Good Ear News!

We took Em to the ENT specialist on Wednesday, and were prepared to hear she needed tubes in her ears.  We met a couple in the waiting area with a 14 month old daughter--their appointment had been earlier in the afternoon, and they said the doctor saw her and scheduled her surgery for the very next day!  They gave us a lot of information to read over while we waited, and there were some puzzles to keep Em busy.

We got in to see the doctor, and Em had to lie down on the table and be held down for him to look in her ears.  Poor little thing was so scared when she had to stretch out and everybody pinned her down--she started crying, so I held her hands and we all sang Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer together.  It was actually hilarious, because both nurses in the room joined in and sang with us.  I keep reminding Em that Christmas is over, but she just loves that song!

Anyway, after the traumatic exam, she got a Cinderella sticker and all was forgotten.  He said there's fluid in both of her ears, but neither was infected.  He asked us about the effect on her quality of life, the frequency and severity of the infections, and when they started.  She rarely ever says they hurt and wants medicine to make them feel better--she usually just says it feels like there's something in them, but goes about her business and seems fine.  He also looked in her nose, which has been constantly stuffy this winter.  He gave us a prescription for Flonase, and wants to see her back in a month.  He thinks we have a few things in our favor, including the fact that she's almost three and might be close to growing out of the ear issues.  The hope is that if we can get her nose cleared up, the fluid will be able to drain.

On our next visit, he'll also do a hearing test, just to make sure there hasn't been any temporary loss of hearing.  It was great news for us, and we're glad that Em won't have to undergo surgery at this point!

Long Weekend



Em and I were both off on Monday, so my parents decided to come for a visit on Sunday.  Em is always so excited to see her grandparents from either side, so we had a good couple of days with them here.

Em was thrilled to show Grandma all of her babies, and they had plenty of diapers to change.

We spent the afternoon doing some shopping, and Sunday night, we decided to cook hot dogs over our fire pit.  Em had a great time, and especially liked the s'mores for dessert!  

Both sets of grandparents always say they worry about how well Em will remember them because we're not able to be together as much as we'd like, but she reassures them every time.  She has a great memory, and we keep reminding her between visits with all of the pictures!

A Taste of Winter

On Friday morning, we woke up to a very light dusting of snow.  We were hoping for a couple of inches, but you can see how much actually fell.  It didn't affect school or traffic, except for some icy spots on the road.

 

When we got to school that morning, Ms. Cathy (the morning teacher Em stays with until 7:30) was putting salt on the sidewalks, so I let Em play in the snow for a few minutes until she was ready to go in.

 I guess it's only in the South that a little girl would get this excited over a half inch of snow!

Doctor Updates

It's been a while since I've really caught up with everything happening, so I wanted to update on a few doctor visits that Emily has had over the past two months.

In December, we took her back to the orthopedic specialist for her hip checkup--she was actually supposed to go when she turned two, but our appointment got cancelled and it honestly fell to the bottom of our priority list because we felt like it wasn't presenting any problems for her.  Em certainly has no trouble moving her legs, whether it's dancing, running, jumping or climbing--she seems to be constantly in motion!  So we finally got the appointment scheduled several months ago (this doctor books up pretty far in advance), and she went in on December 19.  She's very outgoing and never meets a stranger (something I'll talk about at another time), so she's great at making friends with everyone in the office.  They checked her hips and did an x-ray.  The doctor said her left hip socket is still just slightly more shallow than her right, but it's within normal range, so he doesn't need to see her again until she's about five.  Sadly, I know that will be here so quickly...but five seems like a long way away!

Em then went back for her dentist visit on January 3--another doctor that books up quickly since her dentist is also a pediatric orthodontist.  We chose her for all the great reviews we read, but also because I didn't want Em to have to switch dentists if she needs an orthodontist sometime in the future.  Her name is Dr. Bird, and the office is very kid-friendly (trees with birds everywhere, which Em loves).  I even talked to her about the dentist that morning, telling her she was one of Hermey's helpers (Hermey, of course, is the elf in Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer who wants to be a dentist instead of make toys).  She got pretty excited about that until she went in and asked about Hermey, and the technician (with a confused look on her face) said "who?"  I guess part of my plan should have been bringing everyone in on it first.

