D is for Doctors

It was around Christmas time that I realized how much more time Jonah spends in doctors offices than regular kids. I was trying to schedule a playdate with some friends, and it was just about impossible with our schedule.

"What about Tuesday?"

"He has a pediatrician follow up." I said rolling my eyes. "It's the fourth time we've been to see her this month." I was expecting empathy from the other mothers. I was expecting some kind of "Oh I know, aren't doctors offices the worst!" or "Geeze, I know. Everytime we turn around little Suzy is sick- kids are full of germs!" but instead, the other mothers gaped their mouths and I heard a resounding round of
"Why?"

Why does Jonah go to the doctor so much? At the time I could not answer this question. All I knew was that a typical week for us could include at least two visits to the medical complex that housed Dr. M's office and the lab. Don't other kids get croup and ear infections? Don't other kids suffer from allergies? Don't other kids get strange infections?Isn't amoxicillin a staple in every household refrigerator?

No, it turns out; most families I know simply take their child to the doctor for their well visits, and some of them don't even do that. Sure there's a random flu here or chicken pox there, but for the most part their kids hardly see the inside of a doctor's office. Most kids Jonah's age have never had their blood drawn, and other mothers are shocked if they find out how often Jonah has had bloodwork. As a matter of fact, they know him by name in the lab. And he knows the drill. He is a very brave little boy and knows he is to sit in the chair and hold his arm out. He watches them insert the needle and hardly cries. He is better than his mother who passes out at the sight of a needle!

Over time, our doctors have increased. Especially after he received the 22q deletion diagnosis. In addition to our pediatrician, Jonah has a regular cardiologist, gastro-intestinal, three ENT's, two audiologists, orthopedic surgeon, developmental pediatrician, two geneticists, a craniofacial surgeon, two speech pathologists, an immunologist, a dentist, and a partridge in a pear tree. We are lucky enough that there is a clinic being developed in Columbus specifically to treat children with 22q. Right now they are just working on logistics, but all of the specialists are there. This means that in one day, we can have all of Jonah's appointments taken care of. We have been to the "clinic" twice already, with our recent trip being this past Tuesday. Our first trip was relatively short. We visited the geneticists and had more bloodwork done, this time for the whole family. It took half of a day and we were home in Toledo by the late afternoon.

This past visit was almost unbearable. From 9:00 to 4:30, we carted both kids around the hospital to see various specialists. The "we" in that sentence refers to myself and my mother in law. I was grateful for her help, but at the same time I was already irritable from the long waits and the heat and the fact that Jonah had not had a nap. There were times that I had just wished I had brought the kids by myself. Not from anything she was doing, just from the stress of the day.

Most of the visits were pretty routine. We discussed the possibility of a future pharyngeal flap surgery with the craniofacial surgeon. Although Jonah is and has shown many signs of needing this surgery, they cannot really diagnose the problem until the child is old enough to speak on cue. We will be crossing this road again in one or two years when they can more adequately see how his muscles in the mouth are working. I was very pleased that he saw the dentist while we were there. I have been growing concerned ever since I read that children with 22q are at higher risk for tooth decay, and I had a lot of questions for her. Jonah's teeth are perfect. No cavities. Although she did call me out on giving him a pacifier, just from looking at his teeth. Now I am even more anxious to get rid of it, because the effects on his teeth are clearly visible.

The ENT and audiologist were probably the most useful, which is strange because we almost left without seeing them but at the last minute opted to have a visit while we were there. I mostly wanted to see the ENT because I suspected that Jonah had an ear infection and I wanted to know for sure. He does have one (they come with every teething episode!) and so we also decided to do a hearing test, to see how his ears respond to sound when they are infected. I wanted to know if he does have periods of time when it is harder for him to hear things.

The hearing tests were just bad all around. We found out that although his ears looked normal in March, his right eardrum is now sucked in. They are suspecting something might be wrong with his inner ear of the right ear as well. He tested for substantial hearing loss in the right ear and minimal hearing loss in the left.

This means another round of audiology down in Columbus in two months.

