOC Band last Monday and after a week long 'break-in' period, she's now in it 23 hours a day - one hour off during bath time before bed.



Right now she's just sporting some flower stickers, but we'll take her in to 360 wraps a week from Tuesday to get it done up right. Since she'll likely be in the helmet two to three months, we at least want to make it something special to look at and not just orthotic.

For those who think she was just perfect without the band, here's a shot to show why we went ahead and elected to get it:



The hope is after a few weeks in the band, the back of her head will even out to a round shape.

Moving on to even cuter accessories, I somehow stumbled across the pettiskirt a while back (that link is the one I was trying to recreate) and decided Campbell had to have one. But, I wasn't about to pay the $85 that well-made ones retail for. I found a few on etsy.com for less, but I still thought I could probably make it for cheaper. So, I bought the fabric, and I think it turned out pretty darn well, if I do so say myself. Campbell didn't give an opinion, but she did put it in her mouth, which I choose to take as a sign of approval.




That's a lot of ruffle fluff!


More pics of the pettiskirt construction and Campbell modeling on Flickr.

And, as always, every time I update my blog, I'm updating the Campbell at Home set on Flickr (link on the right).

Because I'm sure inquiring minds want to know, Campbell is fond of sweet potatoes, squash and bananas, and has so far tolerated carrots, green beans and green peas. On the list: applesauce, peaches, prunes and avocado. I love watching her reactions the first time she gets to try something new.

Of Rice Cereal and Sweet Potatoes

Campbell wasn't such a big fan of the rice cereal, but she did much better on sweet potatoes. G videotaped both adventures, presented here for your viewing enjoyment:
Rice cereal attempt (pretty much an exercise in futility):


First taste of sweet potatoes (yum!):

Five Months?!?!

Baby girl turned five months old today. We ran to the doc for a weight check and she clocked in at 15 lbs., 13 oz. She's taking five 8 oz. bottles a day, plus a veggie once a day. Our challenge now is keeping her in a dry diaper at night; she sleeps up to 12 hours, and the diaper just isn't holding out that long. Thank goodness for waterproof crib liners. We picked up some Pampers Baby Dry tonight, but the smallest size is for 16 lbs., so hopefully they'll be tight enough.

We pick up her DOC Band on Monday and will start easing her into it on Tuesday. By next Saturday, she'll be in it 23 hours a day. Don't know how that's going to work with her Halloween costume, but we'll figure something out.

In other news, Garett won free tickets to the World Series, so at the end of this month we'll be taking a little three-day vacation to where ever Game 1 ends up being played at - I'm suddenly a Yankees fan...

Full Weekend

This was our first full weekend at home in a long time, and it was quite a chore keeping baby girl entertained inside our four walls. We had planned on taking her to the Dallas Heart Walk on Saturday, but the weather wasn't very baby-friendly. She's had a cough for a few days, and we didn't want to risk dragging her out in the rain, so G took care of her for a few hours while I walked the 5k.

When I got back, he'd exhausted every weapon in the arsenal - exersaucer, tummy time, baby swing, baby standing, bumpo, boppy, baby flying... We spent the rest of the day watching the OSU Cowboys lose and the TCU Horned Frogs win, doing laundry, washing dishes, etc., etc. I also made some marginal chili (won't be picking up that mix again) and some pretty good peach cobbler.

We tried starting rice cereal on a spoon, but it was pretty much a fail. She didn't really swallow anything, and wasn't the least bit interested.

Sunday Campbell let us sleep in 'til 8!! Then, we ran to the mall and the Target so we could show off her Dallas Cowboy's outfit to the world and stopped by G's folks house for a short visit. Then, home again for some more football. We tried again with the rice cereal, but she just kept pushing the spoon out with her tongue. We're going to give it another shot next weekend.

So, nothing too very exciting, but some nice, quality family time!

Trial and Error

This will probably be interesting to no one but me, but as a matter of record, I thought I'd go ahead and put it down. That way, when Baby T2 makes his/her debut, I won't have to struggle so hard to remember Campbell's milestones.

At 4.5 months, she's sleeping through the night; going down between 7 and 8 p.m., waking a few times just to let us know she's still there and wants her paci, and up and ready to eat between 6 and 7 a.m. She's been taking 6 oz. consistently, so today I upped her to 7 per bottle and 2 tsp. of rice cereal in each. I did 1 tsp. of cereal for a couple of days, but I don't think it was quite enough.

The tsp. makes the formula a little too thick for the fast flow nipples, though, and Drop-Ins don't have a Y-cut nipple, so I trimmed them myself, and may have gone a little overboard... She shotgunned her bottle this morning - 7 oz. in about 5 minutes - the gave a good portion of it back, projectile style. That one only had 1.5 tsp of rice, so I added another .5 tsp to the others, and took some un-modified nipples to day care as well in case it was still flowing too fast. She can get it threw the regular nipples, it's just a lot of work.

If you've read this far, you're either family or extremely bored. :)

Choosing Thomas

I can only imagine the strength of this family and can't even begin to imagine the pain and loss they suffered.

Have a tissue handy...


Watch the video on Dallas Morning News.

*credit to Chirky since I saw this on her blog and borrowed her image*

Four Months!

It's been a busy couple of weeks for Miss Campbell Leigh! We went up and visited Grandma and Grandpa Campbell and went swimming, which she seemed to really like.



Last Friday we went and had her four-month well check and vaccinations, which she did not really like. She was fussy for a couple of days after the shots, but she's getting back to normal now. Progress report: 13 lbs, 15.5 oz and 25" long (50th percentile for weight and 75th - 90th percentile for height).

She showed good improvement at her physical therapy appointment yesterday, so we've scaled back to every-other-week visits, as long as she continues to improve - gotta keep those stretches up at home! The doc showed us a couple of new ones we could do and we're also supposed to work more on getting her to look left while she's on her belly.

We had her assessment for the DOC band yesterday as well. We didn't feel nearly as good coming out of that - they seemed to really being giving the hard sell. Like, if you don't get the band, her ears will be misaligned so she's going to get run over when she's riding her tricycle b/c she won't hear the car coming; her eyes won't be aligned so she won't be able to see straight; her teeth will come in wrong, so she'll have problems chewing, which will lead to digestive issues. Basically if we don't get the band, we're The Worst Parents in The World. They sent the measurements off to our insurance, so the next step is to see if she's approved or not. We kind of felt like they were setting us up in case we were denied we'd feel like we didn't have a choice and would have to pay out of pocket.

Anyway, we'll deal with that when we have to. In the mean time, she's precious, and we love her more every day. How could you not love that face?