Em is doing much better brushing her teeth at home--still probably her least favorite thing to do, but she cooperates most of the time--so I had high hopes for this visit.  Unfortunately, it didn't go well.  It took three of us (Mick, the technician and me) to hold Em down for her to clean her teeth (which really only consisted of brushing them with the little spinning brush), and the only reason she could even get to them was because Em was screaming.  It was horrible.  Part of me wanted to just forget the whole thing, but I don't want her to think that she can get out of it by throwing a tantrum!  So we stuck with it, and the dentist brushed on the flouride and said her teeth looked great--no cavities!  

Over the past few weekends, I feel like we've had Em at her pediatrician every Saturday for her ears (luckily, they have appointments in the mornings on Saturday and Sunday).  Sometimes she says they hurt, and other times she'll say it feels like there's something in them.  Once she said there was a baby caterpillar in her ear, and another time it was Tinkerbell flapping her wings--at least she has no trouble telling us what's happening.  She just finished an antibiotic for an ear infection in her right ear, and we took her back last weekend to make sure it was cleared up.  The doctor said there was still some fluid in her right ear, but the infection was gone.  This weekend, we took her back again and it's infected.  AGAIN!  So I asked for a referral to an ENT specialist, and as the doctor prepared to write another prescription for an antibiotic, I asked if she really needed it.  He said at her age, she's healthy enough to fight off the infection on her own, and the antibiotic doesn't get rid of the fluid, which is really the problem.  So we decided to skip the antibiotic this time, and if her ears are hurting, we'll just give her Tylenol or Advil.  She's such a trooper that most of the time she doesn't want to take anything, but I know they have to be bothering her.  She asks "what?" or "what did you say?" pretty often now, so I'm worried that it's affecting her hearing too.

Our ENT appointment is on January 30, so we'll know more then--I'm afraid I see tubes in our future :(.

More Dress Up



Em really puts together some beautiful outfits from her dress up clothes.

 Check out this look, complete with shoes and a hat!

Play Date

Em's best friend at her old school was Declan--they acted like brother and sister, because they would hug one minute and push each other the next.

 

We never had a chance to say goodbye to them when we moved Em to Rainbow Station, but we ran into them unexpectedly and exchanged contact information a while back, so we got in touch around Christmas and decided to get together for a play date.

 

They were so excited to see each other--we went to the Sports Connection, which is a bowling alley, bounce house, arcade and cafe.  They jumped right in and started playing together.

The arcade seemed to be their favorite,

but it was pretty easy to spend money in there!

It's funny to see them use these "Connection Cards" they give you--it's a reloadable card that you swipe for each game.  They clearly don't comprehend that the cards don't have unlimited money on them.  We've talked before about how much more difficult it will be to teach Em about money when we so rarely handle it (we hardly ever carry cash).

But obviously, we weren't here to teach her financial responsibility.  There's a kids' bowling alley that was fun for them,

and this game that was like a tornado--she had to hold on tight and the seat moved and these fans blew pretty hard.  Em loved it!

They tried dancing, but it was a little more advanced than they were.

This one was fun for Em's and Declan's Daddy to play too.

Mini basketball,

and there was only one mallet to smash the sharks here, so Em used her fist.  Nice team effort!

They refused to pose for a picture together when we finished, but they were both exhausted.  Em made it home before she fell asleep, but they played pretty hard for about 3 1/2 hours!

Artsy

This girl loves her paint! She was painting with watercolors here and decided to try a few hand stamps.

She's always entertained when she's making a mess.



Random Things

I've been jotting down some funny random things that Em says--she has a great sense of humor and will often say things intentionally, but a few of these are just her normal stream of conciousness.

• she sometimes answers "sure" instead of "yes" to something--it probably doesn't sound that funny until you actually hear her say it
• she'll say things like "this is a horse...in Spanish, I call him donkey" or "this is a puppy...in Spanish, I call him doggie"(there's a Spanish teacher that comes in once a week at her school, and she knows quite a bit so far, but says silly things like this for a laugh)
• after breakfast one morning, "Mommy, I finished my toast, so now I can have ice cream!" (umm, no)
• she LOVED singing Frosty and Rudolph all through Christmas, and we're having a tough time getting her out of the Christmas mindset!
• she is crazy about nonsense words now--she answers questions with them, names her friends with them--things like boola, buka, wooshey, doolu (and I think how her tiger got the name Daku)
• we went through a couple of weeks of pure fighting to get her to go to the potty, which was funny because we felt like everything had really been clicking--then one day, it clicked again and now she's a master at it!