I am still searching for just the right answer when the question of "why does Jonah see the doctor so much?" comes up. Before all I could answer was "I don't know, he is just sick all the time." But now we do know why, and I want to be able to answer people truthfully without getting into all of the details. I'm sure that one day I'll be having a conversation, and hopefully the right thing to say will just come to me in the moment. For now, we are just taking each appointment, and each health issue that is discovered during the appointments, in stride.

My Baby Boy

Jonah's second birthday was a week ago. Because we were out of town, and his party will actually be this coming Friday, the day of his actual birthday had gone unmarked on my blog. To make up for that, this week will be all about Jonah's birthday. I went back into the lock box of my computer and found something that I had written just two days after he was born. It was the story of his birth. I tried to leave much of the bitterness out of it, because I wanted to remember the happy things. I don't think I did a very good job of that! I'm hoping that later in the week, I will be able to sit down and write all of the lovely memories I have of his birth. Believe it or not, they are plentiful, and even if I made this story sound awful I still believe that his birth was beautiful. One thing I noticed in this story is that the time of his birth is 2:25. For the longest time I've been thinking he was born at 2:32am. After reading this I did go back and look on his record, and he was in fact born at 2:25! As someone who worked in a lab studying people's memories and the creation of false/incorrect memories, this is interesting to me!

I actually debated whether or not to post this here. It is my thoughts and feelings of two years ago, just two days after a birth that I wished I had handled better. But it is what it is. So here it is, the "me" of two years ago, August 17th 2008:

For about a month or so I have been battling my blood pressure. Sometimes it was high, other times it seemed to be going back down. My doctor became increasingly concerned, but allowed me to stay at home on bedrest. At my doctor's appointment on Tuesday August 12, she wanted me to go to the hospital to have my blood pressure monitored, and was recommending that we try to prepare my body for birth by using cervadil. Her concern was that my blood pressure had shot up again, the baby was ready to go and in position, but my body wasn't taking cues to begin labor.

The plan was to begin the cervadil and blood pressure monitoring, and if in the morning my blood pressure had gone back down and I wasn't in labor, I would go home to wait it out. If my blood pressure was high, and the cervadil did not help my body towards labor, she would use pitocin to induce. There was also a possibility that the cervadil would be all I needed to go into labor.

Because I was also worried about how the baby was reacting to my high blood pressure, I accepted this plan with the hopes that the cervadil would be all that was necessary. On Wednesday August 13 at 3:30 we headed off to the hospital, hoping to have our little prince in our arms by dinner the next day. Although I accepted the plan, I was still very unresolved towards it. By the time we got to the hospital, I was already anxious and pretty terrified. Upon arrival the nurse asked how we were doing today, and all I could do was burst into tears, I was so scared. They talked to me for a few minutes to calm me down, and then I got dressed into my gown and had to have my IV inserted. I asked if it was necessary, and they said the doctor would not use any drug to induce labor without an IV. I have a very strong phobia to needles, but since it has been diminishing somewhat, I said okay. Unfortunately since I was already at a heightened anxiety level, the IV was just enough to put me over the edge. My blood pressure dropped suddenly and I fainted, which caused the baby's heart rate to fall also. When I came back into consciousness, I was still halfway out of my head and all I could hear were nurses buzzing around me, paging doctors and using tons of medical terms that I knew could only mean something was wrong with the baby, so that made me even more frightened and they put me on oxygen. Daryl was also scared out of his mind because he had never seen me react that way. Finally I came to my senses, and everything calmed down around me.

