Six.

Six.

I have a six year old.

The past year has been a blur with Cassidy in "big girl" school, pregnancy, birth of a preemie, buying a new house, moving, and selling our old house.

Somehow, during all that, my baby started first grade, turned six, lost her first tooth, and made the honor roll with straight A's.  She's growing up ... 

too fast.

We had her birthday party at our new house, and Cassidy and Jeff went bigger and better with the birthday bounce house ... as big as possible for our yard and complete with a water slide.

 

 

 

We had a fantastic turnout with 18 first graders and a couple of their siblings.  The weather held out with only a short burst of rain, and the thunder holding off until we were ready to have cake.  The downpour started shortly after everyone left!

 

Cassidy lost her first tooth in september, just after her birthday.  The toothfairy brought her $1 and an Elsa Dress. (Apparently the tooth fairy is very generous on the first tooth, or so Cassidy explained to us after her friends lost teeth.)

Cassidy's adjusted well to first grade.  She's got 1-2 hours of homework each night (yes, you read that right).  Nana picks her up monday - thursday and gets her going on homework after school so our evenings aren't so rushed. (I don't know how we'd do it without Nana!)  She's got spelling, vocabulary, and Math tests each week, with the occasional reading test thrown in too.

And she's excelling.  Cassidy earned all A's and all S's (satisfactory) on her first report card.  She got awards for the honor roll, perfect attendance, and a "mustang award" for always doing her best.

She's also a fantastic big sister.  She loves to entertain Chloe with crazy dances, songs, giggles, tickles, and anything else needed to get a smile.

 

 

 

Cassidy is amazing.  She is smart, friendly, outgoing, funny, independent, caring, and a complete joy to be around (most of the time!) 

 

I am so, so proud of her.

So proud to be her Mama.

 

 

My big six year old.

 

Building Immunity

Chloe made it one week into daycare before her immune system began the torturous process of making antibodies.  The congestion and nasty diapers started the Sunday after her first week.  After a week of this, we started major spit ups after coughing and gagging on mucus.  The trip to the pediatrician concluded, "yep, she's got a virus.  It'll run it's course in 1-2 weeks."

We were back to normal for about four days with only a little congestion when she had several major spit ups overnight.  After her spitting up on a regular basis for the past two weeks, I didn't think anything of it.... until the next morning when daycare called 45 minutes after I dropped her off and said she had thrown up all over her bed.

So we faced her first stomach virus this past Friday.  We did a lot of laundry, mopped a lot of floors, wiped down the house with Clorox wipes, washed hands in scalding hot water, and gave Baxter a bath...yes, he got puked on too.  Another trip to the pediatrician when the diarrhea started Saturday morning told us we were doing everything right, she wasn't dehydrated, and she should be on the mend soon.  After a few more rounds of throwing up after eating, we decreased the amount we let her eat at once to let her irritated stomach recover.  The diarrhea didn't last long once we got the throwing up to stop and she was pretty much recovered by Sunday ... when Nana started throwing up.

Fun times on Mommy's birthday!  But at least we aren't evacuated for a hurricane!!!
 

Four Months

Chloe's now 4 months old.  She's still breastfeeding well and growing fast!  Her weigh in at her checkup put her at 11 pounds 11 ounces, which puts her up a little on her preemie growth curve at around 50%.  But more exciting is that she's now on the normal growth chart for weight at 5%!!!  She's measuring 22.5 inches which is right in line with her growth curve for height, but doesn't make the normal chart yet... Not surprising.  

She handled her four month vaccinations like a champ with a good loud cry and quickly settled down afterwards.  For the next day or two she was extra sleepy, but we didn't need the Tylenol this time around.  She may have run a low grade fever the following day, but it wasn't bad enough for me to even check her temperature.  

Chloe had a trial day at her daycare last Monday for about 4 hours and did fine.  Today she is there for her first full day and my heart broke a little when (okay, a lot) when I left her there.  Whether it's because I'm exclusively breast feeding this time around, been home for a bit longer with her, or because she was so premature, it was much more difficult to leave her today than I remember it being with Cassidy.