Two Christmases

We took a couple of days off around New Year's Day and went down to Brunswick, GA to spend Christmas with Mick's side of the family, which is always fun, but Em was super excited this year because she's been looking forward to time with everybody.

 

We drove down on Friday night, knowing it would be late when we arrived, but glad we wouldn't have to spend most of the day Saturday driving.  We got there around 11:00 Friday night, and Em was up bright and early the next morning!  We had a nice healthy breakfast of doughnuts, and of course she chose the one with sprinkles and icing :).

The weather was pretty warm, so we spent a good amount of time outside--we took a walk and had brought Em's bike so she could show off her skills.

She was happy to do just that.

Later Saturday night, we had our Christmas celebration.

There were way too many wonderful gifts to post pictures of everything, but I captured a few--Grandma and Papa gave Em the Bitty Baby twins, and she's named them Lulu and Baby Chase (after her cousin!).

She was so excited for Chicken to have a brother and a sister!

She helped everyone else open their gifts too!

And then she took her babies for a spin in their carrier.

She always likes to hang out with her cousins.

Zachary got this boxing set, and Em wanted to help him try it out.

Zachary was such a good sport about it--he knew to take it easy on her.

We got ready to leave a little after lunch on New Year's Eve,

and Em had plenty of hugs and kisses for everyone.

We had a great time...next year, we'll plan to go somewhere cold (with SNOW!).

Merry Christmas!

Em woke up before 7:00 on Christmas morning, and we jumped out of bed as soon as we heard her.  She saw Elfie at the top of the stairs with all of the balloons and was so excited she didn't know what to do!  Elfie has been her close friend this month--he's given her a new book every day (I started off wrapping them and letting her open one from under the tree each day, but gave up on wrapping on about the 15th).  So part of finding Elfie each day has been the excitement of knowing a new book is waiting for her!  She'll be really sorry to see him go back to the North Pole after this morning, but we let her say her goodbyes before he left.

 

The first thing Em wanted to do when she started down the stairs was check to see if Santa ate his cookies and drank his milk.  She did leave a bowl of carrots on the front step for the reindeer, and seemed surprised that they ate them all (carrots are one of Em's least favorite foods).

 

She saw the balloons, her tiger, the presents, and about 10 minutes after coming downstairs, she noticed there was a bicycle under the tree for her!  She seemed almost as excited about the flashlight in her stocking as anything--I think that was one of the coolest parts to me--she was so thrilled with some of the little stuff.

 

Aunt Jenn, Uncle Jason, Cody and Chase sent Em a Cinderella Barbie, which was one of the first things she opened after she got over her initial excitement and realized there were presents!

She named her tiger Daku, and introduced Cinderella to him right away.

She was really excited about her backpack, which we packed with a couple of puzzles--it's a preschool size, so it's small and lightweight--perfect for her.

She jumped on the bicycle like she had ridden it before--the helmet was exciting, and she kept it on to open the rest of her presents :).

She helped Mick and me with our gifts (even with opening them), and was ready to give Gracie and Bella the toys and treats in their stockings too.

There was plenty of time to play with all the shiny, glittery bows and decorations!

And I'm a little sad to see what a big girl she looks like with her backpack and bicycle!

Our biggest realization was that we could have saved money on all the presents and gotten only the balloons!

She wanted to untie all the balloons from around the house, and must have spent half the day running around crazily, laughing and screaming.

We had such a fun day--we had balloon fights and chased each other around the house.

Em even decided that the Santa balloon was a surfboard, and scooted around on him to the point where he was almost flat!

Such a happy little girl today!

I ordered Daku online, and he turned out a little bigger than I expected.  She was determined for him to ride on Gracie's back, which was absolutely not going to happen...Bella was happy to oblige though :).

This is a pretty good representation of our house most days, minus the tree and balloons--dogs standing around watching Em, and toys scattered everywhere.  I guess there are more important things than a super clean house...at least I hope so :).

I realize this is a terribly blurry picture, but her bike has a baby carrier on the front and she took Chicken for a ride in the neighborhood when we went outside.

When things settled down enough for Em to realize she was hungry, we made snowman pancakes for breakfast and then went back to balloon games :).

It was a great day together.  When I look back at pictures and remember last Christmas, it's so hard to believe how much she's grown and developed from a baby into a little girl.