Crazy week!

the dreaded key!

Claire and her new hardware

Ok this week has been quite eventful in the Richey household, let me start from the beginning. On Tuesday Claire went to Cleveland to get her arm casts removed. It went pretty good, we learned how to use the key for the bone extenders, but she was not too happy. The extenders are pretty intense looking and they made a cover for us for night time but she has been wearing them all the time. It makes us a little nervous, to not have them on for her and our safety. We will be going up to Cleveland every Monday for at least the next month to check the progress of Claire's fingers. We turn the key four times a day which allows the fingers to grow 1 mm a day. Claire hates when we turn the key, but the Doctor assured us that it doesn't hurt. Which I believe because we asked a 2 1/2 year old at Claire's last surgery and he said it didn't hurt, and we have done it while she is sleeping and doesnt move. The extenders will be on for around 3 months total but we will only use the key for a month. Then in June or July they will do surgery to take off the extenders and separate any webbing. Claire may have a little friend, there was a girl that had surgery the same day she did and will be at all her appointments too, and they are about the same age, so at least we will have a familiar face each visit. She loves playing peek a boo with her hand covers on, and is able to crawl with them on and pull her self up on to objects. Wednesday night Mitch went to the ER or ED with me and we found out he had kidney stones. He stayed home from work today in hopes that it would pass, as of now it hasn't but hopefully it will soon. So last night was complete chaos in our house, my parents were able to come over and watch Claire so we didn't have to take her too. Other than that this weekend will hopefully be low key, we all need to rest. Claire is just blabbing like crazy! She has learned to say Doggie, and oooofff( her version of woof) kittie, I do I do I do, ( we sing a song to her that goes, I love you Claire Bear yes I do, so we think she is trying to sing that.) She sits at the glass door and yells for the doggies our neighbor has, it is so cute, except when she wants to do it at 3 in the morning! We are still trying to get the sleep thing down since surgery, it's getting better but hasn't been perfected yet. We have her pretty much on all milk and very little formula, so far she is doing pretty good. She loves the outside so hopefully the weather will get better, it's snowing right now! I will update how our appointment goes on Monday!