Growing up..oh, and sleep update

Megan is growing up so much! Let's see the newest things she's up to:

• She weighs 26.5lbs (12.2 kgs--she weighed 6.2 when we got referral!) and is 32 inches tall.
  
• She's interested in letters, colors and symbols on our shirts.
• She loves to help unload the dishwasher.
• She's gotten so tall she can reach up to the counter and pull things off. The bathroom counter is especially difficult to keep things out of her reach!
  
• She loves to say (and play) "where is?" (as in...where is dolly, who is hiding behind my back?). She plays it with everything...including food at the table.
  
• She's now eating with silverware, from plates and bowls and hasn't been throwing the plates, bowls or silverware on the floor
  
• She's drinking from a cup (kind of), but still won't drink from a straw, but loves to chew on them!
• She's talking more...I mean, babbling more. Her favorites right now are "bah-bah-bah" followed closely by "whoa-whoa-whoa" and "es-yah" (don't know).
  
• She's mimicking us a lot, which is fun--in a good way.
• She's loves to stomp her feet and then expects you to do it too.
• She loves to play with her scooter--which means she loves to push it around. When she wants it to turn, she's picks it up and slams it down moving it to the right and left until she gets it going into the direction she wants it to go in. It really is funny!
• You never know where you might find her rocking horse in the house. She pushes it all over...it's been known to be my bedroom closet, the bathroom, the kitchen, her bedroom or the office. It's always a surprise!
• She's really gotten into coloring, drawing and writing. Whenever we color, she digs in the color box until she finds a red color...and refuses to try any other one. She can draw and flip through her color book (and scribble on random pages) for literally 45 minutes. It's actually kind of nice!
  

I know there are so many more things she is doing now, I just can't think of them.

Sleep update
We met with the sleep specialist yesterday. He asked a lot of questions...I likely did not answer them in a very organized fashion. Thank goodness I had my wits about me and took some things for Megan to do...not nearly enough, though. Seriously...we were at a CHILDREN's hospital...meeting with a PEDIATRIC doctor...and there was NOT ONE indication in the room that children were welcome there. I had brought a few of Megan's favorite small toys, but since we were in there an hour, she got bored very quickly. She only had an hour nap (never good) and she could have slept much longer, but the day just did not go like it was "supposed" to. Oh well, she survived.

So, what did he say? Well, he wants us to start by not rocking her to sleep. We can still rock her to drowsy, but not to sleep. He does NOT want us to withhold comfort to her (aka cry it out) and he has no problem with us being in the room while she goes to sleep (if she needs it), just not rocking. He commented that like so many adults who need the radio on, the tv on or some other 'thing' to help them fall asleep, he believes Megan needs rocking. So, starting Friday night (oh joy!) we are going to begin the transition. I fully expect a couple of really long bedtimes...but the nights should be fine. Most nights lately, we have not needed to rock her during the night. Well, I haven't. DH & I are spliting the nights and he tends to rock more often than I do...I usually try to shush for at least 15 minutes before resorting to rocking. Usually, that works, but not always.

I am not sure how I feel about the direction we are going here. I've been saying for the last several weeks that I felt like Megan was wanting a change in bedtime...but I wasn't sure what that was...so we'll see how it works. Will I love being able to rock for 10 or 15 minutes, then put her in her bed to go to sleep?! Um, YEAH! And I love I don't have to give up the rocking part. The other part of this is that we have another appointment May 6th with him to see how it has worked and if she is still waking up for hours at night. He has also tentative scheduled a sleep study for that night in the event we need it. So, I feel like we haven't been given the "one solution" and sent on our way. That's encouraging. He did say she has a slight obstruction to her airway, but he's not ready to schedule surgery. It could be from her being congested, so hopefully in a month when we go back, that will be cleared up. I still believe she could have sleep apnea, but we'll see how this transition goes...and what happens next month.

As for me...I feel stress just thinking about what all needs to be done in the next month before we got back to SD and this just adds one more thing. Of course, if it means I'll get more sleep, I'm all for that!