The doctor came to talk to us, and gave us a few minutes to decide whether or not we should continue with the cervadil. We decided to go ahead as planned, because even though I was scared, it was better for both me and the baby. The doctor inserted the cervadil at 5:30pm, and my contractions started almost immediately. I was very surprised with how quickly it worked. The contractions grew strong, but manageable. I was able to meditate through them. In the morning, the nurse came to remove the cervadil and check my progress. She said I was a little over one centimeter dilated, which was disappointing as I had such hard contractions all night. I was sure that I had made more progress. My blood pressure had been lowered through most of the night, so she said I would soon be able to take a shower, eat a light breakfast, and then the doctor would be in to see me. My contractions continued to grow stronger even after the cervadil was removed so the nurse came in and said my shower would have to wait until the doctor came since my labor was continuing, but they would still bring me a light breakfast. The breakfast never came, and I still don't understand why I couldn't get a shower but whatever. Finally the doctor came and told me that my body was reponding well to the cervadil and it looked like labor would continue on it's own. We walked in the halls and I used the birthing ball to see if we could progress further. I was so happy to finally be able to get up and use the techniques I've been preparing to use in childbirth, and it really made the contractions easier to handle. The doctor checked me again at 11:00am and exclaimed that I was four centimeters and my water was about to break! She broke the water, and found that the baby had a BM in utero, and there was meconium in the fluids. She called a special team to be present at the birth to make sure he wouldn't swallow the meconium, and to make sure he didn't have any in his lungs.

By 5:30 PM we were pretty discouraged, as we thought that I would be pushing him out by now, if not already. The doctor checked again and found that I had not progressed at all, and my contractions were weakening and growing further apart. We had to use pitocin. After only three doses of pitocin, my contractions were right on track, every two minutes and VERY strong. Before recieving the pitocin, I requested nubain, because the contractions had been unbearable, and I was overwhelmed with exhaustion. The narcotics didn't make the pain any less, but it did help me to relax and cope with them better. I was able to sleep between contractions, which also helped with the exhaustion. They took me off the pitocin, I am not sure what time because of the drugs, and around 11:30 I felt the urge to push.

The nurse told me not to push, because there was still a small lip of cervix on the right side. I HAD to push though, there was no questioning it. When she told me not to push, the pain became unbearable again and, once again, I passed out. She gave me more oxygen, and the pain was so great I started yelling at her "I have to go now, I have to!!!" Daryl got scared because again he had never seen me respond this way to anything, and he was also begging her to let me push. The doctor finally came in and told me that I could start pushing at 11:55. I remember the time very well because I thought "I guess this baby will be born tomorrow!" I pushed for 2 and a half hours, and finally he came out. The narcotics were out of my system at that point, but there was so much commotion in the room, and I was so concentrated on pushing that I didn't even realize he had come out! There were so many people in the room when he was delivered, and they all were shouting that he had SO much hair. I looked down and saw his head poking up and said "Oh my god, I can see him here he comes!" Yet I still didn't realize that with the next push he was out, until Daryl yelled "he's out! he's out!" and they put him on my belly. I saw Daryl cut the cord, and after that things moved so quickly that I didn't know the whole story until hours later.

The baby was whisked away from me so that he could have the meconium suctioned out before he started crying, which would have caused it to go into his lungs. Daryl went with him, as I had told him that as soon as the baby comes out he is to follow the baby and worry about me later. They only took him across the room, and I watched as I waited to birth the placenta. I heard that he weighed 7 lbs 14.5 oz and was 20 inches long. I could see Daryl beaming behind a camera. No more contractions came, however, and I wasn't able to birth the placenta. All of the sudden the doctor started shouting to call anesthesia and prep the OR. She tried to manually remove it, but could not remove all of it. It was too painful for her to try again, so I was whisked to the OR. I found out later that my cervix was actually closing, and they had to get the placenta out quickly, or they'd have to soon do major operation to remove it. I am 75% sure that I told the anesthesiologist that I thought he was cute, just as I went under (he was very handsome) but I might not have actually said it.

I woke up an hour later and the baby was brought to me to nurse. He latched on beautifully and nursed for 15 minutes. Since I was still in the recovery room, a nurse came and took him to be bathed and dressed. Daryl went to the van to get the baby's bag that we had packed. I was so proud of him for taking care of the baby for the hour that I was in the OR.

I was taken back to our room to rest, and the baby was brought to me again to nurse. This time however, the baby couldn't nurse because he had mucous coming out of his nose and mouth. It was keeping him from latching on. The nurse said she would use the aspirator, and he had to eat because his blood sugar was very low. As she was using the aspirator, I heard him choke and I looked over and could see her giving him the infant Heimlich maneuver. She rushed him back to the nursery and came back to tell me that he had tons of mucous in his belly that was causing him to choke. His blood sugar was so low, and he wouldn't eat, she said I had to give permission to give him formula or they would have to put him on an IV. I thought formula to be the lesser of two evils and sadly gave my permission.