 

We are starting to see longer sleep times now.  We've been bouncing from eating every 3 hours each night to a 4-5 hour stretch here and there.  Last night we set a new record!  Chloe slept from 8:30pm until 4:20am, nursed, and then went right back to sleep from 4:45am until 7:45am!!!!!!!  Yippee!!! Hopefully she will do it again!

 

She also napped in her crib for about an hour yesterday morning.  Until now, she's been sleeping like a newborn with cat naps throughout the day in between short periods of alertness and eating.  I'd like to see her on a schedule with a morning and afternoon nap in her crib.  Her daycare is supportive for whatever we'd like to do, so we will just have to wait and see how that works out...

 

Naps on the weekends are tough though.  We are on the go so much, doing things with Cassidy, that naps often happen in the car seat, stroller, or carrier against mommy.

 

First Grader!

Cassidy's a first grader!  Where has the time gone?  With a crazy summer including a little sister, a move to a new house, and 8 weeks at various summer camps including Camp Invention, Longue Vieu Gardens, Children's Museum, and Gymnastics Camp, the time has flown by.

 

 

Ten Pounds!

Today Chloe weighed in at the dermatologist at 10 pounds!  We got our prescription for propranolol, so Saturday morning we will head to the pediatric ER for her first dose.  While the doctor said it's probably unnecessary, she recommended that we give Chloe the first dose of her medicine near the ER just in case there was a problem.  That's just a little unnerving.

Goodbye Sake

Today we said goodbye to Sake.  In addition to the problems with anxiety and destruction, the move to the new house brought about physical problems in the form of stairs. Sake struggled on hardwood floors in the best of times.  Add in the cone of shame, anti anxiety meds, and an old dog and we ended up with a major obstacle of three sets of hardwood stairs.  We couldn't trust her by herself, but getting her up the stairs and back down again multiple times a night proved to be more than we could take.  Watching her slide backwards down the four steps leading to the kitchen and landing with her legs splayed out to each side this morning reinforced the decision we came to at about 4 am....  It was time.

Goodbye Sake.

Weighing in...

Things have been crazy here, to say the least.  Chloe is doing well ... Nursing every 1.5-2 hours during the day and drinking a breastmilk bottle every 3 hours at night.  Here's a look at her progress ...

8 week visit... 6lbs, 13 oz

10 weeks 3 days weight check ... 7 lbs 13 oz

11 weeks 2 days cardiologist visit... 8lbs 2.5 oz!

Yes, cardiologist.  We've been visiting a pediatric dermatologist to arrange treatment for her hemangioma, which is growing, but not at a scary pace.  We are planning to treat with a drug called propranolol, which is a blood pressure medicine.  Before using this medicine, we had to have Chloe's heart checked because certain heart problems would preclude the use of the propranolol.  So Chloe had an EKG last week, which came back abnormal.  So today we followed up with an echo and consult with a cardiologist.  Thankfully, the echo came back normal, the doctor said that EKGs can be very misleading and unreliable, and that he would totally feel confident treating with propranolol as it's very safe, has a good track record, and will be used at a very low dose.  He also reassured me that treatment of her hemangioma is absolutely necessary because of its proximity to her eye.  I've been on the fence about treating it because it seems more of a cosmetic issue than anything.  However, the cardiologist agreed with the dermatologist that it's medically necessary.  

Because of her young gestational (corrected) age and her size, the dermatologist wanted to wait a bit before starting the propranolol.  In the mean time, we are treating the hemangioma topically with timidol (a glaucoma medicine) and clobetasol (a strong steroid).  We visit the dermatologist again next week, and I'd imagine they'll prescribe the propranolol now that we've got the all clear from the cardiologist.

