Cutie-pie

I had just watered my herbs -- you can see my basil was very thirsty -- Chloe decided this was a good way to also get a drink of water.

Pictures and hearing updates

On Friday I took Chloe in for her hearing evaluation. It appears that we'll be doing this every 2 - 3 months for a while. Chloe's attention span and age has a lot to do with it at this point. She gets restless and then we are basically done for the day. If we force it, we won't get good data and she will learn to hate it. So that means we stop when she wants to stop. We did find that she's more relaxed with the tests if mama puts all the things in her ears not the audiologist or the student working with us. The audiologist we are seeing is great about this and gave me the crash course in how to do things the right way. She is very willing to make this as easy on Chloe as possible and to make it a positive experience for her. It helps that our audiologist has a son who was born with hearing problems so she completely understands. This is a big help to both Chloe and me. And for some reason it makes me trust her more.

We were able to get baseline data on Chloe's left ear, the ear we know there are problems with. This is a good starting point. We'll go back in September and try to get the same type of baseline on the right ear. The test Chloe has during surgery test groups of tones together, the tests we are doing now breaks each and every tone out so we really know what's going on. As of right now -- based on just this one evaluation -- Chloe is borderline for needing a hearing aide in her left ear. But, it's way too early in the process to know for sure. We also don't know yet if her hearing loss is conductive or neurological -- that will be determined with more testing. However, it really doesn't matter what type of hearing loss she has -- the treatment for both right now would be the same -- wait and see. So we are continuing on with our summer and not worrying about this or anything else for the time being. We are spending lots of time in the pool and at the zoo. These are our two favorite things to do. And the girls don't know it yet but mama ordered them a new and bigger pool. I'm sure I'll be regretting that when the water bill comes. :) But seeing the smiles and giggles will make it all worth it.

Another day at the zoo

Speech

I took both girls in for their speech evaluations on Tuesday. The girls did very well with the woman doing the evaluations. They were very relaxed with her. You can tell she's good with kids and had been doing this a while.

Cassie 'tested' as being about 6 months behind in her development on her speech/language/communications and Chloe about 9 - 12 months behind. I was very pleased with those results - based on what the girls have been through and how long they have each been home. I was asked if I wanted to do speech therapy and I declined for now. Chloe is still figuring out what parents are and since she just got her ear tubes in I expect her vocabulary to start exploding soon. I'm not against taking the girls to speech therapy but I want to see what I can do on my own during the next 6 months. That's when the girls will need to be reevaluated. They gave me some things to work on and told me to call if I have any questions so that's where we will leave it for now. My goal for January is to have Cassie on target for her age and Chloe at 6 months behind. So we'll see what the three of us can do together on this.

Here are some pictures of the girls from this weekend. We hung out in the backyard in the pool and went to the zoo on Saturday for my birthday. We love the zoo.

Sleeping, napping and not sleeping

and not necessarily in that order.

Background info -- Cassie has been napping in her toddler bed -- used to be her crib -- that she never slept in -- since two days before we left for China in February. That would make it since January 27th. Chloe has been napping in her pack-n-play in our bedroom since coming home. And they both sleep in separate pack-n-plays at night in our room. Yes, we have crazy sleeping arrangements but it's what works best for everyone. Ok, another lie -- that's what works best for the girls.

We now have a 2nd toddler bed in their bedroom with the hopes of moving them both in there for naps and at night this fall or winter.

About 2 weeks ago Chloe figured out how to climb out of the pack-n-play. The first time this happened she quietly climbed out, made it all the way downstairs and to the baby gate in the foyer before I heard her. She was so proud of herself. At least she had already napped and didn't fall down the stairs. But now we had a problem. The next few days it was a fight to get her to stay in the pack-n-play at nap time. Then once I got her to sleep I had to run up and check on her every 15 minutes -- even with the baby monitor on since she can be very sneaky. Of course this was driving me crazy. Then I had the brainy idea to just put both girls in the same room and maybe they would just nap. Ok -- I know -- not the smartest thing I have ever done. But I was desperate -- plus there is a baby gate in the hall from their room so they couldn't get to the bathroom or stairs. On paper it was a perfect plan. The reality of it was, in a word, pandemonium. After three days of this, and the girls deciding that naps were no longer going to happen, I needed a new plan -- or lots of duct tape. :)

Last Thursday night after the girls went to sleep I got up and moved the new toddler bed into the playroom and rearranged some things in both rooms. The playroom is now Cassie's bedroom. On Friday Cassie actually napped in there during the day. I made a big deal out of her getting a new "big girl" room. And she bought it - hook, line and sinker. Then Friday night after the girls were sleeping, Sonny and I made the other toddler bed back into a crib. Of course Chloe would be able to climb out of that too. So on Saturday we went and bought a crib tent. After some work we got it to 'fit' on our crib -- we have a sleigh style crib and the crib tents don't work with them -- nice. Thank goodness for zip ties.

So now was the big test -- nap time on Saturday. Chloe resisted falling asleep but finally did. Sunday was about the same. But as of Monday -- so 5 days today -- Chloe is napping for 2 - 3 hours a day in her new crib. Mommy is very pleased. And now she's safe too -- that's the most important thing. And since Monday Cassie has decided that she's a big girl now and no longer sleeps in the toddler bed in her new room. She prefers the queen size bed. She doesn't roll much and since it's against the wall on two sides, I just use lots of pillows around the other two sides and she's fine. Plus, it's low to the ground.

I think the naptime issues of nap time are behind us for a while.

However, Chloe isn't sleeping at night now -- so that means no one is sleeping at night. This has been going on since Monday night. She's just so itchy, even with Benadryl. Her little belly is covered again with psoriasis so I'm sure that's the problem. We have topical hydrocortisone for that, so hopefully once that kicks in, night time will get better too.

And in case you are wondering, she does get out of the pack-n-play in the morning too but just comes over to wake me up. Most of the time I'm already awake and hear her stand up, since the pack-n-play is about 1 foot from my bed.

And now the funny -- not so funny -- part of the story. While I was changing the rooms around last Thursday night we were having tornado warnings and a huge storm. Sonny was watching the tv and the weather online to see if we needed to wake the girls and move to the basement. I was watching out the window while moving the rooms around. SO it was pretty late when we actually got to bed -- after the storm had passed. Some how in all this I mistakenly locked the poor cat in bedroom closet. I figured that out at 6:30am the next morning when I took Chloe in there to change her diaper. I heard Sage loud and clear asking to be let out. Then it hit me -- he had been in there all night -- that meant he didn't have a litter box in there with him. When I opened the door he took off. Right in front of the inside of the closet door was a small pile of poop. In the corner of the closet was 3ft high stack of brand new summer cloths in size 2T that are still too big for Cassie. Yep, you guessed it -- that's where Sage decided to pee. And since the clothes were leaning slightly it ran down half of them -- meaning all of them needed to be washed -- and have the tags all taken off -- some of which were wet. About 4 hours later I got everything cleaned and washed like it never happened. No so funny at the time and still not very funny. It just adds to the crazyness around here.

Here are some pictures of my sleeping angels at nap time.