Monday, February 25, 2008

100th day of school

So this actually happened two Mondays ago, but I kept forgetting to post it. Emily & Sydney had the 100th day of school recently, and there was all sorts of fun stuff happening. We counted out 100 pennies to rbing in to school-you could bring in 100 of whatever you wanted, but Em chose pennies. And she counted them herself!! Yeah Emily!

But at school they made paper crowns, and posters where they filled in the number 100 with fruit loops that they glued down to the paper. My children decided it would be fun to eat the loose fruit loops in the bag. I pointed out that they had glue on them, but that didn't slow either one down. I didn't keep track of the bag or the paper after we got home, but when I saw it right before dinner, the paper had no fruit loops left and the bag was empty. Mmmmm. Elmers glue & fruit loops! My favorite!!!

The continuing saga of the middle ear

Sydney had her official hearing test on Friday. Initially she flat lined the tymp. ear test so they decided it could be due to wax, so they took us to another room and scraped out a small amount of wax until they could see the ear drum itself. Then we went back to the sound room. She flat lined the test again, which is not good. She was suppossed to get a nice little mountain shaped test line.

The hearing test itself was interesting. Sydney's ears are technically fine, and when they put the sound on her bone behind her ear, she did really well (normal to above normal hearing), but she has too much fluid built up in between her eardrums and the middle ear to let the sound travel through on the headphone test. She scored a mild to moderate loss there. She has been on allergy meds for a month, with as far as we can tell no impact. grrr. The audiologist thought that if the meds were going to improve things drainage wise, we would be seeing that already. But before I take her off them, I will talk to another ENT person.

Emily had the exact same problem, it just started sooner with her. So Sydney is going to need tubes put in her ears just like her big sister. I wish I knew what causes this with my kiddos. I am going to ask for an allergy test for her too and ask for food this time not just environment. But this will probably drag out for some time which just annoys me due to the glacial pace of our health care. I want it fixed now so my baby can hear!!!!! So Sydney has another referral in the the Portsmouth Naval hospital to get an appointment with ENT department to get a consult to see if she should have tubes. She has a different ENT appointment coming up in 3 weeks, but that is for possible sleep apnea and they can't seem to rewrite that appointment to include tube evaluation even though it is that far away. Go figure!!!!

Wednesday, February 20, 2008

Well it has been a long time

So, now for a quick update.  Emily & Sydney are doing fine, both have been fairly challenging for different reasons.  Emily likes to threaten us that if we say things she does not like, ie. no burping at the table, she will write a note to Mrs. Porter telling her what we did wrong.  We had a talk about things that you need to hear, and things that are actually rude/mean.  We even did a demonstration to help clarify matters.
  
On an absolutely adorable note, there are two boys in her class who like her, and one has gone so far as to tell on of the women working in the office that he has a girlfriend, Emily!  For Valentines Day he gave her a little ceramic teddy bear.  He also bought her some little hair things at a school Fundraiser at Chuck E Cheese. I don't think Emily knows she has a boyfriend though because she makes art for both the boys, as well as a few others in the class.  I was actually in the room this week when she was delivering her mornings stash of artwork, and saw the disappointment on one little boys face when he didn't get something.  So cute.

Sydney just can't seem to hear well.  She has a hearing test this Friday and I hope that gives us a better benchmark of where we are at right now. The "not hearing" leads to all sorts of frustrating behaviors!  

We went to the Portsmouth Children's Museum for a field trip last week with Sydney's class and had a really wonderful time.  I forgot my camera unfortunately, but I think it would be great to get a membership and go again with both girls.  I was really disappointed that some of the other classes on a field trip had really trashed a few of the exhibits. Sydney loved the trains exhibits, but didn't get as excited about just the model display trains as I was and kept urging me forward. 

Karl and I are doing well too.  I still love going to the YMCA, but have been a little under the weather lately which has no fun for anyone.  Karl is really struggling with a heavy work load but had a recent success of sorts as he placed some resumes at a job fair and got 2 offers right there.  He also got one "gee I wish you had a Masters", so that is back on the table. 


Oh, and I am considering trying to grow strawberries this year.  Any advice?

And Carrie the cat is doing much better now.  Yeah!  She had a somewhat pricey trip to the vet to get a diagnosis of idiopathic HAWS.  She got antibiotics, and dewormer and was told to be a good girl.  Her third eyelids are back in place now and she does not look possessed anymore. I am so grateful for that. On a positive note, she took medicine very well.  She did not even have to be burrito wrapped.  I still don;t understand why they made the medicine banana flavored.

Tonight the cats got baths because Carrie smelled like a wet dog. Not a good smell for a cat. She is a little grumpy right now, as is Abby.  And it should help Emily if we keep their dander at bay.  I honestly have never heard more pathetic cat noises than when Karl was bathing Abby. Amazingly enough, she didn't struggle, just wailed the whole time.