Doctors...(cardio update and vent!)

I'm so sick of doctors.  I'm sick of them telling me there's something wrong with my little girl.  I'm sick of them referring me to another specialist to have another test run at another office. The cardiologist, ophthalmologist, allergist, pediatrician and now a geneticist?!  Immunizations, weight-checks, blood testes, ultrasounds, new medicines and lots of hypothesis. All because she's petite...."there must be a reason." Our recent visit to the Cardiologist (bi-annual visit) prompted all this hostility when he suggested we see a geneticist to see if H has some sort of "syndrome" linking her petite size with her heart abnormality.  Seriously?!  He then proceeded to comment (and laugh!) about how small she looked in comparison to me (being so much taller).  Really?  She's a BABY!  Idiot.  Ugh.  Deep down my mom-gut is telling me that this little girl is perfect, that she doesn't have any type of "syndrome" but that her food aversions are caused by her silent reflux.  The one thing all the doctors seem to be brushing off.  Though I think it's being controlled, I can still hear it coming up into her throat and she's constantly congested and coughing.  Some days she eats very little and only eats a few bites all day.  She refuses alternative milks, but I'm so thankful to still be nursing her!  I have no idea how small she would be without the nutrition she's getting from my breastmilk.  No one seems to take her reflux seriously, the doctors seem to blow it off and though I keep pointing it out, no one seems to see it as cause for concern or the possible root of all of this.  SO, in January, at her 18 month well-check, I'm going to request that we see a GI specialist.  Yes, I know that means seeing another doctor, but I feel like this time it would be worth it.  I'll keep you posted, I'm just a little frustrated about all of this.  Dinner is a constant struggle for us, blanketed by and overwhelming sense of anxiety.  Everything I have read about establishing a positive relationship with eating and food says that parents are responsible for putting the food in front of the child and the child is responsible for putting the food in their mouth.  Sounds simple, but when your toddler is spitting out everything, crying or simply soothing herself by sucking on her fingers at each meal, you can't help but stress out about it.  I found a lot of things I could relate to in this blog entry I found.  The truth is that her weight is on the low side, but her height is very average.  So, the bottom line is that she IS growing.  She's so smart, creative, driven, strong-willed and SO beautiful.  She's our little girl and we thinks she's PERFECT!  I just want to hear, for once, that a doctor thinks so too...

They gave her a little "hospital gown" to wear and I have to admit that it was pretty stinkin' cute!

Turkey Day!!

Despite this being our first Thanksgiving without family, the 4 of us had a fun making it our own (and perhaps starting some of our own traditions!) and spending it with other local families.  Our holiday began the Friday before at E's school for his Thanksgiving Feast.....(Dr. M was in Chicago for a conference Thursday thru Sunday and E was out of school the following week). H and I went early to help set up for 24, 3-year-olds to feast on all sorts of homemade goodies...it was chaos!  There was so much food, so many messes and oh so many kids crammed into the hallway near E's classroom (group meals like this are a food allergy moms nightmare because you have no idea what's in the foods!).  The kids enjoyed it and I loved the little "Native American" outfits the kids were wearing (E was so cute in his little paper sack vest!).  After eating, the kids enjoyed Charlie Brown's Thanksgiving cartoon (E was super excited to sit next to his friend Mae and H loves hanging out with the big kids).

The following week I spent most of Wednesday cooking and preparing food, so it felt good to get out and enjoy the beautiful weather Thursday morning.  It was in the mid 70's and possibly "shorts" weather (seriously!).  We met some friends at the local dog park for some exercise (for us and the dogs!).

 That afternoon we went to a friends house for Thanksgiving dinner.  I brought homemade rosemary olive oil rolls, cranberries and stuffing.  It was a "potluck" style meal, so between the 4 families attending we had a pretty amazing meal.  After which, Dr. M decided to play a friendly game of chess with one of the 5-year-old guests.  

We decided to stay home on "black Friday" and, honestly didn't spend a dime.  We just relaxed, worked in the yard and ate leftovers.  Saturday, however, was the last home game of the season, so we packed up the kiddos and headed to the quad for bounce house fun.  The weather, however, had turned overnight and it was a very chilly day - perfect for football!

So, that afternoon we had about 12 adults and 10 kids (under the age of 5) at our house to watch the game, eat chili and drink beer!  It was so much fun.  I loved the chaos and so many of our friends being together.  We've never really had a house large enough to host this kind of event, so it was fun to do for the first time!  Roll Tide!

17 months!

This little girl is growing up TOO fast!  She's almost a year and a half old and is no longer a baby, but truly a toddler, talking, walking, opinionated, sassy, snugly and  fearless.  She's one little fireball, that's for sure.  If she wants something, she'll let you know!  She demands nursing sessions by pointing at the chair in the living room and saying "nzzz" (nurse) to me and insists on accessorizing with shoes, purses and hair clips at her own free will.  She's also figured out how to climb up onto the coffee table and the bench in the kitchen (stinker!), like her brother.  She loves to dance (esp to the Umizoomi intro song) and loves to imitate anything her brother is doing.  She loves him and thinks he's the greatest thing in her world right now.  E was a blankie fan (still is), but this little girl sure loves her stuffed animals.  She points to them when I get her out of her crib and insists on carrying it around.  She snuggles them and kisses them "mhwaa" and even gives them to the dogs to cuddle.  She can point to her body parts, like nose, ears, hair, mouth, arm, etc and loves to point to mine too.  She isn't talking a whole lot, but tries so hard and is very good at following directions and clearly understands us.  After switching her reflux meds two months ago, she's like a different baby - eating SO much (yogurt, cheese, anything!) and happy as can be!  Such a big difference - AND she's been gaining weight!!  She's still tall and skinny (about 19 lbs and 30.5 inches  at her 16.5 month weight check), but climbing the growth chart.  She's the cutest thing I've ever seen.  Seriously.  That face and those sweet, blue eyes and curly hair.  She's melts my heart.  I love this little lady.  I love being her mom and snuggling her every single day!

