Birthday Party Weekend!

After Avery's sleep study, we had a weekend full of partying!

Late Saturday afternoon, we had a birthday party to go to for Carly. She's 4 this year and has an actual birthday this year too-she's a leap day baby so it's her first "real" birthday! 

We got there and the kids played awhile. Then we had dinner and it was time for some gift opening.

notice who's missing? Avery-she was quite the loner at times!

Brayden eyeing the gifts

Opening the gift we bought her

After gifts, it was time for cake! The cake was from Wegman's and was adorable!

Singing "Happy Birthday" to Carly!

Blowing out the candles!

While we were having cake, Brayden was hamming it up in the high chair-he was cracking us up!

And before we left, I got the cutest picture of the girls (minus Avery's crazy hairdo!):

Sunday we had another birthday party for one of Avery's daycare friends. It was at a bowling alley so we knew she'd have a blast....and she did!

They didn't do an organized game at all. They had maybe 4 lanes set up for the kids with the bumpers and ramps and just let them have at it for an hour. They took turns and had a lot of fun!  She started bowling with Daddy:

Then it was Mommy's turn (man do I look frumpy!)....we got 2 spares!!

After the hour of "bowling", the kids were taken downstairs to a party room where they had pizza, cake, and did gifts. And before we left, I got a shot of Avery and her BFF, Josie!

Quick Change of Plans

Yesterday at 4:30pm, we had a quick change of plans for the evening.

The sleep clinic called and had a cancellation for that night. Did we want to do the sleep study that night (a whole month earlier than scheduled)?

I called Gabe who was still working to see what he wanted to do since it was such a last minute decision. We agreed that we were ready to just get it done and over with. Even though we were both stressed out and nervous about it (more him than me since he had to take her), we decided it was for the best.

While Gabe finished up at work, I started to pack up an overnight bag for Avery and she helped me pick out her PJ's, books, and animals she wanted to bring. Pretty much all I told her was that her and Daddy would be going on a special overnight trip that night. I told her it was at the doctors office and that she needed to be a good girl and listen to Daddy and the doctors. That was the extent of it.

Gabe got home a little before 6, we ate a quick dinner and they were out the door around 6:30. They had to arrive at the office at 7.

I stayed home with the baby and of course was wondering how things were going all evening. I texted Gabe here and there, but didn't hear from him so I figured he'd get back to me when he could.

I was woken up at 12:30 from the crazy wind we had that night (so much for a good night of sleep-ugh) and checked my phone. Gabe had texted me back saying that Avery was completely amazing and that I'd be so proud of her. That made me feel good!

Cassandra woke up at 6am to eat and when I finished nursing, I got back into bed knowing they'd be home soon (they kick you out at 6:15am). Sure enough, 5minutes later I heard them come home. Unfortunately Avery was awake...we were hoping she'd fall back asleep in the car on the way home.

I came downstairs to her eating a doughnut and her hair was like a bird's nest-it was a huge mess!  I found out that they both had been up since 4am!

Basically, Avery was connected to 29 different things while she slept. Gabe said it took the tech about an hour to hook her up to everything. She had wires hooked up to her legs, feet, hands, chest, stomach, face and hair. I guess at 4am something came unhooked and the tech came in to fix it. Avery woke up while he was doing it and never fell back asleep. At 5:30am they decided to call it quits. I guess he had enough data though (thankfully!) so we're hoping things are good to go.

Gabe and I are truly amazed at how Avery did. Gabe said she was never told what they were doing. They just started hooking her up to things and she just sat there (watching videos on the iPad) and let them.

She never questioned what the wires were for.

She never tried to take them off or pull at them.

She never complained or cried.

She never asked to go home. (this from a kid who hasn't slept away from home except on vacations)

I guess Gabe went to give her a kiss and she said "but you can't kiss my face Daddy since I have all of these things on it." That was the extent that she talked about things. Even when she got home, she never talked about it. To be honest, it's the strangest thing! 

The morning was a little rough. Avery basically got about 5.5 hours of sleep last night so she was a hot mess when they got home. She was way overtired and completely wound up. We tried giving her a bath to get the paste out of her hair and it was a nightmare. She had a complete meltdown and screamed the entire time. Who would have thought that would have been the hardest part of this whole ordeal?! 

After running around awhile, Gabe finally got her to fall asleep around 11:45am and she took a 4 hour nap! I'm super glad because she really, really needed it!

We won't have the results of the study for three weeks, but we are so glad it's done and over with. And Avery was such a brave girl through the whole thing. We truly are proud of her!!

One Month Old!

Yesterday, baby Cassandra turned one month old already! It's hard to believe she's been here a month already-seems just like yesterday I was going through the labor from hell to welcome this little peanut into our lives!

She still seems much smaller than Avery was, although she is getting bigger! Some newborn stuff is starting to get snug on her now and she's filling them out more these days. She's still in newborn diapers at this point, but I have a feeling she'll be out of those in the next few weeks as well.

She's nursing well and eats every 2.5-3 hours I'd say.

I've sort of gotten her on a routine during the day of eat-"play"-sleep. After I nurse her, I change her diaper to wake her up and then she'll stay awake for an hour or two then fall asleep. She'll wake up again when she's hungry. If she hits the three hour mark, I usually wake her and try to feed her. She's pretty content most of the time-she fusses when she's hungry and tired. She still loves to suck herself to sleep but doesn't really enjoy the pacifier-she prefers our baby finger instead which makes like difficult at times!

She's been doing pretty well at night too-usually wakes up 2-3 times to eat on average. She's had a few nights where I'll feed her at 8:30 and she'll go until 2:30 before eating again. Unfortunately I don't get to bed until around 10 at the earliest (because of Avery's sleep issues), but a 4 hour stretch of sleep for me is still good! After that, she'll go 3-4 hours before eating again. So the past few nights I've gotten between 6-7 hours of sleep which is good!

