Hobbit Ears and Flat Heads

When Anika was first born six months ago, after I'd gotten over the awe and wonder of her birth and my wife's awesomeness and courage, I scanned her body from head to toe. Was she healthy? Did she have birth marks? Did she have four, five, or six toes on each foot? The one thing that was obviously different was the shape of Anika's left ear. I described it right away as floppy, though that's not quite the right word. It doesn't flap in the wind, and it doesn't move when I blow on it. But the upper part is folded down and there's a small knot on the very top.

Upon my discovery, after asking our nurse if Anika's doctor could give us her opinion, I did what any modern-day parent would do (and the last thing I'd recommend). I took to Google to try to diagnose the malady myself. While our nurse assured us it was probably nothing, I quickly became a worried and nervous mess of a Dad, learning all sorts of things about ear development and serious ear problems. I also became determined to test out Anika's hearing and tried all sorts of ways to try to get her to respond to my many sounds. (When the nurses did the official hearing test a week later, my heart was racing the whole time.) Not surprisingly, less than a day after having squeezed out of the birth canal, Anika was sleepy and not terribly responsive. This made for more worry, which was met by my much-more-care-free wife's assurance that my inherited over-anxiousness was on full display.

Anika's floppy ear--day one.

As you can see, she makes it look darn cute.

While we waited for our doctor's evaluation, I calmed myself by trying to think on the bright side. Maybe Anika could get a role as an extra in the new Hobbit movies (coming this winter). They probably need a hobbit baby in a scene or two, right!?

Sadly, the shape of Anika's ear is actually the opposite of hobbit ears.

Thus, we made many attempts to pin the ear back with hats and things.

As Alicia predicted, eventually our doctor told us that Anika's unique left ear was not any of the troublesome issues I'd read about on the internet. It was simply something cosmetic resulting from extra cartilage in her ear. Today, the ear has started to normalize a bit and I hardly notice its uniqueness. Actually, I think it looks a little more curved than a normal ear, which probably allows her to catch more sound than a normal baby--maybe it'll result in a superpower of sorts. This probably explains why she startles so often and easily. Anika, of course, continues to make her beautiful left ear look like a fashion trend--ala Cindy Crawford's mole. The whole experience taught me good lessons about my own uber-anxiety and thankfulness for the blessing of Anika's health. Plus, it's given us a greater appreciation for hats of all kinds.

Great hat--full ear coverage and nice and stretchy.

Nice and warm and pink--the special care nursery's hat selection was quite impressive.

This homemade Amy-Lee special is what Anika wore home from the hospital, and it always put Anika in the mood to goof around.  Unfortunately, Anika grew out of it in just a few weeks.

Anika has hats like many women have shoes--lots of them and one for every occasion. Her bear hat was one of our favorites--and it pinned her ear back real nice too.

Bath-time hat-towel combination. Genius!

 

 

She's still growing into her first Twins hat, courtesy of Grandpa Freeman. And she's experimenting with different ways to wear it too. It is not so great in the ear-coverage category, but compensates in its sportiness.

Last but not least is the hat that I think makes Anika look like a frumpy grandma. But at least it keeps the sun out of her face!

Fast forward six month's later, and we've found that worrying about your child's health goes hand-in-hand with being a parent. Anika went in for her six-month check up this past week, and all was well. As a short and squat baby girl at the low end of the percentiles (18th for height and 27th for weight), she still has the physique of a bowling ball. There was a minor exception though. We were told that Anika would have to go see some sort of skull consultant because of the flatness of her head. Apparently, because babies' heads are only malleable for so long, you don't want to miss your window to re-shape it, if need be. The re-shaping process is accomplished with a funny-looking helmet with a doughnut in the top, which the baby has to wear 23 hours a day. (Given the perpetual sweatiness of Anika's head already, we could only imagine the result of the helmet.)

Her wild and crazy head of hair obscures the flatness of her head.

Her hair is now so disheveled in the back that she has a naturally forming dread-lock or two.

Featuring Anika's extremely disheveled hair, super-sonic sound-capturing ear, and flat head. (Her hair actually looks a bit like Frodo's in the picture above.)

Luckily, on Thursday, Anika saw the skull doctor, who told us that we could skip the helmet and prescribed lots of tummy time. (The only downside is that I won't get to paint the helmet purple and draw horns on the sides.) The doctor also prescribed sleeping for Anika on her right side--though we're skeptical this doctor has ever had an infant, because the idea that we could make Anika sleep on one side and keep her there is borderline preposterous.

So we try to do lots of tummy time, which inevitably leads to this. Life as a sixth-month old is just plain hard sometimes.