Last Year on this day...

Megan was handed over to us! March 31st...at around 10:20am.

2008

2009

Wow how things change! (things other than my hair! haha)

We're back.

A few photos from our trip. It was fast and exhausting, but good. We didn't get much sleep, but had a great time with family. It was the first time all of my cousins (minus 1) were together in I don't know how many years.

Here's a few photos. Maybe more later...we took lots!

A tired Megan & Daddy at Nana's

Brooklyn, Ashley, Megan and Brady
(we did NOT purposefully coordinate the outfit colors! We're good!)

And we wonder why Megan doesn't like group photos! lol.

It's been a Year

Last year on March 25th we were getting on the plane to go to China! Wow, have things changed in the last year. You can see our first post from China here.

The clothes I'm buying Megan now days (okay, well, shirts) are toddler size. I thought it would be forever before we started buying that size, since she started out so small (size 3-6 mo). She's just changed and grown up so much. Its hard to believe that she's come so far in such a short period of time.

Just a few more days and Megan will have been with us a year. Wow has time flown!

Farewell, Grandma

This picture was taken in August when we last saw Grandma. When Megan & I were back in SD for Christmas, I got a stomach virus the day we were going to go see her and we left just a day later. So, we didn't get to see her.

Grandma passed away Monday night. She celebrated her 91st birthday earlier this month. We are leaving today for the funeral which will be on Saturday. Uncle Collin is driving to our house today, then we're all leaving together around 5pm. Pray Megan is able to fall asleep in the car and sleep well tonight since we're driving all night.

Such a big girl!

Such a big girl...

HEY, it went down my shirt!

A cute outfit from this weekend...
it's a dress, but not quite warm enough for dresses yet.
I don't know why she doesn't look happy...probably tired

Pics

A few photos from this week:

My sick baby girl

Okay, not her most flattering pose, but look at her hair!
YES! Those are pigtails~!

Paci cause we're sick.

Sickness Update

Megan is feeling better...but still has periods of clingy-ness. I am taking advantage of her wanting to snuggle, believe me. When she does run a fever, it's low. Her nose is running like crazy and she is coughing quite a bit. She went to sleep last night about 6:15pm, but then woke herself up coughing several times between then and 7:30pm. The beginning of the night wasn't too bad, apparently, but she was awake from 1230-220am. ugh. But, then she slept until almost 530. I think she fell asleep only because I told her it was still night time and she could either sleep with mommy or in her bed. When I asked where she wanted to sleep, in her bed? She shook her head "no", then I asked if she wanted to sleep with mommy and she rocked her fist "yes" (the ASL sign for yes). So, we started rocking (again) and she fell asleep almost immediately. We both slept in the rocking chair for about an hour, then she woke up and pointed to her bed. Surprisingly, I was cognizant enough to put her in her bed right then..she rolled over and conked right out. She fussed again at 430, I patted her back and she went back out again and woke up around 530.

She's loved having her paci almost all day (she better enjoy it while she can...cause it won't be that way when she's well!).

Oh boy

After a very long day....after a very long night...a couple of conversations with the pediatrician, it was decided Megan likely has the flu. So then we had the choice of waiting until morning and going into her office or going to an acute care center. The choice was given to us at 4pm today...we opted to go with the acute care center. Since they close at 5pm, we literally flew up to the closest one and didn't leave there until after 6pm. If it hadn't been for the pediatrician suggesting the flu before we went in there, we would have only gotten a stronger med for a potential ear infection. When I asked the doc if she thought she had the flu since the pediatrician had suggested it, she said she didn't think so, but we could run the tests to be sure.

Well, she does have the flu. Since we left the clinic after most pharmacies were closed, we had to drive an extra 15 minutes (away from home) to find the closest 24 hr pharmacy. They were SO BUSY that it took 45 minutes to pick it up. Megan was such a trooper...it was after 730pm before we got home. She didn't fall asleep in the car and needed to have supper, medicine and formula (which she wouldn't drink) before she did. She ate a little, drank nothing--unfortunately--and fell asleep immediately. Hopefully she doesn't cough herself awake all night long. We all need a good night's rest.

photos & video

A few photos from this week...

My little helper...and beginning to not feel well

Here's short clip of the princess dancing. She even was dancing at school this week during music time! Speaking of school, she's been doing really well...loves to see her teacher...yells "HI" as soon as she sees her and doesn't cry when I leave. I've been picking her up between 11am-11:45am depending on what time she wakes up that morning and how tired she is. We are still getting up in the 4 o'clock hour--we had hoped that the time change would help her sleep until 5am, but that hasn't helped.

Sick baby girl

We made it through the week of my class. Thank goodness Megan had pretty good nights most of the week. Both parents got adequate sleep, not enough by any stretch of the imagination, but enough to function. Friday night was "really good" DH said (he took all night since I had class all day on Saturday)--she only woke up 3 times. I laughed and said, yes, for US that is a good night, but that most parents complain their child wakes up that many times during the night! How sad is that???

When I got home from class (around 3pm), Megan had a serious fever. DH noticed she was really clingy and hot, but didn't realize she had a fever. I'm guessing (based on his descriptions) that it started around lunchtime...and only got worse after nap. When I took her temp--with an ear thermometer, which aren't always very accurate--it was between 101.7 and 102.1. Funny thing, while she was clingy and hot, she really was in good spirits. Consequently, last night wasn't so good, even with regular ibuprofen and tynelol. I think she has a sore throat based on the face she sometimes makes when she swallows. And she's been drinking her juice flavored water really cold. She's drank quite a bit this morning (yeah! since she's typically not very good at drinking). Her voice is also really froggy/horse and she has a "rough" cough. I'm thinking it's got to be a virus because she's just finished being on meds for almost 2 weeks (she was only supposed to be on for 10 days--there was lots of medicine--and I lost track of how long she'd been on it!)

