Wake Up Jeff (Or Go To Sleep Eden)

Eden is a serious Wiggles fanatic right now. We went through a Wiggles phase about a year ago, then it kind of died down, but now it is back in full force thanks to Auntie Lisa in California and the infamous (at least in our house) "Wiggle Book."

Ask Eden any time of the day or night what she wants to watch, and she will say "Wiggles." Most often she chooses "Wiggle Mooby" (Movie), but sometimes she will choose "Yummy, Yummy" or "Wiggle Day" (Bay).

Eden has decided that she IS Jeff. We hear this many times a day. "I Jeff." Then she will point to us one by one to tell us who we are. Daddy is "Wags Dog." Holland is "Dorothy." And I am "Greg."

And if you know The Wiggles, you know Jeff. Jeff is ALWAYS falling asleep.


One, Two, Three...Wake Up Jeff!


"I awake Moo-ey." (That's Eden's version of Murray...sort of.)


The really ironic thing, is that given how much Jeff likes sleeping, Eden does not. About a month ago Eden decided that she really doesn't like going to bed at night. It has been such a pain, and has caused a great deal of stress in our household. After TWO YEARS of being an absolute angel at bedtime, she has completely turned the tables on us.

Thinking back, I guess it got gradually worse. She started waking a couple of hours after she went to bed, and I would go in a pick her up, rock her or hold her for a few minutes and put her back down. Then she wanted to rock for a while before going to bed. Then the rocking got longer and we got more and more resistance to going back to bed. She would wake up saying "Hey Mama" or "Hey Dada" repeatedly, then sometimes "I scared" which she KNOWS will always get us running. The we worried ourselves silly over whether she really IS scared...maybe she is afraid of the dark...maybe she is in pain...maybe it's reflux...and on and on and on. She still isn't able to verbalize exactly what it is that is bothering her, so we are left guessing the worst.

Then she got sick, and all Hell broke loose. Total meltdowns at bedtime, with a great deal of breath-holding, and the ultimate in GETTING YOU WHAT YOU WANT...vomiting. We started getting breath-holding, followed by big vomits every time we laid her in her bed. And she was sick, so we broke down and did it. We let her sleep in OUR BED.

The thing with Eden is that it ONLY TAKES ONCE. She is a quick study and as soon as she connects that vomiting leads to sleeping with mom and dad, she will soon be vomiting every night.

We came up with a game plan, that we put into place two days after she got home from the hospital. The plan was that she HAD to sleep in her bed, even if it meant we slept in her bedroom on the floor. We took turns putting her to bed and lying on her floor until she fell asleep, then we took shifts during the night. Turns out that she really wants company and IF you can get her in her bed without a vomit, she will be okay as long as someone stays in the room with her.

We had a massive vomit on Friday night (on my shift dammit), but each night since then has gotten progressively better. We've gone from an hour of "I don't wanna go bed" over and over again, to a few whimpers for 5 or 10 minutes before falling asleep. And for the past 2 nights we have had no night wakings! I feel sane again...for now. I just hope it will last.

We decided in the interim to make the move to BIG GIRL BEDS (BGB). We bought them last weekend at IKEA, and will hopefully get them together this weekend. Tonight they got their new pillowcases, Holland got Dora, and Eden got the Disney Princesses (their choices in shoes, hats, and now bedding). I had planned on waiting until kindergarten for the BGB, but since Eden hates her crib so much, I thought we may as well make the move now. I am very resistant overall to them growing up, but somehow it is happening anyway!


Hard to believe that someone so darn cute can cause so much drama!

Potty Progress

I had meant to do this post last week, but we had a little setback. We're still trying to recover from our little hospital stay in terms of getting Eden back to some sense of normalcy in her sleeping and eating. We were already going through a bad patch with the sleeping situation before she got sick, but that's a whole other post.

Anyhow, after 4 days of NOT using the potty, she has gotten right back on track since coming home. The charts show the first week of diligent potty training at our house. They get a sticker on the potty chart each time they pee or poop.

Obviously someone is a little more committed to the process than someone else;)

Eden's Potty Chart - Week One
(On Monday she had prune juice!)


Holland's Potty Chart - Week One

There's No Place Like Home!

I'm so glad I'm on winter break this week. Hopefully we can get this house back on track, and everybody well again.

I have to admit it's getting better...

...it's getting better all the time.

Gotta love another Beatles reference!






The pictures give you a pretty good idea of how Eden is feeling. She has certainly found her smile once again, and was talking and in good spirits most of today. She was also on room air all day, satting in the low 90s most of the time. She started dipping into the 80s while she was falling asleep, so we ended up putting her oxygen back on before bed. This doesn't bode well for us going home tomorrow, but I am still hopeful based on how much better she seems to be feeling.

They want her to drink more fluids, but she is still on IV fluids. I think if we took them away, she'd drink more, and they want her to drink more before they take them away. It's a catch 22.

