"Underpants!"

Tonight Krys was reading a Fancy Nancy book to Norah. At one point Nancy didn't want to go on the jungle gym because she was wearing a fancy nightgown and if she hung upside down, everyone would see her underpants. Norah totally cracked up when Krys said "underpants." She laughed pretty much uncontrollably, and at one point said, in between chuckles, "I can't stop laughing!" She kept wanting Krys to read the passage again so she could laugh again. She kept saying "Underpants!" and giggling. She is, of course, adorable when she laughs. She finally calmed down, but it's good to know that something innocuous like underpants can make her so very happy.

Mia: There is no good news!

Yes, we'd like to think there's good news and bad news when it comes to Mia, but recently, it's been nothing but bad news. I wrote recently that her hip got screwed up one night (it's true - here it is!), and we've been dealing with that. This past week was "fall break," so I was at home with both lovely children. This wasn't as awful as you might think, because I scheduled a bunch of appointments for them for this week, so we were zipping around a lot, plus there was the usual stuff - Little Gym, Norah's swim lessons, and Mia's therapy. However, Mia chose this week to get sick. We're still not sure what's wrong with her - she has a cough (which is greatly improved today) but nothing else. Her nose is a teeny bit runny, and she had a mild fever the one time Krys took her temperature, but that was it. Of course, everyone knows what happens when you get a bit of a cold (and the clogged sinuses that go with it) - you lose your appetite. The skeletal Mia really can't afford this, but she decided around Wednesday to stop eating anything, and then late on Thursday, she decided liquids really weren't her thing either. So for two days (Friday and Saturday) she was wildly dehydrated and we kept thinking we'd have to take her to the hospital. This morning she woke up and drank something, so we held off that drastic measure, but she's still barely eating and drinking anything. We think she's healthy enough (cough-wise) to go to school tomorrow - maybe they'll be able to get her to eat. If not, a trip to the hospital to get her pumped up with fluids might be in order.

But that's not all! On Thursday morning we went back to the orthopedic surgeon for a follow-up X-ray. At least her "avulsion fracture" of a "heterotopic bone" is healing. It's still not perfect, but she's able to stand on it (she was standing on it in therapy on Friday and is standing in her gait trainer as I type this), and as it heals, presumably she'll be able to get back into a regular therapy routine. I guess that's sort of good news?

After that, it was off to the dentist for their six-month check-up, and more bad news! After her surgery, we started brushing her teeth less vigorously, because she would twist her hips when we brushed, causing her pain, causing her to cry, causing her to gag. In the past nine months or so she's thrown up more than once as a result of brushing her teeth too vigorously. I wish I were making that up. Of course, that means her teeth aren't as pristine as they should be, especially the permanent molars that are growing in. So they were caked with plaque, and now she needs them "sealed." Nothing more fun than dentistry! I tried brushing her teeth more vigorously, and of course, on Friday night, she puked when I did. Yay, brain injuries!

She has been much better today. She is drinking and eating a tiny bit, as opposed to nothing, and she's been in a better mood. She's obviously strong enough to do work (she's been standing in her gait trainer for about an hour), so I hope we can get back to that with her other therapies. Before the avulsion fracture, she was making some good progress in the physical aspect of her therapy, and that will, presumably, make her a bit more eager to eat and drink. She has an appointment with her gastroenterologist soon, and if she's not making any progress, she's going to have to get a feeding tube installed. Yay, more surgery! Good times!

Oh well. Norah is precocious as ever, and Mia is slowly getting better, so I hope that continues. It's frustrating when she gets sick, because she has absolutely no weight to spare for when she loses her appetite. That's our biggest concern. But we keeping working!

Norah thinks pimpin' ain't easy

Among the vast cache of toys we have in the house, there's a plastic container full of magnetized blocks. Many of them are plastic cylinders with magnets at both ends, while others are balls that attach to the magnets. Norah dug them out of the toy basket this week and started playing with them. Without me even noticing, she made this:

I'm not entirely sure why she made a cane, as no one in her immediate orbit uses one, but there it is. My little girl made her first pimp cane. I'm so proud. All she needs now is a wide-brimmed hat with some plumage and she'll be set!

Norah: Keepin' it real!

Tonight at dinner, Norah said to me, "You're real, Daddy." I'm not sure what she meant, but okay. Krys said, "Yeah, Daddy is keeping it real." Without missing a beat, Norah said, "I'm keeping it real, too."

I often tell Krys that we should have microphones all throughout the house, because then we would catch all these fun things Norah says that later we can't remember. But for now, Norah is keeping it real. That's good to know.

What's wrong with Mia's ear?