Hopefully she's feeling better soon! (pics later)

Sleep

Could this be Megan's problem? Sleep Apnea? I think it might be. The description pretty much describes what a typical night looks like for us: restless sleep, frequent wake ups, stops breathing for periods of time longer than 10 seconds, overtired child which causes frustration, irritability and behavior problems (at our house it's hitting, which she does when she's tired--oh, wait, that's ALL the time!). I really noticed the breathing this morning.

She was awake at 10:30, 12:50, 1:50, 2:50 (we rocked that time...I fell asleep in the rocker), 4:10 then "for the day" at 4:45 despite still being tired and not hardly able to keep her eyes open. She didn't go to sleep until after 8pm either. That's less than 9 hours last night. ugh.

Treatment for sleep apnea in toddlers is a CPAP machine (if the problem is blockage), if the problem is the brain failing to send the breathing signal, CPAP machine doesn't work so I'm not sure what the treatment is for that.

Counting down the weeks until we see the sleep specialist. Only 5 weeks!

Sheer Silliness

Megan is VERY into her tongue lately. She loves to stick it out (not quite this much, though) and she's even gotten into touching it. Tonight (oops, she's in her pjs again!) she was sitting with me in the chair and being silly with her tongue. I asked her to stick it out so I could take a picture....this is one of the silly ones I got!


And just to prove I don't always just take her pictures when she's in her pjs...here she is on Friday. Both the shirt (former dress) and pants were from last year . I was hoping the pants would be more like capris...but alas, they are more like ankle length (aka high waters if you ask me!) or long capris. But, believe it or not, they fit perfectly around the waist--they are size 9mo.

Megan's Sleep...

This morning I've been doing some internet "research" to determine what's out there that describes Megan's sleep pattern. I found this question that pretty much describes what we deal with regularly. Dr. Greene's response is to contact a sleep specialist to determine what the underlying reasons are for their waking up at night. Done that.

I've considered melatonin. I was seriously considering it this morning at 3am when she was still awake after being awake for an hour (25 minutes in her bed, 35 min in the rocker), then woke up when I laid her in her crib (she laid there for 5 minutes rolling around, until I finally just picked her back up and rocked her again). But, in the research I've done this morning, I'm not sure melatonin would work. She doesn't really have a problem falling asleep, it's staying asleep that's the problem. Besides, most of what I've found does not recommend melatonin for kids--there has been very little research on the potential long term effects. There have been a few studies done on kids with brain issues as they do not produce adequate amounts of melatonin. So, I'm not sure.

I just have to wonder if she is processing subconsciously. It's been a year since referral...it's almost been a year since Megan was placed with us. So, could there be some processing going on in her little mind? I don't know, but I do wonder.

as promised...

Okay, so the plan with this photo was to include one of her wearing this as a dress (as it's supposed to be) last year. Do you think I could find one? Heck, no. At any rate, this is a dress she wore last year, which will be a shirt this year. Boy has she grown.

I did notice that I have taken A LOT of photos of her in her pjs. Guess we need to change that!

But, in keeping with the tradition...here is Uncle Collin with Meggie on his visit this weekend.

Various Updates...

Sleep update: DH & I have been splitting the nights. He takes until midnight, I take from then on. Man do I feel like a different person even if I only get 3 consecutive hours of sleep then hit or miss from midnight on. DH is having a much harder time functioning on much less sleep than usual. It just stinks in that I NEVER see DH. Seriously. He's been working late and getting home right about supper time. I put dishes away while he gets Megan ready for bed, then puts her down around 6-610pm. That's earlier than usual, but it seems like no matter what time she goes down, she's up at 4, so she might as well go down earlier. Besides, she is tired anyways. She has absolutely refused morning naps...no matter what. She can literally be dead tired, but she will NOT go down.

I emailed a friend who is a pharmacist to ask if there were any sleep meds approved for kids. She said no, so I'm not sure what the specialist is going to tell us. I guess problem not give us a solution that will work immediately. Last night I'm quite sure she was having bad dreams--the point that she almost had her eyes open. And she did some sort of running/walking in the circle in her bed last night DH said. He said it was actually kind of funny. I don't know what that was about, but she went back to sleep almost immediately, so she likely wasn't even awake. That was right before I took over, and then she woke up when I took over. I had to rock her--she was awake for about 45 minutes. ***I should clarify, here. She was awake about 25 minutes in her bed rolling around trying to fall back to sleep. In fact, her breathing sounded like she was asleep, but her eyes were wide open. It was only then that I decided to go ahead and rock her. Otherwise, when she wakes up, we always try to wait to see what she's going to do. Sometimes we just shush her, she's rolls over and goes back to sleep. Sometimes she just goes back to sleep without us doing anything. It just depends.

She has sinus infection which has impacted her ability to breath and thus sleep. Hopefully, once she over this she'll be sleeping better and I can take the nights by myself. Although next week, I'm teaching a mini term. We have class the next 2 Saturdays from 8am-5pm and every night next week from 5pm-10pm. I'm not sure how the overnights are going to work since we both need our sleep. There's no way that I can last from midnight to 10pm. While I love teaching, I'm an introvert and it is SO EXHAUSTING. Seriously wipes me out. This is the first mini I've taught since we brought Megan home, so it should be interesting how it all works out.

Dissertation update: I have a plan, I have guidance, I have data. So, now it's simply finding time to research and write. Oh, and I am applying for a $3000 grant. Hopefully, I'll get it which can help with costs for this stupid thing. I still need to email my chairperson to tell him what's going on. Don't know where I'd be without my boss (is she still my boss if I'm on hiatus?). Anyways. She's awesome.

Photos later.