“That is the happiest baby I have ever seen.” Those are
words that we hear often about our sweet Kathleen Claire and she lives up to
them. Somehow she has been gifted with an extra helping of glad delight. She shines her still toothless smile on every
one and causes others to smile as she gazes at them sweetly.
On Wednesday, she will be eleven months old and is working
on walking and talking. The funny thing about her talking is that her first
word other than dada was “happy”. She learned it from the girls singing Happy
Birthday and now says it many times a day, especially when she see her Mama. I
love it, it is so her.
Her favorite place to play right now is the toilet. If we
forget to close the door, she makes a beeline. She uses her hearing a lot so she
doesn’t even need to see that we didn’t close the door, she listens for the
sound. And now, if we catch her on her way, she belly laughs while zipping in
the opposite direction as if she didn’t really plan to head to the bathroom. If
we forget, we will soon hear her splashing in the toilet, oh gross.
I started feeding her solids regularly a few weeks ago and
now she is ferocious. She rejects “baby food” which doesn’t surprise me because
so did the other two but she gobbles up anything with spices. I think her hands
down favorite right now is pumpkin lentil curry.
She is such an affectionate little girl and loves to gives
hugs and kisses. She’s also very rough and LOVES to wrestle. She is learning
what “gentle” means because sometimes she is just a little too rough, but oh so
funny,
She has two older sisters who love to be little mamas and
who love to include her in their play as their baby. She is incredibly patient
with them as they pull, push, and drag her here and there (I do often step in).
The adoring smiles that she has for both of them is priceless.
My baby is going to be eleven months on Wednesday but
tomorrow is a big day for her as well. I think that I mentioned before that she
has an eye condition, congenital esotrophy, that requires surgery to help her
vision. Tomorrow is the first surgery that will decide what further treatment
she will need. We are finding it really hard to think about. I’ve been trying
to convince myself that it is a relatively minor surgery (if any surgery on a
baby is minor) and that I can be thankful that her sight can possibly be helped
and that she doesn’t have illness etc.
But the truth is that I am afraid for my little one. She can’t eat for
hours and I have to let her go for surgery without me and then she will wake up
without me too. They say that she will be in pain for a few days and it breaks
my heart that I can’t explain to her why. Her eyesight will be worse for a time
and I know that will be so confusing for her.
Of course, we know that in the long run this is best and hopefully she
will have greatly improved vision but in the meantime it’s hard not to think
about short-term difficulties and also the risks that are present any time a
baby goes under anesthetic.
It’s just never easy to know that your child is going to
experience pain.
So would you pray for Kathleen Claire tomorrow? And her mama
and daddy who are feeling a bit fearful?
She can’t nurse or eat after midnight until
tomorrow afternoon after surgery. She still nurses once in the early morning and
then of course multiple times during the day so making the trip to the
children’s hospital without feeding her is likely going to be so hard.
If this surgery goes well and is effective in
getting her eyes to work together, she may not need further surgeries. The
success rate is 50%.
Her eyes will be sore and she likely will be
sick. I’m worried about her rubbing her eyes.
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