On top of the doctors visits ... We've bought a new home!  We've been thinking of moving on and off since shortly after moving her in 2004.  We were even under contract for a house in New Orleans in 2006 or 2007( I don't exactly remember when) but that fell through because our house didn't sell in time.  In retrospect, that was for the best because Cassidy joined us in 2008 and now attends M.A. which requires us to stay in jefferson parish and with the addition of Chloe, we surely would have outgrown that house.  So our ideal choice of neighborhood and home has changed a bit over time, but we've still been house shopping.    

With the expectation of Chloe's arrival, we began looking again.  After Chloe's arrival and admission to the NICU, we found a house we liked as it had both a mother in law apartment and a pool.  Jeff insisted that before we did anything, we needed to look at some other houses that were on the market.  I agreed.  Well, we walked into our new home and all thoughts of buying the first house vanished.  This feeling grew as I explored further, finding a master bedroom, bath, and den on the ground floor that would work well as a mother-in-law suite!  I fell completely in love with this house.  We decided to go for it with the agreement that after our home sells, we will put in the swimming pool that Jeff has always wanted.  

So my free time ... Between nursing, pumping, changing diapers, and sleeping, my time has been dedicated to purging our house of things we don't need, and packing up what we will keep.  The movers come next week thursday, but we will move a few of the difficult to pack things this weekend.

Because what better time to move than when you have a preemie newborn at home?!

In addition to the madness of moving, Cassidy has started having some adjustment issues which show up mostly at night.  She's struggling to sleep at night after she wakes in the middle of the night.  It started out with her waking several times and then progressed to being unable to fall back asleep and crying in her bed for us for hours.  Actually I should say screaming.  (No, we don't let her cry by herself for hours on end.  Part of me thinks that might actually work because then she wouldn't be rewarded with attention for her behavior, but I also worry it will add to her feeling that Chloe gets all the attention and damage her psychologically).  On a few nights, she was awake from 1am until 7am when she got up for camp.  Honestly, I don't know how she was functioning during the day.  I couldn't have.  Because of her difficult time staying asleep and going back to sleep, she's showing some anxiety before bedtime also. 

I've been making an extra effort to spend quality time with Cassidy, both with and without Chloe around.  I've also been trying really hard not to always put Chloe first, which is very difficult when Cassidy is asking for help with what seems to me to be trivial, but to her is very important.  She is still very excited and helpful with Chloe, but has started making comments about Chloe getting all the attention and Chloe always coming first. 

And then there's Sake. 

Sake had surgery to remove 3 masses a couple months back while Chloe was in the NICU.  While removing a growth on her tongue, they found aggressive Squamous Cell Carcinoma under her tongue.  The prognosis is not good... 3-4 months left.  Well since her surgery when she had a mass on her leg removed, she's been wearing a cone on her head to keep her from opening her leg wound.  She had laser treatments to help it heal faster, but she opened it back up the first chance she got when we took her cone off for her to eat.  At first Sake just laid around with her cone on looking pathetic and sad.  She's now adjusted to it and we are on cone number 2 because the first one cracked in half.  The dog is like a wrecking ball with this thing on.  She head butts everything (deliberately), including us, and we all have bruised thighs from her "affection".  She's showing extreme anxiety and is continuing to be destructive during thunderstorms.  We've started putting the dogs in a baby gate circle now to try to limit her access to walls, doors, and all the boxes, both packed and unpacked.  This contained Sake exactly 0 times when a storm came while we were out.  We came home to boxes and packing paper tossed around the room.  In fact, I could only open the door about 6 inches so Cassidy had to shimmy through and clear the debris in front of the door for me to get in.

Aside from the cone and the leg, Sake seems to be feeling okay.  She's eating well (actually better than ever because following her surgery, she had soft food.  Since weaning off the soft food, we've been putting warm water and peanut butter in with her food.)  So because her quality of life is still okay, I can't justify putting her down despite the destructive behaviors even though I know her time is limited anyway.  But coming home to destruction every time it storms (which is pretty much every afternoon during summer) is getting really old.  And the thought of moving her to the new house just makes me cringe.  

So any advice?  What do I do with Sake?

Chloe's 8 week doctor visit

6 pounds, 13 ounces

Everything is looking good!

Genetics

Check out these pictures ... 

