I’m coming down with something… It figures after all of the travel and craziness of the last week.

We’re finally back in town, I finally have web access again and I promise to write more details about last week as soon as I catch up at work. But the good news is Jordan has a prosthetic that she wears, the moves and she is paying attention to. Jordan has two teeth, two arms (one myoelectric, one passive) and a new love for cheese crackers.

On the technical side of things, my final video blog is stuck on a storage drive that crashed during the trip… So blog 5 will show up eventually, I hope.

We’re in Houston and I have a great 4 and a half minute video that’s processing through Google video… After I spent all kinds of time dealing with spotty internet access on my Mac. So I’ve moved to borrowing my kind host’s computer… And waiting on Google approval to post the second blog online.

So a review of yesterday: We flew, we arrived and we went right to work on Jordan’s new prosthetic. The two lead prosthetists think Jordan has a very small amount of elbow… Today a therapist who saw Jordan thought that might be the case or there’s a ball of muscle that can do some similar motions like an elbow. Who knows. We can only wait and see as Jordan grows.

Today’s big event today was a therapy session. Jordan was getting tired and cranky by the time we started, but we did get some tips on neck exercises we can do with Jordan. If things go better in the video department, I’ll try to upload that later tonight.

So that’s the scoop for now… If we’re lucky, we could have a new prosthetic tomorrow. Our tricky and challenging little girl will be able to give this prosthetic thing a really good try.

Have I mentioned that Jordan can’t pay attention when I’m feeding her these days? It’s a very standard issue for babies at this age. The world is exciting, and she doesn’t want to miss any moment that is happening behind her when she’s eating. So she eats a little, turns around to look at something… then returns to eat. I was late for almost everything by 10 minutes this week because of her attention defecit issues. I don’t mind. I just have to plan the feedings better until she gets over the attention thing.

Then there’s the rolling thing. I’m still thrilled. I couldn’t get her to do it during her occupational therapy session on Friday. But she’s still able to roll when I’m watching. I’ve got to get her to do it more often and around more people.

Have I mentioned that I got a new phone? It’s a nerdy nerd phone. But as you may have noticed in my last video posting — the phone has a video camera and a little still camera on it. So I’m snapping pictures at everything Jordan and Cam are doing. I’ve stopped dragging the really nice camera to every appointment… Since a camera phone picture is okay for a blog. It’s not really great for photo frames, but really — How many pictures do I really print? Very few.

Jordan is one step closer to her first real prosthetic. This is a picture of her wearing the top portion of it. There’s no bend to it yet. The prosthetist ordered a hand, but it’s the size of Cam’s hand… Way too big for Jordan. So now the hand part is delayed. We’re also still looking for a better way to hold it onto her arm… A simple strap isn’t enough and it doesn’t let her move her hand enough to the center. So we have to keep working on that as well. Jordan’ not too thrilled about it all… And so far, I don’t think this tool is much of a tool. But if we just practice with wearing something on her arm, I have to believe we’re doing something.

I’m so excited. Two days ago, Jordan’s teachers said she rolled over. They missed which direction she rolled. Today I was in the prosthetic office when I got Jordan to roll one way on camera… And then she rolled the other direction! Very cool.

If you can’t see it, click here.

So we had another fitting today for Jordan’s arm. She was so good… The test socket is made of a plastic form that kind of moves around like a soda bottle — it’s thicker, but very similar in how it stretches and bends. Actually, it’s kind of the thickness of a Livestrong bracelet. I digress. Our prosthetist has to mold it here and there a little more. The biggest challenge is the ball of muscle at the base of Jordan’s arm. When she tightens up the muscle, her arm shortens and gets wider, when she relaxes, the arm is much longer in length and thinner. Yikes. That’s pretty tricky for the guys who are going to construct this arm. There was a cool moment as we were leaving. One of the guys who works at the prosthetics business had his wife come by with their 6 month old daughter so the girls could meet. They both looked at each other, touched their clothes, touched hands… It was cute.

Tonight when I came home, Jordan was outside with Randy and Cam… She is so dang happy outside. She almost jumped into my arms, she was happy to seem me. That made me feel pretty darn good. It’s nice to be loved.

Working Randy’s shift and caring for both kids in the morning is insane. I wake up early, get the dogs ready, convince Cam to get dressed and eat and then I rush to wake the baby (which kills me to do by the way), dress her, feed her, pack her into the car seat… make sure I have all the baby supplies for school, convince Cam to get into the van and get buckled up, drive to school, unload the kids and get to work before 8am is exhausting. When the alarm went off this morning, I almost fell back asleep.

That’s because Cam was waking up ever hour or so… And then Jordan cried in her sleep and I rushed in… To find her sleeping again. My mommy ears were on overdrive by that point.

So once I had my day time reporters ready to go, I helped with various newsroom issues and got ready for the big part of the day: Getting Jordan to the prosthetist and get her fitted for her prosthetic.

When I got to school to feed her and take her to the office, she had just fallen asleep in her teacher’s arms. Yikes. So I picked her up and she kept sleeping in my arms. That’s tough to put a stop to… But she eventually started moving around enough to get a little meal in… But she cried most of her way to the office. She really needed to be in bed. Poor baby. But we got there and she was in good spirits. She smiled and cooed at Gary, the prosthetist. So he did some measurements and started wrapping up her arm. First he put a nylon sock on her arm to help make it a little easier to remove the plaster. Then he soaked the plaster and started wrapping. Jordan didn’t mind at first, but as that plaster got heavier (and apparently it heats up inside when the plaster starts drying), she started really getting upset. By the end, we had a pretty good plaster mold and a very plaster-covered baby (notice the top picture).

The next step? Gary will try to create a test socket — the part of the prosthetic that will fit Jordan’s arm. He’ll test it a couple of times to make sure it fits before he actually builds the real arm. We’re going to do this on a pretty fast track so we can keep up with Jordan’s growth and make sure she can fit into this tool. We’re thinking it’s going to be a three week process. Tomorrow, we return to OT after a week off and Daddy comes home tomorrow night. (Mommy is really looking forward to that!)