No-Nos...no problem

This little girl is doing very very well...I think the video captures it all. She doesn't seem to be minding her "no-nos", at least they're not slowing her down one bit. :)

Tessa's been pointing at everything, so curious! She's taken a couple of steps a few different times. Her appetite is growing more and more, we actually gave her whole milk yesterday for the first time (didn't even phase her). Now I'm trying to figure out how much longer to keep pumping. She's still sleeping in her car seat to make sure that she doesn't role over and bump her lip. She is supposed to wear her no-nos until Monday or Tuesday...yeah! (I say supposed to b/c we let her take them off for a few hours at a time). And, she's talking a lot...we love to hear her little voice. :)

We had 3 doctors appointments this week. First, her one year check-up. Tessa is 31 inches (95th %) and weighs in at 20 lbs. 3 oz. (45th %). Then we had a check-up with Dr. Wells to see how everything was healing. He was very impressed. :) Her stitches are dissolving and it's not as red anymore. We need to periodically check-in with him so he can keep an eye on her healing. He also mentioned that he'd like to close her palate sometime in the next 6-12 months to get her on track with the typical cleft surgeries. Finally, we had our first visit to the Occupational Therapist. I had no clue what this was going to consist of, but it was an extremely positive experience. We met with both the O.C. as well as the speech therapist. They both doted on Tessa and she was loving it! :) They put her in a highchair and began feeding her some different foods so they could watch how she ate. Then they tried some new foods...found out she LOVES graham crackers! So, looks like we'll be going there at least once a week where we'll be working on things like: 1. eating from a spoon 2. drinking from a sippy cup 3. eating fruit 4. some other things I don't know about. They both commented on how well she's doing with everything...again, so good to hear that kind of feedback. Something else they mentioned was how clear her voice sounded. Cleft-affected kids usually sound quite nasally (obviously b/c it's all open up there), so again, nice to hear that. They look forward to getting to know her more. :) These ladies work with all the cleft kids who are part of the Long Beach Memorial Team. I look forward to spending time with them...more people who I get to know b/c of Tessa. :)

That's about it for now. We'll do a big post of more close-up pictures so you can see what a beautiful lip she has...stay tuned.