On the road again...

Well, not really NOW. Now, we are back home again.

But we DID go to Chicago for a follow up with Shriner's this week, for Miss Sunshine's ear tubes. Everything checked out great! Her tubes are in place and functioning properly. She passed her hearing test, although the audiologist did make sure to inform me that at this point they are only testing her GENERAL hearing. She is too young yet to test individual hearing in each ear (do you remember the big old headphones they used back in school? Eventually they will do that kind of testing with Miss Sunshine to verify if she has any hearing loss in either ear) but her overall hearing, meaning the hearing in both ears combined, falls within normal range.

And, while we were in Chicago I got to meet two people who I know from the internet, but not in real life. Well, I suppose now I know them in real life! One is a mommy who also has a little girl with cleft and who is also going through Shriner's for her care (and her daughter is just beautiful!) and another is a mommy who has a little boy the same age as Miss Sunshine. We met up and took the kiddies to a children's museum, where they had a blast and we got some cute pictures. (And since I haven't had a chance to ask said Mommy yet if I can post pictures of her adorable little boy, I will regale you with pictures of Miss Sunshine alone - although I do think his arm shows up in one shot!)

She is dragging a cube over to use as a chair at this desk area in the "vet's office" here. Pretty inventive, this one.

Going grocery shopping. Capri Sun and fruit.

Pretending to be a checkout girl - just like Mommy did back in the day! (Well, okay, I didn't pretend, I really was a cashier at a grocery store for nearly four years in high school and college...)
Steering the ship!
She put herself in the cage. First thing she did after opening the door to it - and I totally saw it coming!

And we survived our horrendously long day in the airport the day after our appointment, and even managed to make it home a bit early on standby. And came straight home and went straight to bed, and got right back up and back in to everyday life. With the good news that everything is going well, we will go back for her one year post-op sometime in January or February, and I have every faith we will be released to yearly visits at that point, because of how well she is doing now. Such a huge weight off of our shoulders.

And now, well, I'm going to go get some rest because I still haven't caught up on all the sleep I didn't get while in Chicago (since I NEVER sleep well when sharing a room with either of my kids) this week.