Close only counts in Horseshoes and Hand Grenades!

So on a rainy Friday in Toronto, we set out again to the Hospital for Sick Children for our 3 month follow up visit at the Plagiocephaly clinic.

Ella was so excited she could barely contain herself!

She was so excited, in fact, she had her dancin' feet on and danced her way down the complicated hallway system of the hospital to the clinic.

When we got to the clinic, and checked in for our appointment, we noticed that there was some new artwork that hadn't been there the last time we had our appointment. Apparently, there is an artist who paints pictures for all of the clinics across the hospital. And the Centre for Orthotics had their own pictures done in the last month. How awesome are these??

Ella thought these pictures were wonderful!

"Hey! These pictures are pretty good!"

After a few minutes, we were called back to the fitting room. Ella and I got comfy while we waited for our orthotist.

Unfortunately, when our orthotist walked in the room. Ella took one look at him, and screamed her head off. She then promptly continued this screaming through the whole appointment. :( Oh, Ella! He's not going to hurt you! He just wants to fix your melon!

"I still don't like it, Mama!"

Bringing out the measuring tape created even more theatrics.

"Oh, God! Measuring tape?! I hate this even more then gentle head touching!"

At this point our orthotist says "Hey! Her head is looking really good. She's made huge improvements since her last appointment. She might just be done with the helmet."

Like anyone trying not to get their hopes up, my hopes FLEW through the roof! We could be done...RIGHT NOW?! BOOYAH! OMG those are the happiest words a helmeted mum can ever hear. All we had to do was to check out the sock head pic and see if her head had improved enough to be finished with the helmet.

Unfortunately, this is always the most dreaded part of the whole appointment: The Sock Heading. You might remember previous sock heads from May...

June...

and July 2012.

This month was no different. At least her face fit through the hole this time?

Our orthotist left to make some comparison pics and I picked up Ella to calm her down. After a few cuddles from Mama, Ella was back to her sunny self.

"I'm okay now, Mama! BUT NO MORE SOCKS!"

Steve and I were holding our breath. How amazing would it be if we were done?? No more sweaty baby heads, kissing a mouthful of helmet, and wrestling her into the helmet as she crawled away at the speed of light.

This is what we saw this month:

May 14, 2012

August 10, 2012

And an overall view of the last 3 months (Thanks Rachel for the collage!):

Unfortunately, we are not quite there yet. We are *so close* to being done, we can taste it! Our orthotist estimates one more month, and then we are done FOR GOOD. While it's disappointing that we are not done yet, I can handle four more weeks, right? 

"Don't worry, Mama! We can do one more month! We are almost there! When I shave my head when I'm 18, I will thank you, and you will wonder why you ever spent all this time and effort making my head round!"

Sigh. Onto month 4. Which will (hopefully) be our last month on this helmet adventure. Stay tuned!