Beats me. Check it out:

You can see a small red mark on the top of her ear. I couldn't get any closer without my camera rebelling and refusing to focus, but it looks worse in real life. We're not sure what it is - it looks like she or someone else cut the skin with, say, a fingernail, because the wound is very small and not deep. The edges around it are raised a bit, indicating a scar, but we didn't notice it until Sunday, and her OT, who watched them on Saturday night while the wife and I saw a movie, didn't notice anything. She did notice the way her ear was shaped, though (it's a bit odd, if you can tell), so she was looking at her ear. Perhaps it was just too dark to see - it was night, and we don't have extremely bright lights in the living room. It doesn't seem to be bothering her, and I'm not worried about it, but it looks weird. I wonder what it could be?

Mia's hip saga: Still Not Over!

Yes, we thought we had moved beyond Mia's hip problems. We're foolish mortals, yes we are.

Her hip is still fine. At least there's that. But here's the problem: On Monday, 31 August, Mia went to bed fine. She had been doing well with her rehab, even walking a little bit with her PT, and we were getting her standing a lot more. However, sometime in the night of 31 August-1 September, something happened. We're not exactly sure what. She didn't cry out in pain during the night, or if we did, we didn't hear her. When she woke up in the morning her legs were really stiff, and she wasn't happy. Over the next two days she was extremely tight, to the point even when she was sitting, she would twitch a little and start crying. It was somewhat frustrating. Eventually, she started to calm down when she was sitting, but she still didn't want to straighten her legs out. After a week of this, I took her to her pediatrician just to eliminate the idea that she had an infection. She didn't have any infection, and her pediatrician worked on her hip for a little and she didn't scream in pain. He thought it was just that her muscles were really, really tight and she needed to stretch more. We still didn't know why her muscles would suddenly be so tight, but okay.

We continued to work on her muscles. I called her orthopedic surgeon and spoke to his nurse, who said that if there was something really wrong with her hip, she'd be getting worse and the pain would be more intense at night, but she was sleeping fine. So we kept stretching her. This week, however, her PT was working on her, and after an hour of stretching her, the muscle on the inside of her groin was still extremely tight. Her PT said that if it was just a case of her muscles being tight, stretching would work, but it's not. So I called the orthopedic surgeon back and got her in for an X-ray. Yay, X-rays!

Mia went in on Thursday for the X-ray. I'm still not sure what the deal is, because I have to e-mail the doctor to get his opinion. He told me what he thinks, but I don't want to get it wrong. On her right leg, there's a triangle coming from her femur toward her groin. He said it was a bone, but I don't understand how that wouldn't freak him out and get her into surgery right away. He said he'd have to compare it to her old X-rays, but he didn't think it was that big a deal. He told me we'd just have to "let it heal," and that he wanted her to come back in four weeks. I'm still not sure what's wrong with her. It's nothing major, obviously, because she doesn't need more surgery. He said we should keep stretching her, and whatever she can handle in therapy is fine, but we shouldn't push her too much.

She is getting better, but it's still tough picking her up and moving her around. We are once again putting on her leg braces at night to keep her legs straight, which she seems to appreciate, but she wasn't happy about the foam wedge that was keeping her legs apart. Her adductor muscles are so tight that separating her legs really bothers her, so we figure it's better to work on the adductors by stretching them in therapy rather than putting the wedge on. We hope we can put it on her soon, because it does a good job stretching her adductors. If only she would leave it alone instead of weeping when we put it on her.

So we're still working with her, and we're still in the dark as to what happened to her. Her PT thinks she may have been sleeping in an odd position (we had stopped putting the leg braces on because she didn't seem to need them) and had a seizure or muscle spasm and twisted an odd way. That's really the only thing we can think of, as it definitely happened when she was in bed and therefore not moving too much. We hope that it doesn't happen, again, obviously, whatever it was! But as long as her surgeon isn't too freaked out by it, we're not going to be. We just need to keep her loose and hope whatever is afflicting her heals and she begin rehabilitating in earnest. That would be nice.

Norah had a playdate!

Yes, this past Thursday (10 September), Norah had her first playdate. You might wonder why she's two months past her fourth birthday and hasn't had a playdate yet (well, you might). It's basically because her father has never made one for her, so she didn't know the concept even existed. She always seemed perfectly happy doing her thing, so I never went out of my way to set one up.

Then, last week, while she was at her swimming lesson, one of the boys that has been hanging out with her there for some time asked her if she wanted to have a playdate. So I set it up with his mother, and on Thursday, he came over with his dad. It was quite fun. Norah and Alex played inside for a while with her kitchen and her garage, and then they went in the pool for a while. His dad had to leave a little early for a business phone call, but we're planning on getting together again soon.

