In between...

I'm at that waiting stage...the "in between." Although it's often accompanied by anxiety; this time it is accompanied by being overwhelmed. It's such a weird place because life continues to happen on the outside, and my head is moving slowly on the inside...going through each thought carefully over and over again.

The first thought is of the developmental pediatrician we will be seeing. We are still waiting on a phone call back from the referral. Should I call and see where it's at? How long will it take them to get us in? Will I like her? How often will we see her? Then my gears shift slightly to...Will she have any answers? I would really like some answers. Will we end up having more testing? What would she test for?

Then life kicks back in for a few minutes and I look around and welcome the fun sights of the county fair. Of Abigail enjoying the animals, loving her first elephant ear, and capturing mama's heart with her love of the lemon shake-up we are sharing.

Imitating the cow sticking out his tongue.

Abigail's face at everything we saw...and I'm sure it's not because it's the face I make, and am making in the next picture. :)

Petting the cow.

And the sheep.

Abigail cheesing with elephant ear on her face.

And then we are on to the next part of our life. Abigail has had a slight leg length discrepancy that we've known about since April. In the past three months her left leg has grown 3/8". I nearly cried when the p.t. told me. Seriously...little break please. That was last Monday.

Last Friday I sat Abigail on the potty at which point she started screaming and signing hurt. She was pointing to her back. So we had episode number three of back pain in a not yet two year old. I held her for twenty minutes as she cried uncontrollably arching her back and wiggling. I cried along with her, and just kissed her forehead and prayed for her. After about twenty minutes we were into our usual nap time and she was so exhausted from crying that she went down for a nap. I heard her whimper some during nap, but she seems to have been fine since then.

I called her neurologist's office during nap with probably somewhat of an attitude of we will figure out what's going on because this is ridiculous. But then after talking to a nurse, a friend, and thinking myself we all separately came up with the conclusion that the leg length difference, accompanied with wearing the de-rotation straps more often could be causing some compensation/muscle pain making my baby crumple on my lap in pain and tears. The doctor was on vacation, and since we didn't know about the leg length thing when we went two weeks ago and he mentioned the possibility of an orthopedist, the nurse thought he may want to go ahead and refer us...so we are waiting on a call back from him to find out what he wants to do (he gets back tomorrow).

This past weekend my husband ended up having to work all weekend (which NEVER happens) making for two sad girlies here at home. However we decided to fill in our Sunday evening with something fun. So we went to the local ice cream shop (as soon as Abigail saw it she started telling us ice cream...she's only been three times total). And then we spent some time playing in shaving cream before she went to bed. Seriously if you have never done this with your kids you should. It first of all is extremely fun, cleans the table (and in our case floor, and chair) really well, smells good, and you can draw stuff like letters, shapes, have them use their toes on the fridge....there are endless possibilities of how you can use it. And the very best thing about it is although you have to clean a child, and whatever you put the shaving cream on (whilst trying to keep the clean child from getting back in it) is the amazing amount of giggles that erupt from everyone while it's being played with.

It's fun to walk in a circle and say "whoa!"

Yeap, as always she ate some.

covered in shaving cream from head...

to toe. :)

And lastly, I had mentioned some small speech concerns I had to Abigail's p.t. about six weeks ago. Her IFSP (you'll have to look it up if you don't know what it is) is coming up in October; meaning her evaluation would be coming up in September, so we thought we would wait. However we talked about it again today, and I was a little surprised that her p.t. seemed to be hinting at maybe doing it sooner. So I talked to Jason and looked over the paperwork we have of all the "milestones our child should have met by such and such age." She is behind in speech. So now we are waiting on a nutritionist evaluation and speech therapy to start.

So the past few weeks seems to have just reminded me that my plate is often full. And it makes me thankful that we won't have any appointments this week (staying hopeful still). It makes me thankful for the fun stuff we get to do, and of a little girl curled up on my lap reading Sandra Boynton books with me and giggling. And it reminds me that God is here, He is close by, and reminding us of all the things He has promised.

This picture doesn't do the rainbow (actually there's double but you can't tell) justice. It was the most clear, beautiful, and long lasting rainbow both my husband and I have ever seen. And it was accompanied by a sweet little voice repeating "Bow. Bow." over and over. Yeap Abigail, that's a bow...because God loves us enough to remind us.

Waiting,