Another nurse came in to help me go to the bathroom. While going to the bathroom, I got very lightheaded, and then I thought I fell asleep while leaning on the nurse. I had passed out. So again, more buzzing around and I remember they put me in a chair and wheeled me back to the bed, but I passed out again in the chair and woke up in bed. The nurse came and told me how Jonah was doing, which also wasn't so great. They had to intubate him to get all the mucous out, and now his throat and mouth were so irritated that he wouldn't cup feed. She also told me that they were ordering a unit of blood for me because of all the passing out.

Daryl was at this time exhausted, and not functional at all. I frantically called my mom to come and help me. She came to take care of me and the baby, and Daryl went home to sleep. The hospital was short staffed, because they had five more women come in between 7:00am and 7:30am that were in labor! Since she is a nurse herself, she was able to talk to the doctors and find out that I had lost a LOT of blood in the OR and they couldn't get it to stop, which is why I was passing out so much. They ordered the blood, but had problems matching an enzyme so I didn't get it until around 5:00.

The blood helped a lot, and I was able to get up and walk around a bit more. We talked to the doctors on Saturday and we were both able to be released Saturday afternoon! We were happy to be able to go home, especially since we were expecting to have to stay until Monday. I am still recovering and having spells of dizziness, but nothing too major. We are slowly reaching some sort of "normality."

That is the very long story of how Jonah Levi came into the world at 2:25 AM Friday August 15th, 2008, weighing 7 lbs 14.5 oz and 20 inches long!

Pinkies and Piggies Keepsake Review

A few weeks ago, I shared how Daryl and I had made a mold of Evie's hand print for Pinkies and Piggies. You can refresh your memory here. Pinkies and Piggies is a local company started by Rachel, an artist who wanted to capture and preserve memories of her child's beautiful baby hands and feet. Rachel found a way to create glass replica's of her daughter's delightful digits. After having requests from other parents also wishing to preserve each tiny palm wrinkle, she created Pinkies and Piggies out of a studio in Whitehouse Ohio.

I really wanted to do this review because I was struck not only by the amazing product, but also by the story of the company. This was a mother in my area who wanted to freeze a memory of her child, like so many other mothers out there. She understands the importance of each tiny hand that she casts. It's a product made with love and respect, and that makes it even more precious.

Yesterday in the mail, we had a surprise waiting for us. It was Evie's glass keepsake! I was so eager to see how it turned out. I opened the box with Daryl and my mother in law. The three of us were amazed at how well the glass picked up the texture of Evie's delicate baby skin. In my previous post, I wrote that I was impressed with the detail of the hand print in the modeling compound, but I think that the glass shows even more detail that wasn't visible in the compound. Not only is each dominant wrinkle present, but so are the minute ripples and lines. The more we looked at the keepsake, the more details we noticed. It really feels like we are looking at Evie's actual hand.

It is difficult to take pictures of the details, especially since my Nikon is being repaired and all I have is our point and shoot camera, but I did my best to share with you the beauty of this hand print (okay, I might be a little biased towards "the beauty" of it, since it is my daughter's hand we're talking about!)
I really like the type of ribbon that was used to make the keepsake a hanging ornament. I was a little concerned that it would be strange to have a ribbon going through the palm, but because it is somewhat transparent, it is hardly noticeable. It is also placed at a point in the hand that gives it a very nice angle when it is hung.

The texture of the skin is amazingly detailed in the glass. Not only is each crease there, but other nuances of the hand print are made very clear. Not a tiny wrinkle is missed


Upon first glance, I was disappointed that the hand had not been engraved with Evie's name and the date that we took the hand print. However when we took a much closer look, we found the engraving. The light has to hit it at just the right angle. I didn't like this at first, and wished that the engraving were a little more clear. But the more that I looked at it, the more I realized what a distraction that would have been from the details of the actual hand print. Because it's glass, obviously you can see through it. So a deep engraving on the back would have shown through to the front. Although it was suggested to have the baby's birth date engraved, we thought it would be better to have the date of the hand print. Afterall, we know the day she was born, but I wanted something to document exactly how old her little fingers were when this was made.

