This week recap

FIRST I want to announce that my baby brother and his wife Marie are having a baby!!! I have been holding this secret since my b-day. They flew up to Alaska to visit my mom on Thursday and wanted to tell her in person so I have been suffering. Anyhow, congrats to them!! It will be their first baby and they are due in December!

here they are with Ella last summer.

Well, it's been a busy week around here or at least it has seemed that way. I had a female appointment on Tuesday and had planned on dropping Hunter off at my friend's house. Well, I left the house late as usual and headed out to her house and wouldn't you know it the main road to her house was closed for repairs. So, I end up in the next town over, call her on my cell trying to figure out how to get there. She didn't know the road names, and I certainly did not, for the backway to get there so I ended up taking both of my kids to my GYN appt. Fun. It dawned on me as I am sitting in the waiting room among all of these pregnant women, who are staring at Ella, that I am their worst nightmare. I felt bad, when I was pregnant if I would have seen a baby with Down syndrome in the waiting room I would have freaked out thinking it must be a sign. Anyhow, these poor women are staring at Ella and of course Ella catches their eye and yells "hi" and waves frantically at them, at which point they have to acknowledge that they were staring at her and wave back and look away.

Anyhow, so my appointment went fine, except for when I had to ask Hunter to come stand by my head for obvious reasons. Well, he did not want to do that so I had to give him the look and ever so nicely demand him to come to the head of the table. I do not recommend taking a 4 year old boy to an appointment of that sort, but I had no choice because I HAD to get a refill of my happy pills. Now, Hunter is the sort of kid that questions EVERYTHING and has several comments about every experience of his life. So, I had thought up a story about how the doctor was checking out mommy's knee (I have had several surgeries so at least I have the scars to back up the story) anyhow, not a question about it!! Thank God!!!

Later that same day we had Ella's ENT appointment, for the first time here in Washington. The conclusion of that appointment is that her right tube in her ear is completely blocked so I have to put baby oil in it every night (which she HATES) and hopefully the gunk will soften up and the doctor can dig it out in 2 weeks! If not then she will need a new tube, not a big deal but not something I thought she would need so soon after getting them in December. Oh well.

Wednesday was school for Ella. Her physical therapist was happy with her new Sure Step braces for her feet, so that's good!

Thursday we actually stayed home all day. Of course Chris had to work that day from 8AM till 9PM, so it was a long day for mommy! Oh yeah and the highlight of my day was Ella having diarrhea. I had to give her Miralax the day before because she was stopped up again, so anyhow, she had a messy diaper that leaked a little on her clothes so I cleaned her all up, ran to the bathroom and started the bath and came back out to the living room and Ella had gone again, on the floor. It was so disgusting. Luckily we had bought a twin mattress a couple of months ago from Denver Mattress and had gotten a cleaning kit that rocks. Motherhood is so beautiful.

Friday we started the day early, I took Hunter to my friend's house and then headed off to Ella's swallow study at the Children's hospital. I was so nervous about this appointment. I think mostly because I felt guilty because if she was aspirating than she had probably been doing it her whole life and I missed it. Thankfully Ella's speech therapist Marie went with us to that appointment and had a calming effect on me, because I knew she would be able to explain everything to me. Anyhow, Ella was none to happy with having been starved for this appointment. Everyone warned me that the kid has to be really hungry in order to get them to eat and drink the food that is laced with Barium. HA Ella has never met a food she hasn't liked and proved it yesterday. She chowed down on some Barium yogurt and barium ravioli and washed it down with barium milk, and screamed when the test was over for more!! The test went well, she aspirates very little, mostly the liquid pools right above her airway but with the next swallow she clears it. Every once in awhile it would go down the airway, but when they tried the thickened fluids it all went where it was supposed to. So, I have to thicken all of her fluids for the time being.

After that appointment I went and picked up Hunter then we Ella had school, so it was a long day for her yesterday but she did good. I talked to Marie, her speech therapist, and asked about adding an extra speech therapy session each week so we are going to be doing that. So she will be going to school Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Ella didn't start speech till after she was 12 months old and kids here start way earlier so I feel like she has missed out on a lot and want to try and catch her up. So that was our week. Oh and I'm pretty sure Ella has pink eye now. She is all gunky today but is not congested so I'm sure she caught it at one of the many appointments or most likely from one of the kiddos in her class.

Here are a few pics I took before the poop explosion on Thursday. She wasn't happy and I don't know why, yet another reason I want more speech!!