Where Are Those Dang Sheep

The one thing that Emma has always done fairly well since coming home is sleep. Lay her down and she goes to sleep and usually sleeps all night. She is no longer doing that which results in me no longer doing it either. She has been up 3 times the last 2 nights. She was doing that before we went on vacation and I had hoped that maybe it would be better when we got home. It was not to be.


I can't decide what the problem is. She decided about 3 weeks ago that she doesn't want any stuffed animals in her bed, no blanket, no anything. It's so hard because she can't tell me what the problem is. Is she scared, is she cold, is she hot, is she just being a 2 year old that has suddenly discovered how to pull my chain? She is always crying and wanting me to hold her. She really wants me to rock her but I'm trying to avoid that. I hold her for just a minute until she calms down and then put her back to bed. It's almost exactly an hour later and she begins the crying again. This process starts at 1 a.m. every night. You could set your watch by her wake up times. So, any suggestions? Brady was never a good sleeper and still isn't. He was up every night after he was born and it drove me crazy. The difference in Brady and Emma though would be 15 years. I was 15 years younger and probably good handle it better!


Our week has been a rat race. Emma had a 10 a.m. apt. with the hand specialist yesterday at Vandy. After FINALLY finding a parking spot and getting her in on time, we waited an hour before we were called back and another hour before he saw her. I am a nurse and I understand that doctors are busy and there are times you can't prevent these things but if you have an apt. at 10 a.m. and you have to wait 2 hours, that excessive. Emma worked on destroying the treatment room and I let her. She pulled paper off the stretcher until she had filled the trash can. She turned the light off and on approximately 1 million times and I let her. She opened and shut the door repeatedly and I let her. She pushed the stool around the room with me on it and I let her. She yelled a lot and I let her. I was hoping that we might get some one's attention, but it didn't work. So the doctor comes in 2 hours late and it's really a good thing that I love him or else I might have been rude. He is so kind and so gentle with Emma. She crawled up in his lap and took in name tag and played with it. She showed him how she wrote with his pen and we discussed how there is nothing we can do about her hands (which we already knew) and then they took so photos of her hands for teaching purposes and we left. We go back in 8 months. Even though he knows there isn't anything that he can do about her hands he just wants to follow her progress. I plan on taking some really loud toys to our next visit.


After leaving Vandy I had to rush to pick up Brady and take him to the dentist. Emma was so cute when Brady was called back. She began yelling "Bubba" and crying and rushed the door that he had gone in. She was so upset that he left her. She played for a while and then she remembered that Bubba was missing and she began doing it again. Finally, Bubba returned with clean teeth and a good tongue lashing from the dentist about his poor brushing habits. That same conversation will be repeated in 6 months when he goes back.


We leave the dentist, rush home for 30 minutes and then headed out to pick up Ashton from basketball practice. We didn't even make it to gymnastics last night because I literally didn't think I could drive any further. I was exhausted and then did I mention that I was up 3 times during the night with my precious daughter:)


Today Emma had a follow up on her ears and got a good report. Her tubes are in place and it all looks good. While we were waiting to be called back (not 2 hours thank God) she was playing in the waiting area with another little girl. The little girl was 7 and Emma was almost as tall as her. They played with the little kitchen and used blocks as food and were so cute pretending. Emma was very good and it was obvious she enjoyed having someone to play with. That is one of the bad things about all the appointments that Emma has, we have very little down time to have play dates. I really feel like she is missing out on that.


After leaving the ENT office, I met my mother and traded out children. Brady had stayed home today with some type of weird swelling and pain to the side of his face and mouth. He came upstairs this morning and was in tears and told me how bad he was hurting. He had a little cut in the corner of his mouth last week when we were at the beach and now he has this swollen area. The doctor was able to see him and put him on antibiotics and some steroid cream. He thinks it's some type of infected mucous gland and hopes that it isn't something funky he picked from the ocean. So once again my day was spent at the doctor's office! So we came home and little Miss Emma has been sleeping for the last 3 hours and while she slept, so did I. My house looks like a disaster zone, but when you can't hold up your head it's hard to clean! So I'm about to go awaken Sleeping Beauty and run her little legs off playing.


Quick cute story. When Emma left the ENT office this morning the doctor walked us out. I had already spotted the suckers when we came in and had hoped that she wouldn't see them. Yeah, right. Dr. C handed her a sucker and she immediately started yelling "Opi, Opi, Opi (open)". She yelled that all the way out of the building until I managed to trade some grapes for the sucker. She hasn't had much luck eating suckers and I certainly wasn't going to give her one in the car. The child loves suckers!