ENT Checkup

Ella and I drove up to Lawton, OK today for her followup hearing test and tube check on her ears. First we went in with the audiologist and for the first time in her 16 months of life Ella passed the tymphanogram (don't know the details but they put a probe in her ear press a button, before her results would come out as a flat line, today it was mountains and valleys) they attempted various hearing tests that Ella decided she was too busy for. She kept yanking the prob out of her ear and trying to throw herself on the floor so she could be on the move. Then they put us in the sound booth and again she was very uninterested in cooperating! Anyhow the audiologist said that she did 100% better on the test as far as hearing the voice part of it but that once we move we should have further testing done. Yipee.

Then we were sent back out to the lobby to wait for the ENT Doc. I sat down by an elderly lady and Ella started smiling and hamming it up for her. The lady said "oh, I bet she is a handful." Yep. She told Ella that she is beautiful and asked "can you say thank you?" Nope. "how old is she?" 16 months. "is she walking?" Nope. "can you say mama?" Nope. So after a deep breath I tell the lady, "she has Down syndrome." "oh yeah" she says "a little bit. You can see it in her eyes." Ugh. Whatever, at least I'm past the anger stage (sometimes.) Then she proceeds to tell me that her cousin's niece's daughter (follow that one?) has a baby that is autistic but she doesn't look like it not one bit. Oh. Luckily I was saved by the nurse.

So, the Doc looks in Ella's ears, everything looks great. He gave me the results of the allergy panel they took while she was under for the surgery. GREAT NEWS : Ella is NOT allergic to the American Cockroach!!! Well all that worry for nothing! Anyhow they did a 15 panel test and yes the cockroach was on it (gotta love Texas) no allergies to dust mites, mold, cats, dogs, milk, oranges, soy, malt, but she is allergic to egg whites and peanuts. Huh? On a scale of 0 to 5 she was a 3 on the eggs and just a 1 on peanuts. The doctor said that the egg thing could be from vaccines. Okay let me just make a side note here that I am reading Jenny McCarthy's book about her son is "cured" from Autism (I'm sure that I will comment more on that at a later date,) so as if I am not scared enough about immunizations then the doctor tells me this. He said that almost all vaccines are cultivated in eggs. Great. So, now what? I have no clue.

Anyhow, all and all it was good I guess. I KNOW that Ella is hearing so much better simply by her reactions to sound and her drastic increase in her being vocal.

On the home front Hunter started back to school today which he was so happy about!! Me too : ) And Ella's handle for her baby doll buggy that we got her for Christmas came in, because of course it was missing. It's pretty funny cause really it is probably to high for her, but she thinks she is big. Here are pics from that.....

She is just so big!

One handed, checking out what brother is up to.

And, here is what happens when you try to walk holding on with one hand. But, even when she falls she still beams with pride!!! God I love this baby!!!

Fun at the Park

Hunter, Emily, and Katie (Katie's big sister respectfully declined to be in the pictures!)




Ian (11 months) Ella and Savannah (16 months)

My friends and I took our kids to one of the parks on base yesterday. Having been out of school for 2 weeks the kids really needed to run off some energy!! Today it was 80 degrees here in Wichita Falls. Warm enough to get a lot done around the house including fun things such as cleaning up the backyard, taking all of the blinds in the house down and washing them and painting Hunter's room back to white (we rent this house and painted it blue when we moved in almost 4 years ago.) We are planning on leaving here for Spokane Jan 26th, we still haven't heard back from the Air Force if they are letting us out early or not but we are hoping for the best! Nothing like not knowing : )

Hunter's Christmas Party

I switched photo memory cards just before Christmas so I totally forgot about the pictures I took at Hunter's school Christmas party. Hunter goes to 3 year old Pre-K in a public elementary school here in Texas and we love it. It doesn't have the daycare feel at all since it is in a real "big kid" school and Hunter has learned so much!! His class had a little party and at the beginning of it they performed two songs for the parents. They sang Jingle Bells, complete with them actually jingling bells, and their favorite song that they sing at circle time, Peanut Butter and Jelly or as Hunter calls it Peanut Butter a Shelly. It was so cute!! So here are a few pics from that.

Hunter and his teacher, we LOVE her. She is so sweet!!

Hunter wanted Ella to sit with him at the "big kid" table. Even surrounded by all of his friends he is still so loving. He is such a good boy and Ella is so lucky to have such a wonderful big brother!!!

Happy New Year!!!!

Here are pictures of my children taken at 1:15AM. They took super long naps yesterday and stayed up the whole night.

