Ella's new accessory

Ella got her new head gear this past week. Her band came in on Wednesday so we had her first fitting and it fit great so we are good to go. She will wear the band 23 hours a day for probably the next 2 months at least. That is usually the average time frame but it depends on how well the head responds etc. as far as if our time frame will be longer or shorter than that. 23 hours a day, sheesh. Poor girl! I'm just saying that is going to be one fuuunky smelling head. It may be funky smelling but it will hopefully be beautifully round after all of this. It better be. :) So far Ella has done great with it. It does not seem to bother her too much which is good. Every now and then she will pull on it but other than that she is a-ok.

About two weeks ago we went to have the casting done for the band. Now days they have this big high-tech 3-D scanner that they use to take pictures of the head in order to make the mold for the band and the appointment will take maybe an hour. Sounds easy enough right? Sure, for the majority of people but not for the Carders. Oooh nooo. Do you remember how I mentioned that we like to take the hard road for everything so I now use the "go in with low expectations and you will be pleasantly surprised" motto? Yeah, well my expectations were low as far as thinking the scanner would do the job and I was right on this one. Of course Ella was moving too much and they couldn't get good pictures so they had to cast her head with plaster to make the mold. Very messy! Several years ago this is the only way they used to do it but now they hardly ever do it this way because of the fancy-shmancy scanner they now have. Not for us though, we got to go old-school. Thanks Ella!

So instead of our appointment only being an hour, we were there for 3 hours. Real cool. And did I mention it is in Dallas? Yep, another perk. So we will be driving to Dallas once a week for the next 6-8 weeks to have her band checked, measurements done, etc. I normally despise driving to Dallas for things (sorry Big-D friends, just being honest!)especially with how hard it is with Ella to go anywhere but there are some positives. One really good thing about where it is in Dallas is that the clinic is right by my sweet friend Kimberly's house and she is letting us use her house when I need to feed Ella. It is such a blessing. This past week I just loaded up the car with the feeding tube, bouncy seat, videos, etc. and we just moved in with Kimberly for part of the afternoon when I had to feed Ella and it worked great. Such a huge blessing to have a place to go to feed since it is still a challenge for us. Thank you Kimberly!! It was SO fun getting to spend time with you this past week. We love you so much!

Here are some pictures of our journey so far with the cranial band.

Putting the plaster on

The little mummy. I feel like the song "The Monster Mash" should be playing in the background for this picture. I can just hear it, "The-monster-mash, it was the mooonnster mash, the-monster-mash, it was a graveyard smash, the-monster-mash, ah-wooo...ah-wooo." Ella did so good through all of this, hardly a peep until the very end. She is so sweet!

Messy girl!

All clean after her bath

First time to wear the band

BORING! Let's get some decor on this bad boy mom. Yeah, I'm sure that is exactly what she is thinking. More like let's get this thing off please.

TA-DAAAHH! What up? Nice bling girlfriend!

More to come. Ella turned 6 months last week but last week was crazy so I didn't have a chance to update on that so next post I will. Stay tuned!