This 'n That

It certainly has been awhile! Cora is getting to the stage of "Mommy you need to be holding me every minute now, and no thank you, I am not in the mood for a nap this week." I love snuggles with my little pumpkin, but this attitude is not conducive to blog-writing. Luckily for me, she has slept from about 9 pm-5 am the past two nights, so I just wake up with her at five, put her back down around 6, and stay awake! This is perfect for me, since I'm totally a morning person and trying to clean the house after she goes down at 8 or 9 is just not something I'm generally up for.

So here's a recap of what we've been up to the past few weeks:

At the beginning of October we drove to Milwaukee for Little C's appointment with the birthmarks and facial abnormalities specialist. She is fantastic! We felt kind of like VIP because we not only had a referral from Cora's pediatrician and dermatologist, but she had also heard of us through the magic of Cora's aunt being in the pediatric surgery world. Apparently our doctor likes to rub elbows with the hemangioma specialist in Boston and she'd already seen the pictures that we sent my sister. You know how we roll.

I guess I've already given you the basic run-down of the details from that appointment. I just forgot to include the fact that our baby is so adorable that the receptionists at the clinic needed to give her this hat:

So we have a cute little pumpkin head.

A couple of days after, I took her to the local children's hospital and got her hooked up with a Holter monitor so we could start her on the topical medication. With Cora being so little, they were slightly concerned that she may experience some heart rate irregularities with the medicine getting into her system. This is more of a concern if we start the oral medicine (Propranolol) later on, but since she's teeny even for her age and my family has a history of really low blood pressure, they decided we'd better monitor her on this medication just in case. 

So Cora charmed the hospital from the minute we got there (she achieved this by letting out several huge farts in the silent, but crowded, elevator). She flirted with the receptionists and we quickly got her hooked up. Seeing as getting my little girl dressed and undressed is apparently akin to Chinese water torture, she was not happy to be hooked up to the Holter. We drove home while Cora serenaded me with the dulcet tones of her tortured screams. 

Get this ancient iPod off of me!

Thankfully, her results came back normal after 48 hours of monitoring and daily life in the Robbins nest resumed.

We hung out with lots of family! Yia Yia (her choice...we just roll with it...) came to visit and took us out to lunch and the book store for some fun Halloween books.

Cora, can you say "speech pathologist"?

We also went back to the apple orchard for more apples and to buy some pumpkins! Daddy had fun wearing her and climbing all of the hills to get to the orchard with the later blooming apples. I carried the diaper bag and apples. Baby-wearing is less fun when you've already had to do it for 8 months.

Overall, Cora's doing very well. Her nose looks lighter in color to me, but I'm not confident that it's totally stopped growing. She's officially on the growth chart now in all categories (weight, length, and (gigantic) head circumference) and has finally surpassed her birth length! We'll go back to the hemangioma clinic next week to see what they think and take action from there.

But also, guess who can kind of sort of sit up in her bumbo chair for a couple of seconds! With such a little body and giant head, we've had to come up with creative variations on "tummy time" that don't involve her legs flailing around in the air.

No she is not staring at the television...

Seeing her sit up is amazing and we're realizing just how big our little C is getting! Of course we love her very much and would like to encourage her to continue sleeping through the night. (We mean it.)

Speaking of which, I hear some weird cackling noises coming from the bedroom! Guess I'm off to start our day. 

Our little blueberry nose

So Sean and I have the most adorable little girl on the planet. We know this because when we take her out people stop and exclaim, "My word! What a cute baby! Why, she must be the most adorable little girl on the planet!" Really, it's not our totally biased opinion. The people have spoken and this is what they have said. "Look at those big eyes!" "What a sweet little peanut!" and "She's just the cutest baby I've ever seen!" are among the other such statements of glee and overall infatuation with Little C.

Lately, along with these comments about how cute she is, Cora has been getting some questions. "What did you do to your nose, little one?" "Did you take a tumble, baby girl?" they ask her. She is, of course, very well versed in her response to these questions. Generally she stares at them and fills her pants.

Cora of Arabia and her trusty steed, Joshua Giraffe II

While her parents find this response entirely appropriate, we realize some more explanation may be in order. We agree that this blog might be an easy way to answer most of your questions at once, and save us some time in relaying the Legend of the Blueberry Nose so you can get back to telling us how cute she is! (Really, it's not us, you just can't resist her big brown eyes!) 

The purplish-blue spot on Little C's nose, while it appears to be a bruise, is actually something called a hemangioma. (Please continue reading this post before fervently googling "hemangioma on nose". It will make you feel better.) Like everyone else, we thought Cora had just banged up her nose on the carpet during the great American baby past time of Tummy Time. Upon a quick trip to the pediatrician for what turned out to be baby acne, the doctor discovered the little bruise is actually a birthmark. Hemangioma are essentially a cluster of blood cells, referred to as a tumor, but definitely benign. It usually shows up during the first couple of months of a baby's life, and it will grow until they're around 10-12 months old. After that time, the hemangioma will begin to shrink down, generally fading by the time the kid is about 5 or 6, but sometimes taking a bit longer. They're a fairly common birthmark in infants, most notably in caucasian females who were born prematurely or at a low birth weight. (Sound like anyone you know?)

Usually they aren't cause for concern, but depending on the location there can be a risk for deformity once the hemangioma shrinks back down. Since Cora's is on her nose, her doctors think it's a good idea for us to proactively treat it rather than wait for her to have surgery when she's about a year old. (Where's the page in her baby book for "Baby's First Nose Job"?) Yesterday Sean and I took her to the Children's Hospital of Wisconsin to be seen by the best of the best in hemangioma treatment. The doctor there explained to us that her hemangioma is rather large for her age, but still at the point where we should be able to stop the growth before it causes any damage that would require surgery. She's not at all concerned that it will affect Cora's breathing or anything like that (though she may sound a little more congested at times due to increased blood flow to the nose), and we've got a great team of doctors working with her to be proactive about this!

Really we are so thankful that this is the only thing we have to deal with. Walking around the Children's Hospital yesterday we realized things could be worse for our Little C. She's otherwise healthy (ok, so she's super tiny with a big head, but that's just genetics for you!) and this should really only affect her cosmetically and for the first year of her life. We'll try to keep you all posted on this blog regarding her progress.

In the meantime, she will still be a blueberry nose girl. Feel free to notice it and ask her questions, but I can't guarantee her response will be as informative as mine! Then you can go ahead and keep telling her what a cute and sweet little girl she is. Because let's face it, she's adorable and she rocks her blueberry nose like nobody's business.