Pink Ears!

Well Mallory has received her pink hearing aids, and I must say they are super cute! It is amazing that at 5 1/2 months old she and Kate have such specific personalities...Kate is our tomboy of sorts, she L-O-V-E loves to be played with rough, to be thrown about elicits a huge smile and often lots of giggles. Mallory is more delicate and giggles with "softer" play...she is our princess, and as such the pink aids suit her perfectly.

The brand of hearing aids we got came with a gift for Mallory, a little otter/mouse-like stuffed animal that also has hearing aids. I hadn't thought much about these types of toys, but I do remember Cabbage Patch Kids having glasses; so why not hearing aids? I am now interested in looking for dolls that have the option to buy hearing aids...did you know that Build-a-Bear has this option? Pretty neat stuff.


Monday, September 20th was our genetics appointment for the girls, and although it was a fairly successful appointment I am disappointed to report that it has yielded about 10 additional appointments. We drew labs on Mallory and are looking to see if there is a gene mutation that is the cause of her hearing loss, the labs may take as long as a month to be completed. In the meantime she has a follow-up appointment with ophthalmology and has an appointment with Dermatology in a vascular malformations clinic to evaluate her hemangioma. Not sure I have mentioned before but she has this growth on her left shoulder that has continued to grow and is very vascular-looking. It is now the size of a ping pong ball and is very blue. The geneticist is wanting to get a closer look and make sure it is not growing into her spine and thus eventually effecting her range of motion. Sounds scary when I write it out but we are optimistic that this is nothing to worry about and it is, as our Pediatrician said, a simple hemangioma that will reabsorb on its own and leave no ill effects on Mallory.

We did not get any labs from Kate, and I think this is because there is not a chromosome/gene mutation that is thought to have caused her Microtia (is this right Molly?) The Dr. did mention that she thought Kate had some facial indications of a disorder known under an umbrella term as Ocular Aural Vertebral Spectrum Disorder. She felt that Kate has an assymetric facial composition, although slight, where her left side of her face is smaller. Her jaw, cheek bone and ear look smaller and because of this she is having her eyes checked. She will also be getting a scan of some sort (CT or MRI) of her cervical spine to see if she has any vertebral anomalies.

This is what is scheduled currently and I believe more appointments will be looked into once we get some answers from either the lab work or from radiographic studies. Wishing there was one test that gave us all of the answers.
The girls are developing on track. Kate continues to be very active and vocal, smiling all of the time. Mallory is also talking more and more and her smiles melt you whenever you are blessed to get one.

I'm trying, I promise!

Okay, so I mentioned in the last post that I would be updating monthly...well now that that promise has been squashed I thought I'd finally post the girls 4 month photos with their 5 month ones. Everyone in the Nelson household is great! Jack is super fun and talking more and more each day...some words we even understand! Kate and Mallory were not gaining enough weight and at their 4 month appointment the Doctor told me that they were needing to put on at least 1/2 ounce per day...they had put on 2 ounces in 45 days..not good. Fast forward 18 days and a weight check showed them up 9 ounces! Mallory is 9lbs 7 oz. and Kate is 10lbs 13 oz. They look great! Both are talking ALL the time now. We have ordered Mallory's permanent hearing aids, they are light pink (so cute), hopefully they will be here soon. Kate smiles all of the time, she is super laid back and literally bursts into a huge smile every time you talk to her. Mallory is a little more difficult to get smiles from, she definitely makes you work for them, but totally worth all that hard work. Genetics appointments on the 20th, stayed tuned for info with that appointment.
4 month photo, Kate loves to hold Mallory's hand.
5 Month photos were difficult because Jack really wanted to be in EVERY photo...
He decided that everyone needed a hat, even Mallory who was passed out from our photo shoot.
Jack and I had a day of fun, just the two of us. We started our outing at Blue Chip Cookies for some ice cream, Jack was not appreciative of this stop as he does not like sweets much. Who is this kid? I mean really, a kid that refuses ice cream and cookies?! After our unsuccessful sweets stop we went to Jumpin Jax for some bouncing fun...Jack had a blast and ran around constantly for 2 hours! We had a great day and hope to repeat these outings often.
And here is an older photo. The Leawood fire department showed up to our new neighborhood pool party, and as you would guess it was the hit of the party for most of the kids. Jack was on cloud nine 'driving' the "big truck" (one of his new and understandable words), until a meltdown when he was asked to get out of the driver seat.

Hope you have all had a wonderful summer, talk to you next month?