Where Did November Go?

Helping Daddy make ice cream for Thanksgiving.

November has been a busy month and I know the next month is only going to get busier!  We've successfully decorated for Christmas (read:  I insisted on ALL of the decorations coming out the morning after Thanksgiving and Chris spent several FREEZING hours outside today finishing the lights on the house) and had a few more hours on our hands this weekend due to our cancelled trip to the Apple Cup in Pullman.  Zoë got really sick right after her surgery, of course, and spent two days snuggling on the couch with us, so we made the responsible decision of not using our tickets (which we're ok about, after watching the game last night).

Waiting before her surgery.

Her surgery went great!  I was a nervous wreck, but Seattle Children's knows what the heck they're doing.  The doctors and nurses were so nice (I really liked the anesthesiologist) and we were in and out of the hospital within five hours (eating at Burgermaster by noon!).  The surgeon didn't find anything huge wrong with her throat, but injected the magical gel that should buy her some time to figure out how to swallow within the next few months.  She has a follow up swallow study in just two weeks, so we'll see for sure if it helps.  We've noticed this weekend when we give her drinks from our cups that she is doing much better with the thin liquids (no coughing at all!), but are still instructed to thicken until after the swallow study (minus a few tries every once and a while for feedback for the doctor).

Zoê is thankful for...

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving at Chris' parents house and my parents came too!  Lots of fun grandparent time for Zoë that day although she didn't eat much (cold was coming on, already not feeling good).

Thanksgiving dinner with ALL of her grandparents.

Our little turkey.  Happy Thanksgiving!

I can't believe Zoë is growing so fast.  Every day she knows more and more words and more and more phrases.  It's absolutely crazy.  I'm mourning the fact that I'm losing my baby girl but in awe of her learning and growing into an amazing toddler.

Phrases we've heard come out of her mouth:

"I need this" (pointing to some socks I was folding)

"Bless you"

"Come play"
"Excuse me" (trying to get in your spot, wherever you are sitting or standing)
"Sit, sit"

"Come chase!" (followed by a rousing 50 laps around the fireplace in our house)

And favorite words:

"Fowo" (Fiona)

"Bench" (the kitchen bench)

"Cover" (when she wants her blanket covering her at bedtime or whenever)

Trying on mommy's wedding headband.  The dress is still too big.  ;)

I know Zoë's upcoming birthday is still two months away, but we have a 2-year-old on our hands now.  Her tantrums have become more frequent and much more likely to happen at the drop of a hat.  We had quite the eventful start to our week when the daycare report on a Monday a few weeks ago was "Zoë tackled another child, took her to the ground, and attempted to bite her on the shoulder".  While the mental picture of our feisty red-headed firstborn doing this is pretty darn funny, she has never done anything like it before and it worries me, and makes me feel guilty, of course.  I know all kids go through periods where their behavior HAS to be redirected but, of course, thought we were immune to this particular parenting problem.  This was definitely not a parenting hurdle Chris and I were ready to tackle and has caused me some anguish two weeks ago.  Luckily, she was better behaved throughout the week (despite melting down when toys she was previously playing with were picked up by other kids) and I'm hoping we can curtail any future tackles.

Family pictures, taken by our generous and talented friend Karah.  :)

 We are sure enjoying our little girl and are more than excited to also announce the addition of her little brother, coming in April 2015.  :)  Zoë has NO idea what she's in for and will probably have a hard time sharing mommy, for sure, but every once and a while when I ask her "where is your baby brother?", she'll point to my belly and then give it a gentle kiss.  Awwwwwwwwww.

Someone doesn't want to share mommy and daddy...

Go Cougs!

OK, we're back to being ok about this (mostly because she;s holding baby)

Happy Halloween (and our recent hospital adventure update)

From left to right: Chris' pumpkin pirate ship, Emily's pumpkin, Zoë's mummy pumpkin, and Griffin's Daniel Tiger pumpkin!