Can you tell who's who?  

Could you tell without Chloe's birthmark?

7 week weigh in

Chloe is up to 6 pounds!

We are settling into a routine which is mostly made up of nursing, bottle feeding, and pumping with a whopping helping of sleep deprivation.  The sleep situation isn't working out so well because even when Chloe is asleep, her noises keep us up.  We've tried a rock and sleep as another option which worked okay for a couple of nights, but then we had some really rough nights too.  I'm not completely comfortable with the safety of the rock and sleep, so we may be returning it since it doesn't seem to make a huge difference.  We plan to try the bassinet again with it moved farther away from the bed.  If that's still proves too noisy for us to sleep, we will have to move Chloe into the crib in her own bedroom.  

Weight Check

Chloe is six weeks old, gaining weight nicely, and staying right in the middle of her growth curve.

5 pounds 10 ounces!

Chloe is outgrowing some of her preemie clothes!  We've graduated to newborn diapers and newborn sleep n plays, which are a bit baggy, but at least her feet aren't wedged into them.

We've changed a couple of things after talking with Dr. B.  over the past week, Chloe's tolerance for the Neosure has decreased.  She consistently drinks about half as much of it as the breastmilk.  Since we put her vitamins in the formula, she's never getting a full dose.  In addition, she has started spitting up after almost every formula bottle.  And when I say "spitting up",  I don't mean a little dribble down her chin.  One time that stuff spewed from her mouth in an arc and landed a good two feet away (picture one of those fountains where an angel spits water out of her mouth, and you have my little Chloe!)

So the plan is breastmilk only and return next Monday for another weight check.

Chloe's First Pediatrician Visit (5 weeks, 1 day; corrected age 35weeks 3 days gestation)

Weight: 5 pounds 4.8 ounces!

Dr. B. said continue what we are doing because Chloe looks great!  He approved adding more nursing sessions gradually with the intent to eventually phase out the supplemental breast milk bottles. We will be continuing the neosure either another two months, or until she's 2 months old... I'm unsure which.  We will also continue the polyvisol vitamins with iron once a day indefinitely.  We go back next week for another weight check and then our 8 week well visit at the end of May.

We also will discuss the strawberry hemangioma on Chloe's forehead when we go back for our 8 week visit.  Dr. B. said there is a new treatment available using a heart medicine which has the side effect of shrinking hemangiomas, but he's unsure about the age to start in a preemie.  The alternative is just to let it run its course during which it will likely grow until she's 1 year old.  At that time, they generally shrink to some degree throughout childhood, but there is no guaranty it will go away.  At that point the only option would be surgical which would likely lead to some scarring.  So we need to decide if the risk of medicine side effects with treatment are worth it or not.

Chloe Comes Home!

Chloe came home on Friday at 34 weeks, 6 days gestational age.  We can't believe how well she's doing!  In fact, I was completely speechless on Tuesday when the doctor said she would be ready to come home on Thursday.  She ended up staying one extra night because of a slight drop in heart rate on Wednesday night but got the all clear for a Friday departure. At discharge, she weighed in at 4 pounds 13.6 ounces and measured 17.72 inches long.

So she's home.  Both exciting and terrifying!   Mostly my concern is with feeding her because her suck swallow breathe combination is not very coordinated yet.  This means a lot of breath holding, a lot of gasping, some really long pauses in breathing which occasionally need reminding to resume, and a bit of choking.... Kind of stressful. She's nursing well with a nipple shield to help her latch on, but not strong enough to nurse exclusively.  She eats every 3 hours (whether she's giving cues or not, which means we set an alarm clock at night to wake up and feed her at 11, 2am, and 5am.).  We've settled into a pattern of nursing her every other feeding during the day, followed by a bottle of breastmilk, followed by pumping.  This becomes something of a process when done every three hours, which is why I don't nurse her at night.  She's also getting a high calorie formula twice a day to help her gain weight.

