Time flies...

I can't believe it's already May!  Where did this year go? 

We finally heard back from Shriner's last week - and we go there in two weeks!  Ack!  They had a cancellation for their next clinic, so we had the option of the clinic the second week of May, or waiting until OCTOBER.  So, I chose May.  It's going to make things a little crazy that week, and necessitate postponing our planned garage sale, but it's what we have to do.

I'm excited and nervous all at once for this visit.  In our opinions, Miss Sunshine is doing beyond phenomenal.  Her cognitive abilities are through the roof, her speech is fantastic, she passed her last hearing tests with flying colors.  On the other hand, we are not the medical professionals.  And it's entirely possible that all the things we think are going great are really not.  When you are dealing with something like cleft, things can change so rapidly as our children grow.  Things like scar tissue causing growth restriction on her palate.  We already know that she has a slight underbite, from her dental visits.  We know we are in for lots of (expensive) orthodontic work.  What we don't know is if, as she grows, the size of her palate will cause issues with speech, etc.  It's not something they can predict, they can only take a wait and see approach to it.  So every visit is a little tense for us because the truth is we just never know.  However, I'm choosing to expect that she'll pass everything with flying colors, as she has for the last year, and that our visit will turn out great, as usual.  The stress of traveling with a three year old is really higher on my concern list than anything else right now.  Although, we made so many trips up to now that I pretty much have it down to a science.  I'll be bringing some pullups as a backup, because even though she is potty trained, travel can be disruptive for a kiddo.  But I can pack everything we need into one backpack, with a small backpack for her filled with entertainment items for the flight.  We have the travel rack with wheels for her carseat (that's really the most difficult thing to maneuver on our trips) and typically I would put her seat on the plane since she now has her own seats on the flights.  I learned from experience last time, however, that the new airline they fly us in on has SMALL planes and it's a massive pain in the neck to lug that thing down those narrow aisles - so we will be gate checking the carseat - and I'll be taking my chances that they won't break the wheels and leaving it strapped to the rack so I'm not holding up people at the gate trying to get it reassembled.  This should be interesting, to say the least.  I will admit, I'm looking forward to the time when we can travel without a carseat at all, although that's at least 6 years into the future.  Oh well, you do what you have to in order to make sure your kids are safe.