Last weekend we attended a lovely Halloween party at our good friends' house.  Zoë wore her chicken costume for a good portion of the party (and we had to feed a her a minimal amount of M&Ms to keep it on) and I would say it was a hit.  Finding the ideas on Pinterest are easy, but putting them together are not always the easiest!  She hated having the feathers from the boa I had pinned to a white sweater tickle her face and had an especially hard time eating anything because every time she'd bring the food to her mouth she would also get a mouthful of feathers.  Because the feet we had made with rubber gloves over a pair of her shoes were so hard to walk in, she ended up looking more like a chicken because she had to pick her feet up so high each time she took a step.  It was awesome!  And, all of her boyfriends were equally as cute in their costumes.  :)

On Tuesday Zoë came down with a horrific cough that got progressively worse throughout the day.  She was extremely clingy to the point where she wouldn't let me put her down all afternoon and evening.  When we put her to bed and checked on her about an hour later, we noticed that her breathing was really really fast and her entire belly was moving a lot more than usual when she breathed in and out.  Chris called the nurse line where they recommended she be seen by a doctor, so we drove to the ER and arrived at around 10:30pm.  We were immediately brought back to a room in the ER where Zoë had a nebulizer of Albuterol, a chest x-ray, and a dose of steroid.  Her breathing was still really labored and when her x-rays came back the doctor ruled out pneumonia.

Happy to be out of her costume.

By about 3:30am, her oxygen saturation level was steady only because she had a cannula in with a steady flow of oxygen and her breathing was still pretty rapid, so they admitted us.  The doctors finally said she had a Reactive Airway which was triggered by a virus she came into contact with and  could potentially develop into asthma eventually.  By mid-afternoon yesterday the doctor took her off the oxygen since she could keep a steady saturation level, so that was nice.  The nurse let her take a break from being hooked to her heart monitor, too, which was wonderful to let her run around her room (she was in isolation on the Peds floor, so she couldn't take a walk around outside of her room) She stayed overnight last night because they wanted to monitor her some more since her breathing was STILL labored.  At this point, she was getting Albuterol treatments every three hours (from an inhaler, not the nebulizer).

First pumpkin carving as an active participant...

...not really a fan...

Yuck!  Pumpkin guts!

Finally, today they stretched her treatments to every 4 hours and she was doing much better, so they released her this afternoon.  She slept ok last night, but was still a very tired girl from her big hospital ordeal.  And so are we!  Chris is a saint and stayed the night last night with her while I went home to get some sleep and then went to work today.  In the future, we know she'll probably have a few more episodes just like this (but hopefully we can curb them because we'll have an inhaler for her) and it may or may not develop into full-blown asthma.  We were reminded that asthma is a pretty common development for micro-preemies like Zoë, something that had completely been dispelled from my mind since she's been so healthy and caught up development-wise with her peers.  A good reality check that she's not invincible (it's felt that way for these first 21 months of her life!) and a reminder to give her extra squeezes each day because she's such a strong little girl.

Zoë with her boyfriends

Pockets!!!

New rain jacket for a really rainy afternoon outside with dad in the leaves!

We had to postpone her surgery that was scheduled for tomorrow because of all of these complications and it's rescheduled for the day before Thanksgiving (awesome).  I was all mentally prepared for that, too, which is a bummer that I'm going to have to gear myself back up again!

Our Little Pumpkin

We went to the Thomasson Family Farm again this year to get pumpkins as a family and had so much fun!  Zoë had a really fun time trying to pick up pumpkins

Leaping pumpkins with Baba and Dedo

Picking the best one!

Beautiful Baba!

Zoë is officially off of the mom-clinginess train, which is wonderful, and she yells "Daddy" as often as she does "Mama" from her crib in the middle of the night or early morning.  :)  She sleeps regularly with Baby, Violet, and her "Ah Ah" (monkey) and insists on carrying all of them around (plus a blankie) ALL. THE. TIME.

