princess leia

For those of you that follow our photo steam, you may have noticed our little lady has been sporting some water-polo-player-like ear muffs.

Saying good-bye to Daddy

who is in New York for work this week! :(

When Samantha was born, she had a little wrinkle in her right ear.  No one said anything to us about it, it seemed pretty minor, and we thought it was kind of cute, so we didn't think much about it.

At her one-month check-up, however, I brought it up to our pediatrician.

"That's just her," she told me.  "It won't go away, so you may want to go see a specialist.  When they're this little, their cartridge is super malleable, so you can fix it pretty easily.  If you wait even just another few weeks, however, making a change requires major plastic surgery.  We're talking months of recovery and a whole lot of pain."

The option now was to have her wear ear molds for 6 weeks - they don't hurt her, she can still hear, but she looks silly, you have to be more careful with baths, and you get a whole lot of questions. :)

We debated long and hard about what to do.  

On the one hand it seemed superficial and vain to be "doing work" on our little babe (we did feel like she was perfect exactly the way she was!), 

but on the other hand, it broke my heart to think of her being made fun of (kids can be so mean!) or feeling uncomfortable wearing her hair tied back in pony tail when we could have done something so simple before she would even remember.

It was a really tough decision, but - as you already know - we decided to do it.

When we went into meet with the specialist, he walked us through the process in great detail and then added:

"You know, ear irregularities are genetic."

I looked at Stefan, expecting the doctor to go on about how his ears were less than perfect.

"Mom - you have what we would call 'Dumbo' ears."

Say what?

"Your ears stick out quite far - that isn't normal."

I immediately got up and looked in the mirror.  They did stick out.

I thought back to my baby pictures.

with Nana and Pops (Samantha's namesake - 

more on that another time)

with my Aunt Jules

  

Well, call me "Dumbo" - sorry Samantha!

So that's why I never made as a famous movie star.  If only they had had these ear things back when I was a young babe (they've only been around for the past few years), I would have obviously become the next Julia Roberts.  Oh well.

Putting her little muffs on was painless and simple.  She slept the whole time!

And so far our little Princess Leia has been loving life with them on:

"My ears will better than yours, Mom!"

Would you have done it?  Or would you have left her adorable little ears as is?

xoxo

KK