We will certainly be making a mold for Jonah's hand, to commemorate both his second birthday as well as his becoming a big brother. We will be hanging the glass hands side by side. Although if you are planning on creating one for an older child, you need to keep in mind that the size of the tray for the modeling compound is five inches in diameter, and the hand/foot needs to fit into the tray flat without touching the edges.

We will also be getting duplicates of each keepsake as Christmas presents for both my parents and Daryl's parents. With Evie's keepsake, came an order form. Pinkies and Piggies will create other glass keepsakes from the same mold, for $40 each. At first this seemed a little pricey, but when I added up the cost of frames and portraits, we actually spent more money for grandparents' Christmas gifts last year by giving them professional portraits of the kids.

Typically when I write a review, I have at least a few negative things to say about the product. But I honestly could not find a single thing to criticize on this. I could not be happier with this keepsake.The detail of the hand could not be any clearer. It is such a unique idea to create a keepsake out of glass to treasure your child's hands and feet. And that it is an item handmade with love and care by a fellow mother local to me, is just icing on the cake. I will, without a doubt, be using Pinkies and Piggies as special gifts for new moms or moms-to-be, and I will always, always treasure this beautiful ornament.

*for the purpose of writing this review, Pinkies And Piggies provided me with a take-home impression kit and keepsake free of charge.

Fantastic Foto Fridays

I am dedicating Foto Fridays to my hubby, who recently told me that my blog is too wordy for his taste. This weeks installation: Meeting our Meat

Stuffed Zucchini Stacks

It's getting to be the time of year when my blog is filled with favorite recipes for locally and home grown produce. So if it seems like I'm posting a lot about food, it's just because I'm in the kitchen a lot during these months!

This past weekend, Daryl went to visit some friends. I'm insanely jealous of their garden. They have the kind of garden that I dream of putting within mine and Daryl's white picket fence someday (when we get that ever elusive white picket fence, that is!) They sent Daryl back to me carrying delicious homemade pickles, onions, and these gigantic beasts:

Yes, those my friends, are real zucchini. Just to give a comparison of the size, I placed my chef's knife next to the larger one.
I personally love zucchini. Our friends could not have picked a better veggie to send home with Daryl. Back in my days of vegetarianism, it was as much a main staple in my diet as black beans and tofu. Stir fry, grilled, baked in bread... YUM! But with a zucchini this marvelous, and this huge, I wanted to make a main dish that the rest of the family (who are for the most part, carnivorous) would enjoy.

I turned to my old standby, Allrecipes.com and found a recipe for Baked Zucchini. But this was a recipe for those puny zucchini that you find in the grocery store, not this massively nutritious beauty that my friends summoned from the garden gods. A side dish at best. It needed some changes to make it a satisfying main course. This is what I came up with. But I have to be honest and tell you that I did not measure a dang thing. I just kept adding and mixing until it looked and tasted good! (if you spy a measuring cup on the counter in any pictures, be assured it is only there for posterity) So the measurements are estimated, and some might be a little vague. For this reason I didn't really put this into "recipe format."

I set the oven to preheat at 350 degrees F and put a large pot of salted water on to boil. I cut the zucchini into 1/2 inch slices


Then I cut two tomatoes that came from my garden box, into 1/4 inch slices. You can cut them thinner if you'd like less tomato, but I wouldn't go any thicker or the stacks might not bake through and the cheese will burn.
I cut the corn off of three cobs. These were previously cooked, leftover from a prior dinner.
In a bowl, I mixed 1 and 1/2 packages of cream cheese, a scoop of sour cream, and a scoop of plain yogurt. I would say "a scoop" is about 1/4-1/2 cup. I added the corn, chives and basil from our garden box, salt, and pepper. If I had dill, I would have used that instead of chives (I grew dill this year, and I picked it and dried it, and now it has disappeared. Same thing happened last year. I think someone keeps throwing it out on accident, as I'm the only one who uses dill around here) I mixed everything together until it looked like this:

When the water came to a boil, I placed the zucchini slices into the pot, covered, and boiled for 5 minutes.
When I took them out of the pot, I wish that I had placed them on a plate with a paper towel to remove excess water before placing them on the baking sheet. If I had, the zucchini probably would have stayed more firm through the baking process. I removed the zucchini from the water and placed them on a baking sheet, and brushed olive oil on the tops. I then spooned a generous amount of the cream cheese mixture on top of each slice.