Zoë's Entourage

Zoë's surgery is scheduled for October 31st (oh, heck yes she's wearing her chicken costume into the hospital whether she wants to or not).  The doctor is going to do a scope to find out how much of a cleft she has at the back of her throat, and most likely going to inject some gel to thicken her throat to give her approximately a three month window to figure out how to swallow properly.  There's a small chance he'll find a large cleft in which case he'll surgically prepare it while he's in there, but again, that's a small chance.  Two weeks after her surgery she'll have a swallow study to see how well she's doing with the gel.  They'll want to know if she's done less choking when drinking non-thickened liquids and will observe themselves during the swallow study, too.  There's a chance the problem will return when the gel wears off within about three months and they'll try it again to give her more time.  We'll worry about that later.

I am, of course, super nervous, but trying not to think about the surgery.  At least we'll find out what's going on with her and hopefully not have to thicken her liquids any more (ahhhh, to be able to go out to eat at a restaurant and not worry about packing her own beverage before we go).

We are so looking forward to the holiday season and having Jed and Angela back home for Christmas.  Zoë's going to be talking in sentences by that time and there will be pictures with Santa, a trip to Snowflake Lane in Bellevue, Zoolights, and everything else.  YAY!

Touchdown!

Happy Family

Sobbing Through September

Our darling little angel is being a little bit of a, um, challenge.

We hope she's teething.  She cries for no reason, demands to be held and then pushes me away (she still on the mom-only train, poor dad).  She is unreasonably (to us) upset about the simplest things and is just not herself in general.  The tears and crying has got to stop!  She goes to bed really easily, so maybe it's a growth spurt, too?  We don't know, but we're hoping that it doesn't last too much longer.

In other great news, she is such a big kid!  She talks and communicates and repeats almost any word we say.  She'll just come out and say, "apple" and point to one and demand to eat it.  It's crazy!  She's even stringing a few words together: "Hi, Joe", "I see".

She dances like a mad-woman when there is music on.  She has started the most adorable waddle walk where she sways back and forth dramatically with her whole body.

She is absolutely in love with Fiona and Joe (although Joe is still less than thrilled with her) and will chase them around and give them hugs.  She's sleeping great again, back to bed around 7pm and then up between 6:30-7:30 (more often on the earlier side than not).

And, her baby is still the love of her life.  She'll chant "Baby! Baby!" in the car, when she wakes up, in the grocery store, anywhere.  She drags her around the house, wraps her up, unwraps her, feeds her, and demands that she sits at the dinner table with us.  She's overprotective and shrieks if any other child comes close to her baby whether she's holding her or not.

Zoë and her beloved baby.

A few weeks ago Zoë couldn't put a puzzle together to save her life.  My parents laughed at how impatient I was while they watched the two of us over a Facetime session.  I couldn't believe she could do all of these amazing things and yet a puzzle was so difficult for her.  It was like she was blindfolded, she wouldn't match shapes or colors and it would drive me up the wall.  About a week and a half ago it just clicked and one day she could do it!  I was so proud of her and now she's a puzzle pro.  :)

Now a puzzle master!

This month has been busy with the start up of school again.  Chris went to Ambler, Alaska for a week to visit Connor, which was a fun new adventure.  Zoë went to the Puyallup Fair twice and, despite our wanting to shove every delicious fair food into her face possible, she just wasn't that into eating, though she did love the animals.

We're heading into fall with lots of fun ahead of us with Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Zoë's second Christmas!!!

Zoë loves getting eggs from the chickens with Baba!

End of Summer

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It's been a busy month and I feel super guilty for not writing an update.  Zoë's going to have a gap in her baby book!  :)

This summer has been the cling-to-mom-all-the-time summer and it's been a bit rough in that regard.  I feel so badly for Chris because there are times when it can be Mom and Only Mom to help her calm down or hold her or...just be.