Our first night was pretty rough, but the next two were better.  Part of the roughness is that Chloe is sleeping in a bassinet next to our bed.  And she's a very noisy sleeper just like Cassidy was.  The girl grunts and groans. All. Night. Long.  Combine this with me being a light sleeper with mama radar fully engaged, and I get about 2 hours of sleep in 15 minute increments.  Over the past two nights I've devised a sleeping position involving a pillow strategically folded around my head to block out all but the real crying.  Last night there was a good stretch of about an hour when Chloe was really quiet with hardly a wimper ...I got up to check on her breathing three times.

Cassidy is a fantastic big sister and very helpful.  She soothes Chloe during diaper changes, throws diapers in the diaper genie for me, fetches things from Chloe's room, and holds her.  She's doing as well on patience as can be expected from a five year old.  Actually, that's not true... She's wonderful.  Better than I expected!

Our first pediatrician appointment is tomorrow when hopefully we will get the go ahead to drop out some of the supplemental bottles and move to more exclusive nursing.

Four Weeks

So soon?

Did you notice anything different about Chloe?  That's right ... No feeding tube!!!  They've stopped her caffeine, she's taking a bottle every three hours now, and she's nursed three times!  She gets tired out very quickly, so we are nursing once a day and following the nursing with a bottle, which she's usually to sleepy to take.  She's up to 4 pounds 10 ounces now and at 34 weeks gestational age... And tomorrow she's 4 weeks old!

Our primary nurse said that Chloe may be able to come home later this week or early next week!  How scary and exciting is that?!

Sisters

 

 

 

 

Refined Palate

We think we've figured out the bottle feeding issue....  The lactation counselor and nurse noticed that Chloe's refusal of the bottle began when they started using breastmilk which had been frozen.  We tested the theory today.  I pumped immediately before her 11 am bottle and she drank it all.  No problem.  She's a picky eater already!

Chloe Update

4 pounds, 5.5 ounces today!

Chloe had been taking her bottles really well, drinking more than an ounce in about 10 minutes.  So they increased bottle feeds to four times a day.  However, she's refused her last 3 bottles and they had to use the feeding tube.  The nurse says it's nothing to worry about and she maybe just needs a bit of time.  OT will start working with Chloe a few times a week on sucking from a bottle.

Weddings and All Things Princess ... aka Damn You, Disney.

Since starting Kindergarten and deciding she loves all things princess, Cassidy's been talking about weddings.  She has weddings for her Barbie dolls, watches Cinderella over and over, and talks about who she will marry.  I blame Disney.  For a good amount of the year, she's been planning to marry a boy named Glenn Paul from her class.  She came home one day talking about him being her boyfriend.... And said that he kisses her ...  On the mouth.  

And then my head felt like it was going to explode.

She's in kindergarten!!!  

She's five!!  

We quickly had a talk about the kissing and said NO kissing on the mouth.  If he tries to kiss her, we said she could tell him to kiss her on the cheek.  Or hug.  BUT NO KISSING ON THE MOUTH!

This lasted until last week or so when one night at bedtime, she looked seroiusly at me while laying on her bed, bouncing one leg crossed over the other, and said, "I've decided not to marry Glenn Paul."  While swallowing my smile, I gave a quick mental cheer and "thank you god", I solemnly asked, "oh?  Why not?"  Cassidy said, "he's just too crazy.  A little crazy is okay, but he acts crazy all the time."  I nodded and agreed with her.  Then she said, "I'm going to marry William instead."  

Hmmmmph.  I'm now having nightmares about her sneaking out of the house as a teenager to meet boys on bourbon street.

Anyway, two of Jeff's friends from soccer got married in the French quarter this weekend and we brought Cassidy to the wedding with us even though it would be a late night.  She was entranced during the short rooftop ceremony, complete with a setting sun.  She was very excited to watch all the wedding party dances, especially the bride and grooms first dance.  She drank kiddy cocktails from the bar and danced until her feet got sore!  

And then Daddy carried barefoot Cassidy to the car for the ride home.

I'm afraid we've added to the enchantment of all things weddings and princess.  

Damn you, Disney.