Here are Cassandra's one month photos:

These are my favorites-she was getting so excited when I was talking to her so she was kicking away when I took these which made me laugh!

And for something to laugh at, here are Avery's one month pics! (Man, they look different!)

Sucker Punch

This is what happens when your two year old doesn't want to go to bed and sucker punches you right in the mouth.

Or this is what happens when you nurse in public and someone doesn't agree with it and things get heated.

bruising on the right side of my lip

I wish I had a good story for this nice bruised lip I have....but I don't! And yes, I realize that the photos are wonky looking....the angle I took them at makes my face look distorted and my lips look enormous! But, you get the idea.

This was a bedtime accident actually and it was caused by my two and a half year old.

I was lying in bed with her last night and she sat up to take a drink. She had her back to me so I couldn't see her face. After she took her drink, she just sat there. So I said, "Avery, what are you doing?"

No response.

Just her flinging her head back towards me to lay down-with all of her might.

Her head met my mouth.

My mouth goes numb. 

She's silent.

I panic thinking she got injured because surely she should be crying from the force of impact she had. So...I ask if she's ok.

The tears start flowing "I WANT DADDY!"

I taste blood in my mouth and freak that she knocked out a tooth or something.

I climb out of bed, call for Gabe (who has to bring the baby up to me so that he can attend to Avery), and run to the mirror.

Blood? Check.

Fat lip? Check.

All teeth accounted for?  Check. (insert sigh of relief)

Pain? Check.

And this happened last night so the swelling has actually gone down from last night.

Parenting....good times had by all!

Yum!

Someone enjoyed a special doughnut today!

Sleep Tight

You might remember that last week I talked to the kids' pediatrician about Avery's current sleep problems. He suggested giving her melatonin, to which we really didn't want to do.

After several more nights (two weeks straight) of her staying up until after 10pm, I decided to call the local pediatric sleep center based on a friend's recommendation. 

Yesterday was the appointment.

I will say that I honestly went in thinking that we (as parents) were going to get a hand slapping. That her behavior was something that we were feeding into. Or that it was just her being a toddler. Or that it was because of the arrival of the baby. I was fully prepared to get a lecture on something and that the appointment was going to be a waste of time and not much help.

I was surprised.

They started by taking Avery's height and weight and oxygen level-all which were normal.

Then we went down the hall to a decent sized room and sat down with a nurse practitioner. I will say one thing-I was disappointed in the set up. It's a pediatric office and they didn't have a single toy for her to play with. And we were in this room for an hour! Of course Avery was running around, opening drawers, etc and the nurse was getting aggrivated. What do you expect this kid to do for an hour when you don't have a single thing to occupy her? Luckily I had my iphone with me and asked if I could pull it out (she said yes) so that kept her busy while I talked with the NP.

Anyways....she drilled me about Avery's history-health background and her sleeping background. Things were going fine-nothing out of the ordinary-until she asked if Avery snored. I replied "yes" and she said, "well, this might change things."  Apparently it's unusual for toddlers to snore and Avery snores pretty regularly.  I've never mentioned it to her doctor because I kept forgetting and I didn't think it was a huge deal. 

So after going over a zillion questions, she says she thinks one of two things might be going on....restless leg syndrome or obstructive sleep apnea.  The funny thing?  Both are hereditary and both run in my family. And neither of them were on my radar. 

She informs me about both things and says she wants to do a quick exam of Avery-check her tonsils, heart, chest, etc.  Well, she takes one look at her tonsils and says to me, "Her tonsils are enormous." She had me look....let's just say the uvula in the back of your throat (the dangly thing)-yeah, her tonsils touch it! You can barely see the back of her throat!  And when she sleeps, it closes up even more from the muscles relaxing! 

Of course she thinks there is some behavioral issues at play too. For instance-one of us always lays down with Avery until she falls asleep.  That came about when she was put in her big bed because if we leave her room, she'll play for hours on end. So one of us would stay with her until she fell asleep and it would work....until recently. So we're supposed to break that habit at some point but the nurse felt like it might be hard to break if there is a real medical issue playing into this whole thing too.

Basically we have to do a few more things until we have any solid answers. For the restless leg syndrome, Avery has to go and get bloodwork done to check her iron levels. With toddlers, it's hard to diagnose since they can't explain things to you so they check their iron levels in their blood. For the sleep apnea, she has to do an overnight sleep study to see if her sleep is interrupted and how severely it's interrupted. Once both of these things are done and we get the results, we can determine how to move forward.  I'm dreading both of them-she's never had blood taken (besides the finger prick) and the overnight study is going to be pretty rough too.

I scheduled her overnight for a weekend so unfortunately we have to wait until the end of March! We are on a cancellation list so it might end up being sooner. I'm hoping we get called in sooner because waiting that long is just crazy! If it stays as is, we won't have results of the study until mid-April....so two more months of waiting!

Gabe called our pediatrician and talked to him about everything too, just to get an idea of what he thought about this whole thing. And the pediatrician agreed that the sleep study was a good next step for us. So that was good to hear as well.

Part of me was relieved that there might be something actually causing this behavior. And of course part of me doesn't want her to have some medical issue to deal with. 

We just want some answers and suggestions to make bedtime easier.  Hopefully we're one step closer to that!

Happy Valentine's Day!

I had both girls decked out in their Valentine's attire today and didn't get a picture of it. Boo!

So, these will have to suffice for now...

Cassandra a few days ago in her girly heart outfit-sorry it's upside down! (If someone could teach me how to rotate these pics I will forever be grateful!)

Sleeping in her swing

Avery chowing down on her chocolate heart

I hope you had a wonderful Valentine's Day filled with lots of love! I know I did!