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.

Mondays

I'm so behind on updating the blog as to what's going on around here. Let's just say that last week was a really LONG week.

So I'll back up a day to Sunday -- Chloe's 2nd birthday -- as you can see from the pictures in the last post, we went to the zoo and then hung out at home with cupcakes, a new water table and a new blowup jumping/climber toy. The girls had a really fun day -- so did Sonny and I. I can't believe I have two 2-year-olds now. WOW. What a difference 4 years makes. Our original LID (log-in-date) with China was June 19, 2006. The day before Chloe's birthday was 4 years since that date. I will never forget that date or the waiting but having my two girls home makes the memories of the waiting fade just a little.

Chloe had two dr appts on Monday. One at 10:30am downtown with the ENT for her follow up on her tubes and then at 2pm with the pediatrician -- on the complete opposite side of town -- for her 2-year checkup and more vaccines. Cassie also had a nurse appt for more vaccines at the same time.

First the good news -- Chloe's tubes and ears look great. The dr was very pleased with the progress Chloe has made in the past 5 weeks on her walking, running, balance, mood, hearing and overall cuteness explosion. However, he wasn't pleased with the hearing tests results on Chloe's left ear during surgery. That test showed that Chloe hears no low tones in her left ear. That meant that we were going to have another hearing test during last Monday's appointment. No problem, as we had some time between our appointments. Three hearing tests later and another 45 minutes waiting to see the dr again we found out nothing. Ok, that's a lie. Chloe's overall hearing is in the normal range and she's a normal toddler with no attention span. The audiologist and a student tried many tricks to keep Chloe engaged enough to check the hearing in each ear and the tones in each ear but Chloe wasn't having any of it.

All this means is I have to call this week -- when the July schedule is out -- and make an 90 minute appt with the audiologist and student to see if they can get meaningful results. If this doesn't work we'll have to have Chloe put under for another hearing test. So please pray that Chloe's hearing has improved in her left ear since the tubes have been in place and that we can get the test completed without putting her under.

On to the next appointment. Chloe is now 31.5 inches tall and 34 inches long -- our dr tracks both -- she said that kids don't stand straight at this age when you try and get their height. She weighs 25.5 lbs. She's in the 50% percentile for both height and weight. She's still wearing mostly 12 month clothes and some 18 month tops and dresses. Plus, her little feet are growing too. She had size 2 feet when we got her and she just graduated to size 4 shoes. Our dr was also very impressed at how much Chloe has changed and advanced in the short time home. She's still way behind where she should be for a 'normal' 2-year-old on all the charts but neither the dr nor Sonny and I are concerned since we know Chloe is very smart and will catch up when she's ready. She's only been walking for 3 months. I think she's doing amazing!!

I have had Chloe at our drs office at least twice a month since coming home. At one of the trips in April I took her in for what I thought was ringworm on her belly. No such luck -- it's psoriasis. Since then it's now on the backs of her legs, her upper arms, belly, behind her right ear and about 4 spots on her face. We are learning what works best to keep it under control as we know this will be a life long condition she'll have to deal with. We were also at the drs office about 3 weeks ago because Chloe woke up with red bumps/dots on her face and arms -- a lot of them. It's some type of allergic reaction to something -- of course it could be anything. And she's been itching like crazy since them. Because of all this and the poop problems still happening about once a week -- she's now on rice milk -- the dr decided to do allergy tests for food. Plus Chloe also needed to have her red blood cells rechecked from when we first came home from China -- they were abnormally shaped -- our dr wanted to wait to recheck them after she had been home for a few months. And we forgot to have a lead test done with we first got home -- the dr and I forgot since we had so many other things going on with Chloe when we first came home.

I will say that both Cassie and Chloe did wonderful with getting their vaccines. This hasn't been the case in the past. Cassie went first since she's normally worse. When the nurse brought in the two shots I sat Cassie on the table and told her she was going to be getting shots. I had also been telling her this all day since she got up. I told her the nurse was going to put the needle in her legs -- pointing to where -- and that it was going to hurt -- just like a little pinch. Then I pinched her leg. I told her it was medicine so she didn't get sick. She seemed ok with it at this point. Cassie laid down and was laughing. She laughed and talked until the last shot -- which burned -- she whimpered for about 15 second and then I told her it was done. Once she found out she was going to get two band aids she just wanted to see the band aids. What a change when you can explain what's going to happen to them --- and they get it. I did the same routine with Chloe -- she whimpered and cried a tiny bit more but overall a great improvement from the last set of shots.

At this point on Monday it's around 4pm. The lab for blood work is in the same building. The woman working needed to call for assistant to help us restrain Chloe. It was ugly. It was all I could do to hold it together for both girls as Cassie was in the stroller watching this all. After one try in each arm, digging in both arms, and one blown vein, I said enough. There was no way with no nap and too many people poking and prodding on my baby that there was going to be anymore. The woman doing the blood draw was very nice and kept saying she was sorry. She asked us to come back in the morning at 10am and another woman with be there with her and she was better at getting blood from kids. And to top it all off for the allergy test they needed two large tubes plus two small tubes for the other tests.

Tuesday morning we got the blood draw done -- on the second try. I also asked them to please let me hold Chloe facing me so I could hug her tightly against me for the 2nd try. They agreed and that seemed to help. I know now for blood to only go when this woman is working and how to hold Chloe to make it easier on her. This was also the same woman who did the blood draw on Chloe when we first came home.

The allergy test results take about a week so I'll call this afternoon and see if they results are back. I'm really hoping she's allergic to something we are feeding her so it will explain the itching, rashes and running poop.

I have lots more to tell but since this post is getting so long I'll save the rest for another day.

~~~~ 7:00PM UPDATE ~~~~

Chloe goes in for her hearing tests on July 16th.

I talked to her pediatrician and Chloe's CBC test was perfect!!!! Her lead test was normal. And so were all the allergy tests. That's not so good -- since now we are starting over on what the problem might be. Our dr wants us to add in more plain white rice to Chloe's diet. She thinks that Chloe might need it to help her digestion since that was a staple in her diet for the first 19 months. We used to eat it about 3 - 4 nights a week but 2-year-olds and sticky white rice is a complete mess to clean up. It goes everywhere. But we'll go back to our 3 - 4 nights a week of white rice and see if that helps with the poop issues. As for the itching, she gave me a name of an allergist to see. Before we do that I'm going to make a couple of changes. I was using Dreft but switched to the Target brand a couple of months ago since it's so much cheaper -- I'll go out tomorrow and buy the real stuff. Plus, we'll cut out the milk powder in the bath water again. If that helps I'll just have to find another solution for Cassie's skin problems -- as separate baths just won't work.

Chloe's birthday celebration