Norah cracks me up when it comes to kids her age. I don't know if she's typical or not in this regard. She tends to do her own thing and, if any kid comes over, she'll play with them. She doesn't really seek out kids too much. Mia's speech therapist asked if she hangs out more with girls or boys, as girls her age tend to play with other girls. She asked that because Norah keeps telling us about the two boys at school she plays with. Naturally, one is a "good guy" (her words) and the other often takes her toys. Ah, the classic good boy/bad boy dilemma! And now there's Alex. Where will he fit in???? Norah acts like an only child quite a bit (not surprisingly, I suppose), as she amuses herself very easily. I have seen her go up to kids and start playing with them, but I know it's more likely to be the other way around. Therefore, she doesn't care who she plays with - boy or girl, it's all good to her!

She was very excited about her playdate, and I hope she has fun with any others she might have. She's already stringing the boys along!

Mia turns seven; Dad struggles to catch up with pictures!

Mia turned seven on Sunday, 30 August. I'm a bit amazed that it's been seven years, but not as much as you might think. I mean, people get older, don't they? I'm not one of these people who sit there and think, "I can't believe she's not a baby anymore!" I watched her grow, didn't I? Kids are interesting because when you don't have them, you can't imagine what it's like. Well, I certainly didn't. That's why it's neat watching Mia and Norah grow up. Every day is something new and keen!

We had a party on her birthday, which doesn't often happen, as her birthday is usually closest to Labor Day and we have to have a party the week before in case people leave town. But this year we were able to have it on her birthday, which was neat. A few people said they were going to come but then didn't (what's up with that?), but a bunch of people came, including one of my friends who has three children younger than Mia (one by a month, but still) and another guest who has an 11-year-old and a 5-year-old, so there were enough kids there to keep it fun. Norah went in the pool with some of the other kids, Mia blew out her candles with some help from Norah (who, last year, was scared to death of candles, so that was progress), Mia refused to eat cake, and she got some nice presents. All was well! And here are the pictures to prove it!











And, just for fun, here are some pictures of Norah swimming, instead of just standing around in the pool:


Thanks to everyone who came to the party (that is, if any of you are reading). It's always fun to see people, mainly because we don't see them as often as we'd like (many of them live too far away). Mia had a great time, even if she didn't eat cake!

Mia's new teacher

I realized I hadn't posted in two weeks because I'm a jerk. But here we are again, and I'm writing a bit more about Mia's school and her new teacher!

I mentioned in the post below that Mia's new teacher is, indeed, a new teacher, as in a first-year teacher, which disturbed us a bit. I sent her off to school, however, and hoped for the best. She's been going to school for two weeks now, and everything seems pretty okay. I figured she would eat better once she went back to school, and she has. Her aides write down everything she eats, and just the activity of school seems to have increased her appetite a bit. She has another appointment with the gastroenterologist next week, so we'll see if they need to do anything else for her. She has apparently gained some weight, but I don't quite trust our scale here at the house, so we'll see when they officially weigh her next week. But the eating has been going well.

I went to school last week to speak to the head of the Special Ed. department and say hello to her therapists. I told the Special Ed. Head that we were a bit concerned that Mia's teacher was inexperienced, and she said all the right things to reassure me. The teacher's mentor is on campus, and they're making sure she has all the resources she needs to deal with Mia. It's a bit more difficult to deal with kids who have a traumatic brain injury because they're relatively uncommon, so a special ed. teacher might go years without having one, and this teacher has one right out of the box. But after speaking with the head of Special Ed. and the PT and OT, I felt better. I'm still going to be sticking my nose in her school business, but at least I'm not as concerned about her schooling as I was. I still think it's too easy for Mia to get lost in the shuffle at school because of her immobility, and I want to make sure they don't stick her in a corner and forget about her. That's always my fear.

I'll update her schooling throughout the year, but she does seem to be a lot happier than she was at the end of the summer. I know I am! My mother is visiting for Mia's birthday (which is Sunday, so I'll have more pictures up soon), and she says Mia looks a lot better than she did in May, which is when she last saw her. So that's nice to know. Our goal now: Get her to 40 pounds! That shouldn't be that hard!

Just another thing to worry about

You know, as if we didn't have enough to occupy our minds with regard to our older daughter, now we have something else! School starts tomorrow (Wednesday 12 August), and yesterday we went to a parent-teacher night to meet her new teacher. She's a first-year teacher.

'Nuff said, I think. She's a first-year teacher.

Now, she could be the greatest teacher since Edward James Olmos. I doubt it, though. We're not very happy, but we're willing to give her a chance. I'm just very disappointed by the Mesa School District in general. First they end the program Mia was in the last two years because of budget cuts, then they don't tell us that there's a chance that the program we did put her in might have a first-year teacher heading it. We were considering putting her in a different school district altogether (we've heard the Gilbert, which is next door to Mesa, has a good special ed. program), but we figured we'd give the new school a chance. I hope it wasn't misplaced.

Man, lack of funding for schools sucks.