Helmet Head

When thinking about when to conceive, there are several factors that come in to play. First: Are we ready? Our answer was yes. Second: Do we want our children to be somewhat close in age so that they may grow up together? We thought yes. There are many other factors, but I think those were the first two that we asked ourselves. We were ready and we did want our kids to be close in age. Now, Katie is a different story. She's older, and didn't have any siblings to grow up with, and I think that has affected her tremendously. Corey and I didn't want that for the children we'd have together. HOWEVER..... The end result is not always what we had imagined.

We pictured Cooper, a baby boy or baby girl, cooing, playing together, and Katie being this great helper, wanting nothing more than to be the proud big sister of two. Ha. Instead, we have an eleven year old who is quite distracted with raging hormones, middle school and friends, a two year old who is hell bent on proving just what the true meaning of "terrible twos" actually is, and twin girls who, for the most part, have kept everyone on their toes with medical craziness and personalities that are so opposite you'd think they weren't related.

Having twins was a surprise for us, but we were excited beyond words. Twins can also bring on so many unexpected twists and turns in life, and you're rarely prepared for it. From the day they were born, everything was different. Feeding was different. Sleeping was different (at first, nonexistent). Even though everything became different after the girls were born, we all sort of slid right into the new dynamic and have worked it out pretty well. But, the unexpected still happens. Gas appears out of nowhere, in the middle of the night, and after one night of constant bouncing in the football hold, we're stocked up on Mylicon for faster relief. Next time, we're ready. Just when you think they're secure, surrounded by pillows on the floor, you look up and one has rolled over the pillow and is headed under the coffee table. It never ends and the anxiety of expecting the unexpected is KILLING me!

I blogged a couple months back about Mackenzie's head. She developed positional plagiocephaly - When the head becomes misshapen due to pressure on one area of the head. It's quite interesting. Twins have a much higher chance of developing this, and being a preemie boosts that percentage even higher - We had both factors against us. Luckily, so far, just Mackenzie has it. I took her to Portland in June to Doernbechers for a consult with a specialist. She confirmed it and instructed us to do 10 weeks of repositioning and home physical therapy to attempt to reshape her head on our own. We did it diligently, and we noticed her head becoming more round. But, before her appointment last week I knew there wasn't as much improvement as we'd hoped. At her checkup last week the doctor was impressed with the improvement, but she discussed what we already knew - It's still misshapen.

Yesterday I went back to Portland to an orthotics specialist to discuss helmets and such. The process was amazing. The specialist put a sock like thing with a cutout for her face on her head and stuck in this electronic node thing and put it on the top of her head. The sock thing held it in place. There was a cord from that node thing going to the computer. With a scanner gun, that looked much like a scanner gun used in a grocery store, the specialist began at the top of her head and scanned down the side of her face. He continued this on all angles of her head. I looked at the screen and I was amazed. For each scan he took Mackenzie's face began to appear on the screen. Then her whole head appeared....It was absolutely amazing. This machine had scanned Mackenzie's whole head structure into a 3 dimensional design on the computer. And it truly looked like her! With this scan, Mackenzie's helmet can be specially constructed for only her use, and will fit her head exactly. It was pretty darn impressive. So, yes, Mackenzie gets a helmet! It will take some getting use to, but it's going to help her to reshape her little head so it's somewhat round instead of "rhombus" looking. She'll be in it for 4-5 months, maybe less. I'm sure we'll get looks, lots of questions, and if Cooper continues on his little defiant streak, he might even try to head butt her just to see if he gets hurt.

Today I'm watching Coopers finger - He decided to grab a yellow jacket while I was in Portland yesterday, and the yellow jacket didn't want to be his friend. He got stung. But, we learned he's not allergic to them, and the only thing left from the incident is the memory. I suppose he won't be grabbing onto bees anytime in the near future. Now, if he'd just learn to quit riding our cats like a horse, we'll be in good shape!

So, now that alone play time is over for Cooper, I'm going to head in to play trains and tracks with him in hopes that he doesn't chuck a train at my head (Corey has a scar from a gash received from a flying train last week.) Now that I think about it, it's going to be a great thing that Kenzie has a helmet. Heck, maybe I should just get one for Rayla, too! At least they'd be safe from Cooper's attempts to make his toys fly to us!