Thursday, April 30, 2009

A Little of This, A Little of That


Not too much to report on, this has been a bit of a low key week. I think it is because I am still batteling this allergy thing, it acts like a sucky cough and I am congested and can't breath half the time, but it's not Ashma and its not a cold, it is just compacted sinus from the weather changes, so there isn't much I can do. Today my glads were swollen and hurt, I can't sleep because when I lay down I have a coughing fit which wakes Holly and is well pretty uncomfortable, so transitioning from awake to asleep and vice versa is a killer. Whine whine whine.... blah I know....

My little bubble butt has been a pain when it comes too sleeping too. Isn't she cute sticking her bum in the air like that its her favorite way to sleep, well and then some of the time she has her blanket over her head too. She likes to wedge her self into the corner pressing up against the crib. But she has been fighting her naps and not wanting to go to bed, the other day she had a night terror again, this one was really bad. That day she had only taken two thirty minute naps, but I wasn;t expecting it because it was too naps and she just woke up early from them and wasn;t cranky and fell asleep right away, but minutes after we transfered her into the crib she woke screaming.

This one was so bad she threw up several times. I was standing in her room Joel had just handed her to me in hopes that maybe I could sooth her, but her eyes were still closed so I realized it was a night terror and then up came the vomit and all I could think was the excorsit. It was horrifying and I was covered in it. I had to undress both of us all the while she was screaming and then I changed her and cleaned everything up, and I took her into bed and just held her tight. All the while her eyes were still closed and she was still screaming like a banshee. After a few more minutes she would settle whimper and then scream.. this went on for another several minutes, I don't remember if I gave her another bottle at this point, I may have and then she threw up again, this time wasn't very bad, more like a spit up from a cough, but this time it it seemed to wake her up a little bit. So she started to look around. We took her at this point into the living room and put on baby Einstien. She was still crying quiet a bit and it didn't help much but then we went to lay down again and this time she was gulping and whimpering but eventually settled. the whole ordeal was maybe 30-40 minutes, but Joel said it felt like forever. I think the scary part is that she isn't reachable when she is in that state, Joel tries to wake her and engage her and talk to her, I have read that that makes it worse, and you become part of the nightmare, so i like to be in the dark dark and just hold her tight and be there and she eventually calms, but it is incredibly humbling to be so out of control and unable to do anything to help. Its pretty sad that she has been having these night terrors so young, they say they don;t start until closer to two years old, but she has had a hand full now, and I know thats what it is.

Today she refused to go down for her mornign nap until almost 11:40 and luckily Sally her PT was able to come back at 1:45 instead of 12:30 letting her sleep for an extra hour, but then at 5:00 even though she was yawning I tried to put her down for a nap and she refused and got pretty cranky about it, so we got up to play and then Joel tried to put her to bed around 9:00 because she was tired and had been awake for seven hours, but she was having none of it, so I calmed her down and waited and then we tried again at 10:15, we had Karma and Saneesh over and we planned on watching lost, but she refused to let Joel put her down, as soon as I left the room she would scream, I would sing or hum or hold her and she would be calm, then if I tried to leave she would yell, so finally joel told them to leave and that I had to put her to bed. While I was laying down with her she stayed calm, but it took about 30 minutes for her to fall asleep and it was almost 11:00.


Doesn't she look like such a big girl in these pictures, I am remembering back to when I first made these pillows and she used them to pull up on and now she is big enough to sit on them like a chair, it is amazing. Every time we turn around she is taking something off of the table that we didn;t think she could reach so she is getting taller by the minute. She isn't really using her sippy cup well, but she is getting more practice with it daily, we fill it with juice and she likes to shake it and walk around with it she takes a couple of sips here and there, but she isn;t really drinking a lot. But its a start and I am Happy with the progress.

Sally was thrilled with Holly's walking today. She says she is very controlled and she was impressed with her turning and piviting and even her falling is slow and controlled. She is navigating obsticles like pillows or toys on the floor, and taking mini steps up or down over door stops or on and off the carpet. She is even squating down picking up a toy and then walking while holding onto it. She has the skills to stand on her own rather then pull up but hasn't figured that out yet, so it is one of the things we worked on today with Sally. She showed her a few times how to do it. Our session went pretty well.

On Monday we missed our playdate at Chloe's because Holly refused to sleep in the morning, and went down at 2:30, since the playdate starts at 3:00 and she slept till 5:00 we didn't go. I have een pretty busy all week and since falling alseep hasn't been easy I haven't been napping with Holly when she naps, as a result of that I have been pretty tired myself. I guess the apple doesn;t fall far fromt he tree, with a mommy who has sleeping issues, of course she will too. It is sorta scary the things that you see in your kids that simply can't be learned, and present themselves at such a young age.

Yesterday we went to the Eye Doctor, he was wonderful.. he was a pediatric opthamologist and said that holly's eyes were healthy. There were two conditions that are common for kids with Fragile X that dr. hagerman wanted us to check up on, and she was fine, but he said we should come back in a year for another visit, to do a yearly check-up until about 4. At that age, she should be able to do a regular vision test and if her eyes are still healthy then she gets turned over to the pediatrician for checkups during well visits, until she has issues with the vision tests. Which we of course hope won't happen.

