Getting her "shop" on :)

Mia and I stopped by Ross today to pick out a baby gift for friends of ours who just had their first baby early Sunday morning.  They waited until the baby was born to find out what they were having - I don't know HOW they waited, I know I couldn't.  They had a beautiful little a girl, so we had fun going and picking out something pink for little Isabella.  :) 

Mia's not quite able to sit up on her own completely yet, but we are working on it now that she has more head control.  When we go to the store, if there are high seat belts on the cart, I put her in and buckle it up under her arm pits and it holds her up.  She loves being able to look around and seems to think it's cool that she can reach the bar across the front and occasionally on the side.  Luckily, the arm braces and seat belt combo keep her from leaning forward and trying to EAT the bars.  lol  So, today when we were at Ross, I buckled her into the shopping cart and she looked so dang cute and so flipping happy that I just had to take a picture with my cell phone.  Man I love this little girl!

My happy little shopper!

So we are 12 days post op now (including surgery day since it was in the morning).  We've trimmed the steristrip down and can now see a few stitches under her left nostril.  Apparently they made two horizontal incisions - one under each nostril and she has little black stitches there.  I'll try to get a picture soon.  There's still "stuff" in her nostrils.  I'm not sure if it's blood, ooze, slobber, mucous, milk, or a combination of all of the above. 

They are SO not lovely to look and I would SO like to mess with them and help them on their way out, but I'm worried that they are firmly attached to stitches and would hate to mess up anything, so am staying clear of them.  I worry a little that the nature of the scabs being so large might leave divots in her little skin and lip area when they finally do fall off.  I'm not sure if it's normal or if it's from when she bumped her face on Zeus's shirt a few hours after surgery.  I guess we'll have to wait and see. 

We will be done with arm restraints after Thursday and I'm surprised to say I have mixed feelings about it!  I thought I'd be SO glad to have them off and be done with them, but now suddenly I'm paranoid that once they are off, she will do damage to the surgery site.  She had just started sucking her thumb and I worry that she'll pull her cheek with her thumb and tear open her little lip.  I also worry that she'll somehow get a hold of the steristrip that's still attached over her middle lip area and rip it off, and in so doing rip out the stitches there.  I feel a conundrum approaching.  Do I leave them on a little longer until the steristrip comes off?  Do I leave them on PART of the day still or maybe put them on her only at night?  Ahhhhhhh!  I know that when I first take them off, I'll be watching her like a hawk.  Jeez, it nearly gives me indigestion just THINKING about worrying about it... 

Man, this mama stuff is hard business!  :)