It's been a crazy summer at the Loveland house. Claire started her helmet treatment in June. Her first follow up appointment was early July and the results were amazing. When we started her on the helmet, her head had a 12 mm measurement difference. (The measurement is taken from her eyebrow to the back of her head opposite.) So between the two diagonals, there was a pretty significant difference. At her follow up appointment, the number had gone down to only a 5 mm difference. Now I'm so glad we decided to get her the helmet. Her next appointment is August 8th, hopefully we'll have more great news and she won't have to wear it too much longer.
End of June, Claire and I took a trip to Oregon to visit my family. We had such a wonderful time playing with Grandma, Grandpa, and Aunt J. We went to the zoo on the 4th of July and had a fun BBQ with some friends. Claire especially liked the petting zoo where she made friends with a goat. We also got to ride on the tractor with Grandpa. We had a few girl shopping days with Grandma, which included a trip to Jamba Juice. Claire loved it so much, she learned how to drink from a straw!
We only had a few days home before our next trip. Claire was sick in the beginning, and then Ross was sick. I didn't have time to be sick with everything that needed to get done before we left for the Johnson Family Reunion in California. During those few days, Claire got her first x-ray! Ross was putting her to bed and playing with her. He had her standing on the bars of her crib while he held her hands. Her foot slipped and Ross heard a pop when her weight fell. We noticed that she wouldn't use her left arm and screamed like a banshee whenever we'd touch that wrist. After a few minutes, we decided to take her in to her Dr's office. I LOVE her pediatrician. I don't think we could have picked a better one.
The Dr. thought it was probably a nursemaid's elbow, but because of how tender Claire's wrist was, there was a possibility of a fracture. She couldn't try to pop Claire's elbow back in until we did the x-ray to be sure nothing else was wrong. Ross went in with the x-ray tech while I waited in the hall. I'm sure you could hear that poor girl way on the other side of the hospital. Luckily the x-ray came back negative. The Dr. quickly popped her elbow back in and Claire was back to normal! I was grateful it went back in on the first try. Needless to say, Claire slept extremely well that night.
We just got back from the Johnson Reunion and had a blast!! We drove to Kingsburg, California the first day and stayed the night at Ross' grandparents house. Claire was amazing on the trip. I was shocked. She loved to just look out the window and play with her toys. We didn't have to put in the Baby Einstein's CD once! The next day everyone headed out to Morro Bay. We did a family 10K, family bingo, talent show, went swimming at the beach, took family pictures, fed seals, played 1,000 games of Skip-Bo, ate some amazing food, and just had a great time. It was so fun to get to see everyone and get Claire together with the other baby cousins. We stayed another night at Grandma and Grandpa's house before we headed back to Utah. Claire got to go swimming in their pool and LOVED it. It was so fun to take her swimming and watch her kick furiously. She didn't mind getting splashed or dunked on accident. She was quite the fish. We had an amazing time and I was sad to go. Luckily we got to bring back a couple souvenirs. Mom and Autumn come back to spend the week with us. Autumn gets to play with us while Mom attends a family history conference at BYU.
It's great to be home, and even more fun to have them stay with us. Luckily, I don't think we have much going on in August. We'll have some time to relax and get back to our routines before school starts up again. I hate to be the party pooper, but I can't wait for fall. Perhaps it's just the fall fashion, but I'm getting antsy. I'm so excited for apple pie, apple cider, redecorating the house, breaking out the peacoats and scarves, pumpkins...everything.