I certainly hope no one tries to say they want to keep her until she is eating better!!! We'll have to pack up and move in;)

Admitted

Well, we fought a good fight, but here we are.


Yesterday evening we thought we had it beat, but through the night things took a turn for the worse. Eden's cough was out of control and she started having trouble catching her breath. She was needing Albuterol treatments every 2-3 hours, so we had to bite the bullet and bring her in. Her lung xray today is showing some pneumonia in her right middle lobe. We don't know if it's viral or bacterial, but I'd bet the bank on viral since she's been on antibiotics for an ear infection since Tuesday. I'd venture a wild guess that the ear infection is viral too...but what do I know?


As much as I hate being in the hospital, I feel a lot more relaxed since we got here. I was worrying myself silly over whether to bring her or not. I hate coming to the ER and exposing us to all of the hospital mega-germs if they are just going to send us home to do the same things I am already doing...antibiotics, steroids, breathing treatments. But here they have oxygen and IV fluids, and once we start needing those, it's time. So here we are.

Our hospital has a new patient tower since our last stint, so at least we got to check out the new digs. Pretty fancy. Still not the Hilton, but much closer. Spacious, with a tub and shower in every room, and nice woodish flooring. Once Eden gets some of her spunk back, she'll love flying around here in her Pony Walker! She'll have to EAT SOMETHING first though...

A little someone else fought the good fight and WON! Now that's a first!

Fevers and Vomit and Coughing...OH MY!

Oh, and snot. And breathing treatments. And breath holding. And ear infections. And no sleep. And worst of all...no eating (one full pound lost and counting).

Good news is that the lung x-rays do not show pneumonia, and we had a pretty good bedtime. Maybe tonight will be a better night.

Happy Chinese New Year!

Holland and Mommy had to miss the celebration at Grandma and Grandpa's house, but at least they were kind enough to pack us a bag of yummy food and treats. Thank You!

What's New With You?

Sigh. Well, for starters, the girls are sick. Stuffy noses, coughs, fevers... Holland has had a very high fever for the past two nights...105.9 on Monday night, and 105.0 on Tuesday night. Luckily, it comes down with Motrin, and only runs low grade during the day. She is in an acceptable mood, and best of all, so far, no wheezing! I took her to the doctor today, just because the fever gets so high and has lasted for more than 2 days. Her sats were 96, even with a rotten cough, and her lungs sound clear. So, for now, it's just a virus and we'll wait it out.

Eden had an audiologist appointment this past Wednesday. In the sound booth she proved that she is growing up, and wasn't interested in the silly reinforcers that used to work all the time. They would present a sound, and she would look up at the bear playing the cymbals or the doggie barking. This time she only reacted to the loud sounds, and totally ignored the soft sounds, even though I KNEW she could hear them. We moved on to a new method of having her point to body parts and repeat the ling sounds. She responded to the body parts down to 25db, and the ling sounds at 30db (the lowest we tried). Normal range for cochlear implant users is 20-40 decibels, so she is right where she needs to be and can hear all of the sounds necessary for speech.

We also tried a picture/vocabulary test, which is a quick way to see if she is hearing/understanding one-two-three syllable words and compound words, as well as discriminating between words with the same beginning sound (ball, bat, bird, bell, etc.) The last time we tried this was about a year ago, and she just didn't get it yet. This time she got almost all of them. Funny enough, she missed most of the food words. LOL. She got birthday cake and french fries, but missed popcorn, hamburger, sandwich, and cupcake. No surprise there!

Holland had an eye doctor appointment at the end of December, and got a new pair of glasses last month. We couldn't get the ear wraps on the frames I really wanted, so we ended up with the only other pair that went down small enough. They are very similar to her old glasses, and no one has noticed without me telling them.

Her prescription has gotten worse, especially in her left eye. Kind of a bummer, but she is still using the weaker eye, and it is correctable with the glasses, so no biggie. Last year her prescription was -3.00 (+0.50 astigmatism) in her right eye, and -7.00 (no astigmatism) in her left. Now it is -3.00 (+1.00 astigmatism) in her right eye, and -8.00 (+0.50 astigmatism) in her left. We are continuing to patch her left eye for at least 2 hours a day (more if she isn't complaining).

I need to do another (not)eating post soon, and I'm working on a preschool post (yes, they are actually going to make me send my children AWAY, sob). But until then I'll leave you with a couple of cute stories...

Holland, meaning to say I have a stuffy nose, says "I have a nose." I reply, "I have a nose too!" Holland says "Mommy, your nose is very pretty." Mommy melts into a puddle on the floor. Awwwwww.

Eden is playing with toys on the family room floor while I am working on the laptop (aka blogging). She rolls over to the couch and says, "up-a, up-a, up-a." I say, no, we don't say up-a." She replies, "up please Mama." So I pick her up. She sits on my lap, looks at the computer screen and says, "wow, that's pretty cool!" What I think is pretty cool, is that Eden can say "that's pretty cool."