The biggest news is that a few weeks ago Zoë had another swallow study and she is not doing any better in that department.  The occupational therapist says it's definitely a timing issue (she just doesn't know how to swallow thin liquids and the timing of her epiglottis closing sucks) but we don't know if it's a timing and structural issue.  Typically, if it's only a timing issue, kids will get better at swallowing and this issue will resolve on its own.  Unfortunately, Zoë's not getting any better at swallowing.  Because Zoë was born so early she may have a cleft in her throat which means that no matter how fast her epiglottis closes there may still be a gap where liquid can go down into her lungs.  The tricky thing is that usually if it's a structural issue, it doesn't matter how much thickener you add and the kid will still have trouble with some of it penetrating into the lungs.  What we've seen consistently is that once we get to "nectar thick", Zoë doesn't have any penetration...so, she's kind of an enigma.  We will be referred to an ENT at Children's Hospital where they'll probably tell us she needs a scope and will have to be put under anesthesia to do it because of her age (too young to be able to explain it to her and too old for her not to be able to fight it).  Once scoped, if they find that it's a structural issue as suspected, they can put in a kind of dissolvable goo that will add structure to the back of her throat and allow her to learn to swallow properly.  The therapist said that usually, but the time it dissolves, kids can deal with the structural difference and do just fine.  Sometimes they go right back to their old swallowing habits at which point she'd need another surgery to add more permanent structure to her throat.

This, of course, terrifies me.  I keep picturing my tiny little baby on a huge surgical table.  It's definitely a new hurdle and one I was hoping we wouldn't have to jump.  But, it's here and this will make her better.  I keep telling myself that this is NOTHING compared to the health problems we could be dealing with right now and that helps a little bit.

Trip to Orkila.  Future Goody Glacier in the house!

In more fun news, we went camping on Orcas Island a couple of weeks ago and had so much fun!  It took us forever to get up to the island (of course, ferries), but we were well prepared for the rain the first night and any bouts of hunger (I WAY overpacked snacks).  We were not prepared for the inconsolable wailing from Zoë at 1 in the morning the first night.  Chris took her into the car and slept with her, uncomfortably, for the rest of the night, bless him.  She did much better the second night.  :)  We went and visited Orkila, which was fun to walk around and share with Chris and picture Zoë there in 8 short years.  We had delicious pizza in Eastsound, walked around the shops, and had marshmallows around the fire (we were lucky to have because the first night there was a burn ban) the second night.  Lots of fun and we're totally ready for the next trip (and mom even has an excel spreadsheet for packing now).

Zoë is talking (gibberish) non-stop now, with a few intelligible words thrown in every once and a while.  She consistently says 'please' (reminders are needed 50% of the time) and has uttered a 'thank you' every now and then.  She has peed in the potty many times!  Yesterday she even asked to go potty and then WENT!  We aren't doing any formal training, yet, but figure once winter break rolls around we'll commit to the naked three day training period and have her trained before she's 2 (of course, I'm sure she'll have other ideas...).

Having a chat with Mom.

Throwing rocks with Dad.

Looking out the window on the ferry.

She's still obsessed with her baby doll AND any babies she sees when we're out and about.  She actually calls most small children 'baby' and sometimes I have to remind her that the one she is referring to is actually older than her!  There is a small baby at daycare that she took a great interest in last week when she went for a day...I'm sure it's going to drive Lesley nuts how obsessed she is.  :)  Dropping her off at daycare last week wasn't nearly as traumatic as it was last year.  I know she has so much fun there, is so well taken care of, and probably enjoyed her busy day way more with all of the kids there than she does alone with me.  I am just sad because I don't get any more time to play.  :(

Beautiful, beautiful girl.

She insists that I come play with her sometimes, which is heart-melting.  She'll demand that I stand up and do "Ring Around the Rosie" with her and then twirl and twirl and twirl.