15 month checkup

Ella had her 15 month "well baby" checkup today, never mind the fact that she is 16 months old : ) I mean seriously the kid is at the doctors enough does she really need a checkup? (We were in there last Friday because her breathing still sounded rough every once in a while and obviously I didn't want it to get as bad as it had on Wednesday, and the doctor prescribed us a nebulizer and breathing treatments, and since then she has been doing really good.) Because I have been so far behind on her shots I figured I'd take her in! What did her checkup reveal???? Besides the fact that she is amazing : ) (her doctor even said so) not much. She weighed in at 24lbs 11ozs (so glad to see she has slowed down on the gain) and she is 30 inches tall, and her head is 18 1/4 inches! For the first time in her life her measurements are all in the same percentile (on the down syndrome growth chart ) ~ 95% + Yay, I'm so glad her height has caught up with her weight. Other than that, her ears look wonderful, the Dr said she could see the tubes and they were beautiful, her lungs still sound good ( I was worried that this crud she has would turn into pneumonia like it did last year) and she even said that she thought her muscle tone had improved (after messing with her hips.) Things have been a little hectic around here, we have been packing up our house, hoping any day to get word on the early out of the Air Force. Knowing them we will probably find out the day before we are supposed to leave, but what can you do??? Better run, I hear Miss Thing waking up from her nap!!! Take care. P.S. - To James-Liz-Lindsey that left a comment on my blog, the song Amazing is song by Janelle, the album is Livin for Something. I had never heard it but when putting a song to my photo montage I found it on the onetruemedia.com website. I LOVE that song, I found the album for sale on Amazon.com if you are interested (you can also download the song from there for .99 cents)

Scariest Day Ever.

This has not been a good day. Of course it really started late last night when Ella spiked a fever. Well at 5am I heard her coughing and being restless so I went in and got her up. She had a fever and cough so I called the oh so lovely nurses line (for the base after hours,) of course the base was not open today so I had to take her to a walk in clinic. The doctor asked if anyone at home was sick so I told him that Hunter has bronchitis and he looked at her said she has bronchitis and an ear infection (which thrilled me cause she just had tubes put in 2 weeks ago) gave me a prescription for antibiotics and sent me on my way. So, around 5ish this afternoon my grandad was holding Ella and told me to come and take her temp cause she was getting hot. So, I went over and took her temp and noticed that she was kind of gasping for air, I lifted her shirt and saw that she was struggling a bit. So, I called the clinic and of course the Dr she saw was already gone, so I had to call the nurses line. I told the nurse what was going on and she said to call 911. I didn't really think that was necessary, I told her that she was sitting up fine, I just needed authorization to take her to the ER. She said "I'm an RN and have seen children up and playing one minute and down the next." I said, can't I just take her right now. She said "No, something could happen in the car." Okay. I'll call 911. As soon as I called Ella started going down hill quick. She started really struggling, and then started panicking which made her breathing even worse. She was gasping so loud, it was SO scary, I was just sitting on the floor holding her crying my eyes out and singing to her trying to calm her down. She turned purple when she would cough, it was bad. Luckily the fireman got her very quick and put some oxygen on her, her O2 stat was 80% which is not so good. The ambulance showed up a couple minutes later and off to the ER we went. She got a breathing treatment in the ambulance, then another one with a different drug in the ER. She was still breathing hard but her stats were up. Finally they gave her a liquid steroid and her breathing calmed way down!! So, the final diagnosis is Croup. Really? Is it supposed to be that traumatic and come on that fast??? Anyhow, she still struggles a little bit here and there, NOTHING like earlier. Oh and the ER doc looked in her ears and said that they are NOT infected. Hmmm.... can I ever trust a doctor??? Anyhow, my grandparents are going to stay an extra day, which is great. I am not going to get any sleep tonight, I'm going to sit up with Ella so they can watch the kiddos tomorrow while I take a nap : ) It's strange to say this but, I was definetly more scared today than I was when she choked on her vomit when she was 3 weeks old and stopped breathing. Of course I was scared then but, I don't know, maybe I am just SO much more attached and in love with her, I know thats weird. When she was 3 weeks old I was still in such a fog, and really all I could think was "wow is this how it's going to be?" Obviously I've come a long way since then and just cannot fathom my life without her in it.

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas to all!!! Hope everyone had a great day! We sure did! Our living room looks like Toys-R-Us! The kids had fun, though Hunter has been sick (we spent 4 hours at the clinic on Sunday, he has bronchitis) and as we speak Ella has a 102+ fever. Fun fun fun. How many times in one day can you say "get a tissue" and "cover your mouth"?? Poor babies. They had fun though. Here are some pics of the day. I know there isn't much of Hunter but it was hard to find many pictures where he didn't have snot running out of his nose : )



Ella's new doll buggy. She does not like her babies to ride in it! She threw them both out!!












Sit to Stand V-tech














Head lamp and walkie talkie!!















Pretty picture of an Alaskan native girl (which is what Ella's room is decorated with)













Hunter's new scooby-doo underwear on his head. A sad tradition for our family, my sister and I had to pose every year with our new underwear on our head, so of course I decided to torture him : )












Ella's new rocking catepillar











New Sally car.


And here is my big girl walking across the living room pushing her doll buggy. She is simply amazing to me!!!