Next, I put the tomato slices on, but I left two without tomatoes because Daryl's brother does not like them.

Then, to appease the meat eaters, I put deli slices on top of the tomatoes. I happened to have honey ham and bourbon chicken, so I made half of them with each.


Finally, I topped everything with co-jack cheese and placed them in the oven for twenty minutes at 350 F. After the twenty minutes, I decided they needed a little longer, and let them cook for an additional seven minutes, for a total cook time of 27 minutes.


When the cheese started to look a little brown and slightly crunchy (but still gooey- not burnt.. you know the way I mean!) I knew they were done.

I removed them from the oven and let the baking sheet stand on cooling racks for five minutes before servingAnd the results:
Even the pickiest veggie eaters in the family came back for seconds! I served them with banana-blueberry-nut quick bread (recipe to come soon) and black-berry applesauce.

Splish Splash!

In the early spring, Jonah was invited by the early interventions program to participate in a new "swim" class that the program was trying out. The class was for children 6-24 months who have sensory processing issues. During the class, the therapists integrate sensory exploration with water play. You may remember, if you've been following the blog for a long time, that last year about now we were gently introducing Jonah to the idea of being in water. It was a very long process. Jonah absolutely hated being in the water. But by the end of summer, we not only got him used to the water, but he absolutely loved it! So of course since we've created this little water baby, I thought it was a great opportunity for him to join this class.

Then we went to the orthopedic surgeon. Jonah had casts put on his feet, and that was the end of that idea. Now that Jonah's casts are off, I have not heard of another session of the swim class starting.

So I decided that we could do sensory integration and other therapies through water play here at home. I decided to buy Jonah an Artic Splash water table from Step 2. I chose this table because it was affordable, and also easily available at our toy stores in the area. I had also considered getting a table that could hold both sand and water, but in the end I decided that the whole thing would end up one big murky sandy mess. No way would Jonah leave the sand in the sand compartment and the water in the water compartment!

As far as water tables go, this one is okay. It holds water, and therefor serves its purpose. I wish that the pieces to the glacier could snap together somehow, because every time Jonah bumps it, it falls over. I was also disappointed to find that the figures that come with the table (a walrus, a polar bear, and a penguin) do not fit down the "water slides" that make the table look so fun. Also, and this is just a nit-picky geeky mom sort of thing, but the "Artic" water table came with a penguin. Penguins do not live in the artic region, they live in the antartic. You would never see a penguin hanging out with a walrus and polar bear. Jonah seems to agree with me, that this is an issue, as he has removed the penguin from the set and placed him with the fisher price farm animals. Although I doubt you'd ever see a penguin hanging out with a cow either.

We started out just by exploring different water toys and "tools" in the table. Jonah really enjoyed figuring out what he could do with each toy.
I am working with him on motor planning skills by having him pour and scoop. We've been doing this with beans, rice, and flour, in the house with kitchen utensils. The water table gives us many other options for this. Jonah explored using different kinds of tools for scooping water into different kinds of containers. This water table is also very handy for scooping and pouring, because the glacier tower is a water slide. When Jonah pours water into the top container, it flows through the glacier and comes pouring out into the main water compartment. Jonah really enjoys this feature.As you can see, though, he still needs a lot of practice on getting the water into the container! He's got the concept down though!

This water table gives us a great way to fit things we've been working on in therapy, into our everyday play on hot summer days. And Jonah loves the chance to be outside.

Pinkies and Piggies

*for the purpose of writing this review, Pinkies And Piggies provided me with a take-home impression kit and keepsake free of charge.