Halloweeeen!!

This may be one of my favorite holidays of the year....and this year was particularly wonderful because I feel like it was E's first "real" Halloween.  I think he got the concept, picked out a costume, was excited about pumpkins, candy and even trick-or-treating.  H, of course, just wanted to do whatever her big brother did, so she enjoyed it too.  Halloween was on a Wednesday this year, and the weekend before it was homecoming, so we were super busy for almost 7 days straight!  Sunday afternoon we ran around town buying last minute supplies to make the kids' costumes and spent that evening actually MAKING them ourselves...

Here's H's "Lil' Pumpkin"costume!  I made the tutu, by tying orange and glitter tulle on a band of elastic (pretty simple, really) and added a ribbon.   You might remember the onesie and leggings from this post.

 Dr. M and I made E's "Planet Earth" costume by cutting out continents from green and white felt and gluing them to the blue shirt and pants (also simple).  My fave was Australia on his little tushy :)  Did you notice the little red heart on T-town? 

He insisted on being Planet Earth.  I bought a cute dinosaur/lizard costume that he was excited about for, oh, 30 seconds until he realized what I was trying to do and demanded to be Earth!  He actually wanted H to be Pluto, me to be the Sun and Dr. M to be Mars....maybe next year?

 Halloween events began on Monday night with a community trick-or-treating event on campus.  All the sorority houses on "sorority row" open their doors to little ones and their families for a safe, fun night.  They have games and tons of candy.  There were easily hundreds of people there - it was crazy (and cold)! 

The DZ house!!!!

Tuesday evening we carved two pumpkins and, of course, roasted the seeds (Dr. M's fave).  The kids got a kick out of scooping out the "slimy" seeds and strings.

 Wednesday morning was E's Fall Party at school.  The kids all wore their costumes to school, played all sorts of fun games inside and out (it was a beautiful day!).  H came with me and loved being a big kid with E's class. 

After snack, we went for a hayride around the nearby neighborhood (H and I went too!).  E was glowing the entire time, he thought it was SO cool.  I loved seeing him interact with his peers.

 After a snack and hayride, we hit the bounce houses - E could hardly wait!  Even little H got in!

...then to the playground...

...and finally everyone took a break to enjoy some pizza and juice.

 That night we met up with our neighborhood friends and kids to go trick-or-treating.

There were SO many kids (we love our neighborhood)!  It was so much fun chatting with neighbors and seeing all the kids run from house to house.

Even little H got into the excitement.  She was so cute!

We decorated the house with some spooky spiderwebs and window clings (thanks, Grandpa!) and, of course, our awesome pumpkins :)  What a fun night!

Happy Halloweeeeeeeeen!!!!!

Homecoming!

What a week it's been!  We've been going non-stop for the past 10 days (not complaining, it's all super fun stuff and amazing memories)....  Homecoming events began Friday night with the annual bonfire and house decorations on campus.

 These are not your average floats with tissue paper - they are incredibly detailed and made of little, bitty, hand rolled pieces of tissue paper in tiny balls and glued in place.  They are massive and really stunning to see in person.

After meeting up with some friends, chatting and hanging out on the Quad, the T-town fire department lit the HUGE bonfire!  It's mesmerizing.  Hundreds of people were circled around the massive pile of flaming wood pallets and though we were probably 50 feet from it you could feel the intense heat radiating from the flames.  I love seeing all the faces glowing in the light of the fire.

A strong cold-front came through the night before and the temperature outside dropped about 30 degrees, so we bundled up Saturday afternoon for the homecoming parade downtown.

 

The whole town was buzzing with excitement for the game that night and the city was almost 3 times the normal size...so we had a hike up to the parade (but enjoyed the fallen leaves and cold breeze).

The parade was packed with you standard marching bands, vintage cars, pageant queens, baton twirlers and also some very "southern" flair.  Despite the fact that there was no candy (when did they stop throwing candy at parades?) the kids throughly enjoyed it!

After the parade and a quick stop into the Library (where we parked), we headed to a friends house for her annual fall party for chili, drinks, treats, pumpkin carving, football on TV, great conversation and LOTS of kiddos!

Sunday we spent the day running around town shopping and searching for last-minute Halloween costumes and pumpkins...all 4 of us have had the sniffles for days now and were all in need of a good nap!

That afternoon I made cupcakes for E's school Halloween party.  I also made butternut squash soup for dinner and we ate the leftover cupcakes.  What an awesome weekend!

The fun continued through the following Thursday (today!) with more events around town and Halloween......my next post :)

Aunt Sarah

We had an awesome (and much needed) visit from Aunt Sarah last week!  I was in need of some serious "girl time", she wanted to see the new house and the kids were SO excited to spend some quality time with her....which is exactly what we did...

Breakfast at Rama Jama (H getting in some snuggles).

Bedtime stories with E

Some new "artwork" - meow!

Kentuck Art Festival - E building a bird house!

Kentuck Art Festival - kettle corn, of course!

Kentuck Art Festival - turkey leg!!!!

Kentuck Art Festival - E's beautiful art work!

 

Kentuck Art Festival - piggy back ride from mama!

STP at Publix of the girls to text to Mom :)

The coolest slippers the kids have ever seen (it's Bull!)!

A much needed "girls night out" - dinner and drinks!!!!

Fun a the McWayne Science Center after we took Sarah to the airport.

What a great week!  Now if we could just convince her to buy and live in the house across the street....that would be perfect!  We love you, Aunt Sarah! :)