Lexi Is Such A Good Helper

We had what I would call the perfect New England snow storm this weekend. The snow started on Friday morning, but it wasn't bad enough to keep Lexi, Gigi and I from getting a little shopping in before lunch. By the afternoon it really started coming down, and Ahren left work early to avoid a miserable commute. The misery was not completely avoided, but we had him home early so Lexi and I were happy. :)
I would guess we woke up to about 8 inches of snow on Saturday morning...enough for Ahren to get the snow blower out which meant that Lexi and I only had to do a little bit of cleaning up. Lexi LOVES to shovel. As soon as she sees one flake of snow fall from the sky she immediately begins talking about how we have to put our stuff on and go out to shovel. She has her own shovel, and actually does a pretty good job for a 2 year old! On this day, by the time Lexi and I got out to help Daddy, all the snow was perfectly removed from the driveway and there wasn't much for Lexi to do. No fear...no one has yet taught her that the goal of shovelling was to get the snow off the driveway. There was plenty of snow NEXT to the driveway that could be shovelled, and a nice clean driveway to deposit her piles...

Afterwards Lexi and Daddy went off to build a snowman. However, it turns out that the snow was not wet enough for a snowman, so they decided to make a fort instead. Once I discovered that the purpose of the fort was to store the snowballs they planned to throw at me, I went in for the day... :)

Bedtime Routine

Lexi has gotten better and worse about going to bed. We were in a terrible phase a few weeks/months ago where I (and only I) had to rock her to sleep every night. This would often take a long time and started becoming quite frustrating. Even if she would fall asleep in my lap, she would often cry as soon as I put her down...and then she would say, "Rock yourself." It drove me nuts. I would sit in that darn rocking chair for close to an hour some nights.
With Ahren's help we have now gotten (pretty much) out of that habit. She still likes to rock from time to time, but now I can put her in bed awake and leave the room, and most nights she'll go to sleep before I get back to check on her. But now it's the delays that are simply cracking me up...they go something like this every night...
Me: Lexi, why don't you pick out three stories to read for bed.
Lexi: I want four.
...after stories...
Me: Okay, let's get in bed.
Lexi: Wait! I have to rock my lion!
She climbs in the the rocking chair (moving at the speed of cold molasses) puts Lion in her lap, requests a blanket and then very quietly sings "Rock 'a Bye Baby" and "ABCs" to Lion. Then she needs to put him in the cradle and cover him (slowly) with the blanket, a burp cloth, a tissue and a pillow. They must be placed perfectly or she will need to begin the process again. Her baby doll sleeps on the floor...sometimes, if she's lucky, she'll get a blanket.
Lexi: Okay Lion, now close your eyes.
Me: Okay, Lion is asleep, let's get into bed.
Lexi: WAIT!! I want your to rock me first.
Me: Okay, for one minute.
One minute of rocking consists of continuous fidgets because her hands are not folded perfectly, one or more of her feet are out of the blanket, her hair is in her face, my "zip zip" is in the way, she needs to point herself out in the picture hanging on the wall, and she wants to know what I'm doing...every three seconds. Finally...
Me: Okay, let's get into bed.
Lexi: WAIT! I need some purple ointment for my nose so that I can go to sleep. (This is Badger Night Night Cream that is soothing herbs to help her sleep, so I always oblige).
Me: Okay, now let's get into bed.
Lexi: WAIT! You forgot to get me water! I'm really thirsty and I cannot sleep unless I have some water!
Me: F-I-N-E, but this is the last thing. After the water you will get into bed and close your eyes.
Lexi: Okaaaaaay (in a sing-song voice).
She drinks her water and I put her into bed with her covers.
Lexi: I need you to hold my hand.
Me: I'll hold your hand for one minute but then I have to go feed the cats (Taking care of the cats is the only thing she'll let me leave the room for at night - the cats need a LOT of care at night!)
I hold her hand for about thirty seconds and then walk away. As I'm halfway out of her room she calls, "Peter first! Then Charlie!"
Goodnight little one... :)

It's All Fun and Games Until Someone Gets Hurt...

Well, it's fair to say that Lexi had a BLAST with her cousins this weekend. There is nothing more adorable than watching the three of them play together. Somehow Ben was able to escape the camera all weekend (well, my camera at least) but I did get this really adorable video of Lexi, Gigi, Lion (played by Poppy) and Cassie, doing a cute dance...

Sadly, the weekend ended with a bang when Lexi and Cassie were chasing eachother around the house and Lexi tripped and hit her head on the door jam. She got a pretty big gash and it's quite swollen. She's fine, but Mommy keeps making it worse by accidently touching it - it's that Mommy curse of hurting your child when you try to make them feel better...reminds me of the time my dad took me hiking and biffed me in the head with his camera everytime he tried to help me up from a fall...thanks Dad. :)

She fell asleep during dinner and when I brought her up to put her in her bed she mumbled, "I want Poppy to read me stories..." and she was out. We're hoping she sleeps well tonight...she needs it!