We found ourselves rushing out of the house becasue again she went down for her nap late and I wanted to give her every possible moment of sleep before waking her to transfer into the car, and the ride there was about 30 minutes, afterwards she got very cranky and did not want to be in the car seat so we headed over to Sadie Dey's and I let her play for the rest of the afternoon. She didn't go down for another nap till almost 7:00 and slept till 8:00 so of course she was up till midnight that ngiht too... man I should stop whining about sleep issues, can you see this is a theme.. I should call this the gripe and moan post.

I have just had a lot to do, I had a WASC conference call this week, today in fact, which went swimmingly, but I had to rush to review and analyze three reports over the weekend, and I was the lead reader so I was in charge of the call, which was a little stressful of course until the call started. But also I am dealing with an issue related to the title company, apparently someone things there is a judgement against my house from the previous owener that the title insurance didn;t catch, of course this is from 2004 when I bough the house, and the original Judgement was 2000. So it is a pain in my butt that I have to dig out my title insurance for my storage files of 5 years ago, and then find the office and go down there and deal with this, because of bad debt that the previous owner had, I mean why doesn;t the lawyer go chase him down and find him rather then relying on me a responcible person to clean up his mess. Well tomorrow we are having a playdate over here, so I will try and remember to take a bunch of pictures and have a happy post posted soon!

Life is good, I am just in a whiney mood. We are both feeling worn out, but we are hanging in there.


Wednesday, April 29, 2009

Tuesday, April 28, 2009

I Heart Faces - Reflections



I Heart Faces is a site where you can share photos and submit them into weekly contests, of faces, one for kids and one for adults.

So this is my entrance into Week 16 Theme: Reflection - Kids


Monday, April 27, 2009

Holly's First Party


On Sunday we headed over to Aleutia, Mellisa and Cole's house for Cole's first Birthday party. Other then her own party, this was Holly's first party and she had a blast.
We were so excited to see one of our friend's from swim class, Bodie. I met he and his mom Laura for the first time when he was around 12 weeks and Holly was about 14 weeks old. We went to our first swim class together. It ends up that his mom nanny's for Cole twice a week - What a small world.Speaking of a small world, in case I haven't posted the story before, Holly and I met Aleutia and Cole at swim class also, one day when Joel's mom Jackie was visiting. Aleutia came up to us and said she looked familiar, and Jackie said, oh no, I'm not from around here, then Aleutia asked if she was Alan Davis's mom, (Joel's Brother) and she said, YES. It turns out Aleutia was good friends with Joel's best friend from High School, and she knew Joel as well. She was in Alan's grade though, so knew him better.
So now that we have finished with the introductions, lets get back to the party! Here is Cole all ready to eat his Birthday Cupcake. I was able to get two video's during the party. The first one is of everyone singing Happy Birthday to Cole:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f02xreNzlQk

The Second One is Cole making a face plant into his cupcake, and a snippet of Holly playing just at his feet.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BdfzRtsYAi8



Also in attendance was Julia, she is about 11 months old. We met her a few months ago at a picnic with Aleutia and Cole near there house. She is quiet a cutie, very observant and curious.

Cole does this really cool thing where he gets excited and puts his arms up in the air, like a high five and he has everyone trained. As soon as he does it everyone cheers for him and that gets him even more excited.

In this basket there is a set of really cool blocks. They are colored and shaped just like the regular wooden blocks but they are made of these really light weight foam. Holly really likes chewing on them and kept herself entertained doing so while Cole enjoyed his cake.
After cake it was time to open presents. Holly made sure she was in the middle of the action, and what Party Girl wouldn't the paper is of course the funnest part!
Cole got a lot of cute new cloths, some hats and an awesome pair of Vans! How cute is that!

