Life in General...

Random post time! Hooray for all of you :).

Let's see - the craft fair went well - I actually sold a decent amount considering it was my first show. I am now working on creating an online store as soon as I come up with a name. It will have all sorts of random baby items. Kind of excited to get things up and running.

We are surviving here - things are still tight as we adjust to Daddy Mac's new job and pay schedule - but in another month or so we should be all caught up, thank goodness.

Monster Boy has been pretty much living up to his nickname the last two weeks. School is out, and he is getting BORED which means fit throwing, not listening, arguing and talking back have become something of the norm in our house. Luckily in two weeks he will start having "classes" at the local botanical gardens where he will learn about nature and then do a related craft project. That will happen once a week, so that should help break up the monotony for him a bit. And in July, he will go to Vacation Bible School.

VBS actually works out really well for us, as it falls the week that Miss Sunshine has her six month post-operative check-up at Shriner's in Chicago. I was worried about what we would do with Monster Boy while I am gone with Miss Sunshine, since Daddy Mac is working LONG hours these days. But my grandmother is volunteering at the VBS, so I will drop him off the Tuesday I leave and she will take him home with her, where he will spend the night and go back to VBS with her on Wednesday while I am in Chicago, then go home with her Wednesday afternoon and Daddy Mac will pick him up after work that evening.

I am looking forward to hitting up our check-up with Shriner's. Miss Sunshine has made great strides with her speech lately - babbling "dadada" "tatata" and "bababa" sounds - as well as throwing out some "h" sounds every once in a great while. Still not a lot of words, but she's technically within range for her age, so we are refusing to worry about it at this point. She's gaining weight well, no signs of any issues with her repair. She did lose her right ear tube last week, but our pediatrician wants to try to wait it out until our post-op check and see how she does. Also, since we are without insurance, we are hoping to be able to delay replacing it until we do have insurance again, since it's basically completely outside of our means to pay for it otherwise. So far she seems to be doing well without it, so we are keeping our fingers crossed as much as possible. That is the ear they were most concerned about scarring in when they first placed the tubes, although she did pass her hearing tests afterwards, so we are just keeping an eye on things as much as possible. This next visit is a full team visit, so she will be seen by the ENT and Audiologist while we are there and we will be able to see how she is being affected by the lack of the tube. Our ENT here locally did tell us that research has shown that it can take up to 8 years for the palate to start fully functioning in the capacity of keeping fluid out of the ears after repair, so we just have no way of knowing what the effect of this tube falling out will be. It's different than in a child who is having tubes placed due to recurrent ear infections that does not have a cleft, so it's another "we just don't know" type of situation. Ah, well. We deal with those as they come!

With all that said, it is getting late, and I am tired. Tomorrow I am taking Monster Boy to the local craft store for a free project class where he will make Daddy Mac's Father's Day gift - and it's first come first serve, so I need to be up and ready go to bright and early, so I'm going to hit the hay for now!