I have been feeling rather sentimental about my children recently. I think that everyone, especially mothers, get the feeling that they want to freeze-frame time and take in every detail of every second. I have been feeling this way quite a bit lately. Most of it has to do with Jonah graduating to toddlerhood. We're planning his second birthday party already, applying for preschools, and trading in diapers for underwear. Where did my little baby boy go?

And then there's Evie. Last night while my husband was swaddling her, he exclaimed "She's grown in the last hour, I swear!" and it was true. Very suddenly her swaddling blanket did not fit her anymore. It really seems as though she's growing at lightning pace. Because she's most likely going to be my last biological child, I'm already missing being pregnant. Here I am packing up the newborn size cloth diapers, wondering if I'll ever get them back out again and wishing that time would slow down just a tiny bit.

When I first heard about Pinkies and Piggies, I fell in love with the idea immediately. When Jonah was a baby, I took several handprints. Some with ink, some in plaster, some in clay, and even some in a concrete stepping stone for the garden. But none of them seemed to catch the nuances, or the satisfaction that I felt when admiring his tiny baby fingers and perfect miniature palm. Those are the feelings and memories that I long to preserve the most. But Pinkies and Piggies gives a unique spin on preserving baby's hand and foot prints. With their take-home impression kit, parents can create a mold in their own home from baby's hand or foot print. Pinkies and Piggies will then turn it into a detailed 3-d glass ornament. And since the company is so local to us, I knew that I had to try it out.

When the kit arrived, it was packaged in an adorable box. I felt as if I were opening a gift, and would not hesitate to give this as a very special baby shower or baptism gift. The poem on the wrapping of the package brought a smile to my heart.


The kit consisted of a set of instructions, a plastic tray with a modeling compound, and the materials to send our print back to the Pinkies and Piggies studio.

Daryl and I decided to mold Evie's hand. It was a very tough to decide between the hand or the foot, because both baby parts are so precious. I liked the idea of having her hand, because it is her hands that I am always kissing... when I nurse her, on the changing table, playing on the tummy mat. Her little fingers get an awful lot of smooches.We tried to take the impression while she was sleeping. I am all to aware of how difficult it can be to get a newborn's handprint. They like to keep their hands fisted up, and still have the "grabbing" reflex. I thought that while she slept, her hand might be more relaxed and easier to work with. Of course, she woke up as soon as she caught wind of our scheme to poke her hand into cold modeling compound. I typically would have had Daryl hold her while I took her imprint, but because I wanted to document this with pictures, we chose to do it on the floor where she would be level with the tray.
Unlike the imprints that I had taken of Jonah's hands in plaster and concrete, it was easy to get just what I wanted with the modeling compound. I was amazed at how soft it was, and how easily Evie's hand set down into it.
The first impression had a funny divot at the top of her thumb, and the line in her palm wasn't fully imprinted, so I simply rolled the compound into a ball and flattened it back out again into the tray. I did this a number of times before getting the print exactly the way I want it.

I'm really impressed with how detailed the print is in the modeling compound. If the glass can pick up all of these details as well, then it will truly be a treasured keepsake. I'm excited to see how the ornament turns out!

We did have a problem with the tray breaking when I was putting the modeling compound back into it after a failed attempt at getting the handprint. I think that I was pushing it too hard into the side of the tray though and it is not really a fault of the product.

I was also disappointed to find that Evie's full name as well as the date that the print was taken, would not fit. Customers can have the baby's name, plus either the baby's birth day, weight, or the date that the print was taken, engraved on the back of their keepsake. Understandably, space is limited, and we had to settle for Evelyn's first and middle name, as well as the date. There is also a choice of pink, blue, or clear glass. Daryl wanted clear glass at first, but I mentioned that it would be nice to perhaps have one of Jonah's made in blue, and we could hang them side by side and have Evie's in pink and Jonah's in blue if we decide to get his hand done as well. Daryl agreed, so we checked the box for pink glass.

I sealed the handprint and the order slip in the box that was provided, and dropped it off at the post office. In three to four weeks I will be receiving Evie's beautiful hand, preserved in glass. I really cannot wait to share with you how it turns out!

If you are interested in purchasing your own ornament, or want to know more about Pinkies and Piggies, visit the website at http://www.pinkiesandpiggies.net/index.html