December

November was a busy but great month. We celebrated Thanksgiving twice. My nephew came from Syracuse the week before and we celebrated with my family an early Thanksgiving. On Thanksgiving day, we visited with John's family and it was really nice. That was the first time they saw Alexis and it was like she knew them forever. She is not a shy girl for sure.

Alexis keeps adding more words to her vocabulary but last week was a big one because she said "touchdown'. For her brother this was the most amazing thing. He breaths football and I can not imagine his reaction if she says Go Colts! but for me, there is not a sweeter moment then when she said "ma-ma".

We saw her surgeon and we scheduled her third surgery for late February. This will be the last surgery and then we will start working with a pediatric dentist. Fortunately , she has all her teeth and they are pretty straight but we will have to work intensively with an orthodontist but that will be years from now. She's still healing from the surgery done in November but things are moving along. We just need to massage the area three times a day with Talsyn-CI which is a cream for scars. The area will look rather reddish for a while.

SO.... for now, our main focus with Alexis Nicole will be speech and fortunately Florida has a great "Early Steps" program especially in our County. Complementing that with the preschool she's in, this will help her immensely. The Early Steps program is an early intervention system that offers services to children with delays or conditions that make them have a delay in certain areas. To be eligible, the child needs to be evaluated in all areas. It is a great program and we had the sweetest service coordinator. When she turns three, she will be in another program and we will start requesting services in March so she can be ready to start by her third birthday.

Well, that's it for now. I will post more pictures in the upcoming weeks.

Getting Better

The palate surgery back in August, being more invasive, gave us the impression it would be harder to deal with. Well, nose and lip revision was much more difficult for Alexis.
The reason for the surgery was to thin out the space between the nose and the lip. There was too much scar tissue. The stitches are dissolving and the two stitches on top of her nose will be gone pretty soon. Those stitches are holding cartilage inside of her nose.
The first CL surgery in China was well done but with old technology so you could see the scars left from the stitches and the surgeon also fixed that. We feel very comfortable with Alexis' surgeon and know that she will get just what she needs.
The hearing test was perfect so no hearing issues. For now just ST is the only therapy she will need. We feel blessed that she had an organization who sponsored her and a good doctor in China who performed the first surgery at six months. Fortunately, we have the names of the sponsor and the name of the doctor. We are fortunate to have this information and to know that she was taken care of.

Surgery Day

Day after surgery

Five days after surgery

Let's don't forget the hair.

It is growing and it's beatiful!

Seven days after surgery. It will take 30 to 45 days for all the

inflammation to go down.

Surgery # 2

Alexis had nose revision and everything went very well. She also had ear tubes put in. The next surgery will be in 6-12 mo. and we're done ! I will post pictures soon.
The picture above is Alexis Nicole at 24 months. (30 lb. & 36 in.). She's a big girl and everybody loves her. She is our sweet princess who loves shoes, purses, makeup ,and football. The only kids TV show she still likes is Blues Clue's and football of course; so no silly DORA in this house(Thank God).