There was a neat set of wooden alphabet blocks, and a lot of fun bath toys, one was a textured book for the bath that was also a puzzle. But my favorite which I think I want to try and find for Holly was a bath city. It was bath blocks that float on a "street" and then you can build the buildings on top. it was pretty cool.
Holly loved playing with this rain stick, they have one at Sadie Dey's Cafe, and it makes very soothing white noise and well the colors are pretty too.
Cole looks pretty awesome in his new hat, and he is having a bit of fun himself with all that stripey paper.
Here is my little Ham posing for a picture, she loves sticking her tongue out and being the center of attention, even when she is not, but of course in her mommy's eye she always is.
I love this stacker. They had one somewhere, in a Doctor's office I think and it is a lot of fun. There are the donut shamed blocks and then a set of octagon ones and finally there are the square ones, they fit together like opposite steps.
Once all of the presents were done, Holly jumped right in to play with Cole and his new toys. Well play is the operative word, perhaps she was trying to steal away his new toys.
Eventually they both lost interest and Holly headed over the the maraca's. These are a leap frog toy and when you shake them they sing in both English or Spanish, I think it does numbers and letters.
It was cool that Cole got these as they totally match the Leap Frog guitar that we got for him. Holly picked it out. When you strum it is sings and does Colors and Animals I think. It has a page that you can turn and switches from one thing to another.
Here is Cole doing his little arm pump, I think he really liked all of his loot!
After playing with all of his new toys Cole went down for a nap and Holly had free rain for a bit. She made the round checking out all the new stuff and entertaining the grown ups.
This was a cool motorcycle, that my little rock star went hot rodding on. Her tippy toes couldn't quite touch the ground so she had daddy help her zoom around town.
Here my little show off is standing. I had to get a photo of her cute outfit! It of course was themed to match her gift. I love the little leggings.
This is an awesome toy that I hear came from Cole's Grandparent's in Florida. When he was visiting over Christmas he got it. His mom's put it together, and then realized they had to somehow get it home. I totally could sympathize with getting home Holly's toys from Christmas.. in Fact Oma had to ship them to me.
But this was also a neat toy that I tried to get off of Craigslist a few weeks back, it was the one that Chloe's mom beat me too. Now Holly has two friends with it, so she doesn't need it, plus it is a lot bigger in person then I imagined. She did enjoy putting the balls in and watching them twist down the spiral and shaking the built in rattles.
After her long day she began to wind down and was ready for a nap. Just in time Cole woke up and came to play for a bit before we headed out. After leaving we drove around Alameda for a little while heading down to the coast and driving along the beach, giving Holly a chance to fall asleep in the car. Then we got some crazy bread and pizza and headed home. All in all we had a great day.

Sunday, April 26, 2009

Wobbler!


Holly has graduated into the world of the Wobbler and nothing motivates her more then coming to mommy. Here is a short snippet of what a good walker she has become in just a few short weeks!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZqO7R2AidOM

Saturday, April 25, 2009

Fairyland

Last week Holly and I went to Fairyland in Oakland. We had driven by before about a hundred times but never been before. We were in for a surprise it was huge and much more then I expected, it was like a mini Disney for fairy tales and everything a 3 year old could desire right on Lake Merritt.

There were a few displays that had live animals which was pretty cool. All we had to do in order to get in for free was attend a 15 minute workshop about saving money for your child's college education.

The park was laid out with various little displays for all kinds of different fairy tales, many I haven;t even heard of before. With a magic key the kiddies could turn a lock and hear the fairy tale told to them. Some of the areas were gated off but others you could explore and go inside or play with.

There were lots of water and sand and tunnels and huge slides for kids to climb and explore. The thing is, Holly was still too small to enjoy most of this. For the most part she stayed in her stroller and we walked around exploring. There were a lot of trees and it was very shady, so it didn't get too hot.

There was an organic veggie garden growing near miss Muffet and the greens are used in the cafe which was pretty cool.

Everything was miniature sized with little houses and buildings.

There were about 20 mom's from my group in attendance, many I had not met before. a few with older kids three and four and they had a blast and were off and running. Here is a picture of Holly meeting Benny who is almost two, he is a sweetie and the son of the group organizer. She also has a 4 month old Mady. We hung out chatting for a while.

I wandered around looking at the various displays, and Holly was pretty content. She was late in taking her nap and in fact hadn't slept yet so she was pretty subdued.

There were cool boats and bridges to climb on. Another mom I hung out with was Dora and she had her daughter Skylar who was just over 2 years old. Skylar did play on a few of the items but the thing is, is that many of them had the no adults allowed sign, and Skylar was too little to want to go without Mommy even though she was big enough to actually climb or do the activity, so that was why I think 3 is about the perfect age.

We did ride on the train / trolley with Teresa, Benny and Maddy, but since it was only 4 per car and Mady counted we didn't get to sit together. Holly enjoyed this though because she got to get out of the stroller and climb around on the seat and hang out the window.

This is a little beach cabana with a water structure and sand area.

I thought this was a pretty cool tree house. It was very diverse with a hint of Asian influence in areas, a circus area, a tea party area. The tall tower leads to a steep slide.

This is the deck of cards from Alice in Wonderland, it was a maze that the little ones could get lost in. there was even a steep rabbit hole that they could climb down into and to to wonderland, we didn't go down though and decided to save that for another time.

This was a cool metallic tree that i just had to capture as it was so my style.

I think this one is little bo peep.


Holly was having a great time looking at all the colorful houses and the kids running around having a great time.

This was a pirate ship that was beached in the sand the little ones would dig int he sand and the older ones could climb the ropes to get to the look out high above, just the kind of thing I fear holly will be running and climbing in only a few months.

Towards the end I decided to let her out and she had fun hanging out with snow white, didn't you know that Holly was the missing 8th dwarf? She is smiley!

These were pretty cool dancing girls that Holly came up to and wanted to dance with.

There was a little church filled with stained glass windows, and a nice floor which was a good surface for Holly to crawl on, so i let her explore there too.

We stayed for about 2 hours and then she started getting sleepy. We went on a Friday morning and she had swimming in the afternoon so we headed out so that she still had time to take a nap. In theme with the metallic plants that I love so much (didn't you know I want to take a welding class) this was a picture of some extra large dandy lions outside. Its hard to see, but it is as if the giant just blew one of them and the seeds are flying in the wind.