Can't get enough.........FOOD!

You would seriously think that I never feed my children. They always seem to be hungry. Anytime I have food, I better have something on my plate that Maylea can have as well. She gets GRUMPY if someone around her is eating and she doesn't have anything. This morning after breakfast, I caught her picking the crumbs of her muffin out of the highchair and eating them.

I got caught taking pictures and got the look: What? I'm not doing anything!

She started to crawl towards me laughing. I didn't get the picture centered, but thought it was cute. Evidence on the chin and all!

Favoirte Toy

Maylea's favorite thing to do is to clear off and clean out. Anything I have sitting on the coffee table, she will knock it all off. If the diaper bag is sitting on the floor, she will pull everything out of it. When we go to grandma and grandpa's, she has found the cabinet with lids. She will play with them and pull them ALL out. I love that it keeps her entertained, but I hate picking them all up!!!

Crazy Bedhead

Maylea just woke up from a nap and when mom brought her out of the bedroom I just had to get a picture. I know these pictures are not great, but you can see the bedhead we wake up with every morning and nap!!!

Hamlin Family Pictures

I am not at all good about taking pictures of the Hamlin family. I am not sure what the deal is. I think that part of the problem is that my camera is always in my purse, but when we do things with the Hamlin's I don't normally take my purse. I don't think that I will need it when we are just driving a couple blocks. So, when my sister-in-law, Lacie, sent me some I knew I needed to put them on the blog.

This is Grandma Gayle, Aunt Chantal and all the grandkids. Faith has since been added to the family, but this picture was taken at Thanksgiving before she was born. You can see that Cooper is the only boy and that my kids (of the grandkids) will be the only ones that are not "towheads"

This is Gayle with the grandkids and her children

Here is Gayle with her children. From left to right: Todd, Shawn, Gayle, Joshua, Chantal, Richard (Uncle Ricco).
This is Cooper with Grandpa (Cooper just calls him grandpa. My dad is grandpa Doug)

Grandpa and grandma Pat (Joshua's step mom) and all the grandkids (again taken before Faith was born).

Good big brother

Cooper keeps some of his toys in this little wagon at grandma and grandpa's house. He wheeled it out into the living room, and the next thing we know he is pulling his sister around it. Maylea was loving it!!! She was squealing and laughing the whole time.

You can see that she fits in it just perfectly.

Popsicle Video

I put the pictures on here of Maylea eating the popsicle, but couldn't get the video uploaded. You can see how possessive she was of it and how angry she was when you tried to take it away.

Ready for Spring

We finally had a nice day outside and I had promised Cooper that we could play on his swing set. The ground is still VERY wet, so Maylea couldn't play in the grass, and I didn't want to hold her the whole time SOOOO, we went to Walmart and bought Maylea a swing. She was going to get one from Santa, but we couldn't find any at Christmas time. I would have held off until her birthday, but with the nice weather coming, I didn't want to wait a month and a half.

Maylea LOVED the swing. I cannot wait for the Spring weather to be more consistant so that we can play outside more often.

Saturday Morning

Maylea has learned to climb. Saturday morning while daddy was unloading the dishwasher he turned his back for just a second and when he turned back around, this is what he found.

Big brother going in for a kiss!!!

We are convinced that Maylea is going to be bigger than her brother (I have come to realize I will be the shortest in my family!!!). The girl will EAT AND EAT AND EAT AND EAT..... We will feed her and she will always want more. When we are eating dinner we have to be sure and have something on our plate for her as well, because it doesn't go over to well if we are eating and she isn't. Maylea LOVES vegetables (not complaining). Other than bananas she doesn't eat much fruit, but any vegetables you give her she will eat. I even made myself an artichoke the other night and she ate most of it. Here I have put a couple pictures of Maylea eating her first muffin for breakfast. I couldn't even get a pictur of the muffin and she already had half of it in her mouth!

First Popsicle

Joshua had an aunt and uncle in town from Garden City. A few of the Hamlin's were able to get together with them while they were here. Cousin Olivia gave Maylea her first popsicle. Maylea loved it!!!! With those teeth coming in I am sure it felt good on her gums. I have a video of her eating it that is too funny. We were trying to help her with the popsicle, and she would not let us take it from her....she got GRUMPY!!!! I will post the video later.

Uncle Rick helps too!

Visit to Childrens Mercy Hospital

****I have not proof read this yet! I just used my entire lunch and then some to hurry and get this posted.


So, I wasn't completely honest about everything that happened at Maylea's 9 month check up. Ever since we switched to Dr. Stewart he has been concerned about the size of Maylea's head. Compared to the rest of her body it is SMALL. Her length is off the charts, her body has been between 50% -75%, but her head started at 20% at birth and has slowly worked its way down the scale. At her 9 month check, it was less than 5%.

