happy halloween

akaiya didn't get to go trick or treating this year, but she did get to wear her costume with her friends at school. kaiya dressed up as an elf sitting on a mushroom. she seemed to like it ;)

taking a different path

been a long time since i've updated. kaiya has been going back and forth with a cold. she coughed up a big chunk of mucous the other day and i haven't heard her cough since so hopefully she's done with it. we had to go to the doc to get her ears cleaned and we got an order for an eeg at the same time. kaiya has been doing something new that has me worried she is starting to have seizures. when i wake her up in the morning she looks like she startles - her arms fly up and her legs shoot out. sometimes it lasts less than a second, and one time it lasted about 10 seconds. she doesn't stop breathing, she doesn't change color, she still seems to respond to stimuli (if i go to wipe her face she flinches just like usual) so i don't know if it's a seizure or if she's doing something else...although i don't know what else it could be. and it only happens when i've woken her up. if she wakes up on her own i don't see it...very odd.

other than that weird stuff she has been doing well. she's gaining weight, getting taller, charming the heck out of her teachers. i'm trying to teach her how to say mom. so far she just says "mmmmmmm", but at least it's a start. very occasionally she slips and says something that sounds like mom, and then we celebrate....but mostly it's just mmmmmmmmm in varying lengths and volume.

we are preparing for halloween. kaiya usually has pretty crazy costumes, but we don't have anywhere to go this year so she's taking it easy and being an elf - her wheelchair will be transformed into a mushroom so she can be an elf sitting on a mushroom.

please send out some warm thoughts that this weird behavior is either not seizures...or something easily managed.

frogs

i borrowed this from an email i received today. thought it was very appropriate.

Two frogs fell into a deep cream bowl,
One was an optimistic soul;
But the other took the gloomy view,
"I shall drown," he cried, "and so will you".
So with a last despairing cry,
He closed his eyes and said, "Good-bye".

But the other frog, with a merry grin
Said, "I can't get out, but I won't give in!
I'll swim around til my strength is spent.
For having tried, I'll die content".

Bravely he swam until it would seem
His struggles began to churn the cream.
On top of the butter at last he stopped
And out of the bowl he merrily hopped.

What is the moral? It's easily found.
If you can't get out - keep swimming around.

cough cough, sneeze sneeze

akaiya hasn't been to school since tuesday. she started out with some congestion and it just kept getting worse. a little cough started on thursday, but it wasn't a productive cough. by friday her breathing really wasn't sounding good, so i called the doc for an appointment. we went today (saturday) and of course, she started sounding better.... sometimes i think kaiya misses her pediatrician and does what she can to get a visit. well....maybe not ;) so we visit the doc and she's coughing and sounding all horrible but the doc says her lungs sound good. she checks kaiya's ears and sees some yellowish fluid in one of them, but tells me just to watch her for fevers. apparently it's not infected yet - but i guess it could get there. so we're going to use an over the counter wax remover, and go back in 2 weeks for a cleaning. what is different about this lil sickness is that kaiya is still eating, so we're happy about that! she isn't really drinking at all tho, so we'll see how well mama can do with getting alternative sources of hydration into kaiya...the monster has been pretty sleepy, but still happy. she coughs and then laughs about it. crazy kid. as i type this i am watching her lay on the mat. she's starting to rub her ears. uh-oh...

what a difference a snack makes

one of our constant battles is keeping weight on akaiya. she is a teeny tiny lil monster - and it's next to impossible to get/keep weight on her. or so we thought. akaiya got up to 30 pounds and then got sick a couple of months ago and went back down to 26. well, we've been struggling trying to get weight back on her. she seemed to hit a plateau at 28 pounds. i still don't see how it takes months to put on a pound, but 1 day to lose a couple...wish it were like that for me!

anyways...

several of akaiya's classmates need to have snack in the afternoon in addition to the morning snack so her teacher asked if i minded if kaiya had an afternoon snack. i said, "sure if you can get her to eat it." and i was sure that there was no way my kiddo was going to eat another snack... and i was wrong.

this past week several family members have commented on akaiya's weight. and i always drag my feet on getting out the scale because it never tells me what i want to hear... well, tonight we had a pleasant surprise. akaiya weighed in at a whopping 31 pounds, and it may actually be more b/c the scale we use generally is off about 2 pounds compared to the doctor's office scale. the last time she was weighed was about a month ago, and she was 28 lbs, so this is a pretty big jump for her.

i'm really happy that she's finally putting on some weight, but there definitely is part of me that worries about her getting really big. right now i can still carry her around and not hurt myself too badly. mama is definitely going to have to start getting into shape!

little signs

i have been really busy lately with my new job and poor kaiya has been noticing that mommy is not devoting all of her time and attention to her. this weekend i made sure that i spent a ton of time showing my little princess how much i love her. well, apparently she has been working on some new tricks - or these are just old tricks that i haven't noticed b/c i've been so preoccupied.

the first i noticed while i was feeding her. i have major guilt over meal times because i know that kaiya should be concentrating on her food, and not playing with toys while she eats. but she eats better when there are toys to play with. and she needs to be fattened up a bit, so sorry speech therapists, she's going to play while she eats. so anyway, i was feeding her and thinking the guilty thoughts when i decided to see how "into" eating she was. the toy was right in front of her and she was playing away. i just put some food on her spoon and held it out, within reach of her mouth, but not prodding her mouth with it. well, she turned her little head, opened her mouth, and then realized i wasn't moving the spoon. so she leaned forward and took the bite herself. it made the meal a bit longer than we're used to...but i kept at it just to see if she would keep doing it. so apparently the toys aren't totally distracting her from eating, she still wants the food and she proved it right???

and then we have our "getting ready" ritual. she usually helps me put her arms and legs through, but i was never sure if she was doing that on purpose or if i was just imagining it. well today she proved to me that she was doing it on purpose. i was about to put her shirt on her and the phone rang. i was momentarily distracted b/c i wanted to listen to the machine to see if i should pick up the phone. kaiya apparently wanted that shirt on b/c she ducked her head down, leaned forward, and pushed up through the hole. i was kind of shocked so we got tangled for a bit...but then i was very impressed!

they are little things to most people - but to me these are huge signs that she is learning. and i love it!

birthday pix

I didn't take many, but here are some pix from akaiya's birthday party.