Maylea's appointment was at 3:00. I text Joshua on my way home from work that day (around 4) and asked how it went. He replies, "Sitting here waiting. Dr. is having x-rays of her head done. He is concerned it is starting to fuse together too soon." I am a little shocked, but not concerned....her momma has a small head!!!!

Joshua gets home and I ask more questions. He really can not tell me anything b/c once they had the x-rays done (which Maylea HATED) they left. This was a Thursday. On Monday afternoon, I call the nurse and say, that I wanted a little more information and wondered if they had heard anything. She calls back and fills me in a little (Joshua did a good job of telling me everything) and says that she still has not gotten a report. She said it is unusual that she didn't have one and would call when she did. She then says, "If you don't hear from me by Wed. call me back."

So on Wednesday I leave for work and of course I forgot my phone at home. Joshua shoots me an email in the morning that said the nurse called, but he was on another line. He called her back and it said the office was closed by he left a message anyway. Around 11 AM I have an email from Joshua that says, "Please call me ASAP!!!!!" Okay, now I am panicked. I know the nurse called, you NEVER ask me to call you, and I don't have my dang phone. I can't call long distance from school!!!!! I borrow a cell phone from our secretary and Joshua doesn't answer. In the mean time I have calmed down and realize: Email him back and give him my number, he can call me. With in a few minutes, Joshua calls and says that the x-ray showed signs of early suture fusing and that we will be going to Children's Mercy to see a specialist. I immediately started to cry. Children's Mercy, what??? That is where kids who have major issues have to go.....the thought of it for some reason freaked me out!!!! We had already done some research and knew that if there were any sign of the sutures fusing surgery was the only option.

Children's Mercy got ahold of us and we had an appointment at 10:00 AM last Friday (2/5/10).
We got the kids up, fed Maylea a bottle, and were out the door by 7:30. Dropped Cooper off at daycare and were on the road. The closer we got to KC the worse the weather got. A trip that should have taken an hour and a half ended up taking 2 hours.

Here is what the weather was like in KC

We get to the hospital and I am immediately impressed with it. The place is run very efficiently and they are very secure. Joshua and I had to present a photo ID and then we were given a "badge" to wear that stated which department we should be in.

We found our way up to the surgery center, got checked in and we were in the exam room waiting by 10. Mary, the nurse practitioner, comes in to visit first. She asks a few background questions and what all transpired for us to visit them. We tell her the story and the history of our visits with Dr. Stewart. She leaves to look at our x-rays (that we brought with us). When she returns she has the Dr. with her (I can't remember his name right now). They have looked at the x-rays are don't see ANY signs that the sutures are closing. They can see that we have a happy, healthy, well developed little girl. We do a little talking and because x-rays aren't always accurate and b/c the sutures that generally close early aren't even showing on any of the x-rays they want to do a CT Scan.

The nurse gets it scheduled for 1:00 that day. So, we are leaving with 2 rules for the day. Rule #1: don't let your daughter go to sleep. We like to just have them get so tired that they fall asleep for the procedure. Rule #2: in the event that we can not get your daughter to sleep we will have to sedate her. Therefore, NO FOOD!!!! WHAT???? ARE YOU KIDDING ME???? Any body who knows my daughter knows that isn't going to happen. Food is serious business when it comes to Maylea.....I mean, A BIG DEAL!!!! She hasn't had anything since 7 AM and that was just a bottle. Joshua and I look at each other, look at the time, and say, "this could be a long 2 1/2 hours."

We go down to the snack bar and get some coffee. There was no getting food for ourselves either. If Maylea sees us eating she wants some too. We find ourselves a place to sit and we wait. I have to say, Maylea was AWESOME!!! She started to get a little fussy and tired about 12:30, but all we had to do was hold her and walk around. I could not have asked for a better little girl that day considering the situation.

You can see in some of these pictures how "kid friendly" the place is. They have little waggons you can use to pull your stuff and kids around. The colors are all so bright, murals, kids art work, even their signs are "fun" to follow.

Maylea and I went into the gift shop a few times to look and play. She took an immediate liking to this ball so I went ahead and got it for her. We played with it for a little while, but as tired as she was getting, nothing kept her attention for too long.

They finally called us in right at 1:00 for the scan. We got in there and it was like I was getting a massage. The lights were dim,and the music was so peaceful. It took us 30 min., but we finally got her to sleep (THANK GOD!!!). We had her asleep twice, but as soon as we put her down she would wake up. I finally asked the nurse, "Can we please give her a bottle. I am very confident that if she eats she will go to sleep." Momma knows best!!!!

We get done with this about 1:45. Stop to get some lunch and head home. We will wait until Monday to get the final results.

We get the call yesterday. Everything is just as expected.....we made a trip and went through all of this for nothing! We are thankful that we go the outcome that we wanted, but it is still SO frustrating! Needless to say, we will be switching our little girl back to a pediatrician!!!!!