Happy Birthday, Gigi!

So Lexi's cold is finally long gone, and the Flovent has left the system - which means that my normally precious little girl is back, and the crazy child who had half hour long tantrums over a brown spot on her banana is gone. Yahoo!! I also took her to see Dr. Annie yesterday for an adjustment - and as always, she already seems to be doing better. She had been walking rather stiffly for the past couple of weeks, and just seemed tighter to me than normal. This morning she is down on her heels more, and her mood is just SO much better!

All of this happened just in time to celebrate Gigi's birthday, and the best news of the day was that Ben and Cassie were coming to visit.

Lexi wanted to paint a card for Gigi's birthday, so we spent some time doing that yesterday morning. This child loves to paint (she must take after her Grammy!), and would probably have painted all day if I'd let her. Here's her "Happy Birthday Gigi" video...

In the evening we all went over to Gigi and Poppy's house for dinner. Lexi was very excited to see her cousins, and they had lots of fun playing together. Lexi and Cassie were happy to pose for the camera, but Ben was being a little shy...

It was a great day, and we're looking forward to spending more fun time with Ben, Cassie and Auntie later this weekend.

Mr. Spider

So, it seems that we have a new pet. Sometime over the summer we noticed a spider on the outside of one of our windows. He had spun a beautiful web over almost the entire window and apparently decided that it was a pretty great spot because that is where he stayed. As the weather got colder and the other outdoor bugs began to die off we were sure that he would eventually head to warmer climates (our basement maybe...), but nope...he just stayed right there on the window. When we put down our storm windows we left that one up for a few weeks longer because we knew once we put the storm window down, the spider and his web would be trapped inside the window. One day after many days of not seeing the spider move at all, and assuming he was dead, Ahren put the storm window down. About a day or so later, the spider moved back out onto his web! I felt awful because I thought we had trapped him there, and surely he would starve to death. We tried feeding him a few bugs that we were able to find, but he wasn't interested. As the weather continued to get colder and colder, we were sure we would eventually find him dead, but here we are, February 10th, and that spider is still there!!

The cats think he's great, Lexi loves her pet "fider", and I really like having him there too. He's very nice looking, and you can get right up to him without getting "freaked out" about a spider in the house...because he's not actually in the house. We don't know how long he'll last...I hope he's still there in the spring so that maybe he'll stay with us for awhile longer. We never thought he'd stick around this long, but he's surprised us. Here's our buddy...

"Mby Ndose"

Poor Lexi is still a little bit sick. The good news is that the fever is gone and she's back to playing and walking around (with just a little less gusto than normal). The bad news is that her nose is still stuffy, her cough is still bothering her, and he lips are so chapped that they look like a snake shedding its skin. Because of her lips and "ndose" she still refuses to drink, which means that we still have to syringe water into her mouth.

Yesterday her Grammy and Grampy came to hang out with her and do some Valentine crafts. She had a lot of fun doing that, and it was nice for Ahren and me to have some time to spend with his parents. Here are some pictures:

Lexi was a little tired after her visit with Grammy and Grampy, so I quickly made some dinner so that she could eat and go to bed. Luckily Grammy brought us a meatloaf, so there was very little prep required. While we were waiting for dinner to be ready Lexi pointed toward the computers and said, "I want _?_"

I guessed, "You want to play on the computer?"

Lexi, "No, __?__"

Ahren, "You want your Alphabet puzzle?"

Lexi, "NO! __?__"

Me again, "You want your strawberry milk"

Lexi, "NO!!! I want...uh...ugh...I can't say it with mby ndose!!!"

Poor kiddo. Hopefully she'll be 100% over this awful cold in another day or two. Luckily for all of us she has been sleeping much better the last couple of nights, which means that her little body can recover, and Mommy's not getting clocked in the face. :)

Safe With Me...

As a Mommy, there is nothing in the world worse than seeing your child sick. When Lexi looks up at me with those sad little eyes and say things like, "I don't feel good. Make my cough go away." it just makes a my heart shatter into a million pieces. It's true, no one wants to see their child in pain, and we'd do anything on earth to avoid it if we could.
But there is also a secret part of the sick child scenario...the part that most mom's don't admit to. It's that first sneeze, or elevated temp that makes us immediately think, "Oh crud, there goes my week!" No, it's not right or even kind, but it's fact - we expect our children to fit into our lives, and when they throw a monkey wrench into the plans, some of us (me) have a hard time dealing with that.
Then, to top it all off, they tend to sleep more during the day then at night, so we now have to do everything on little to no sleep. What time did I give her that Tylenol? Is it time for her Flovent yet...or did I already give it to her?? Which homeopathic remedy works best for a cough with a fever, and do I have that one, and if so how many, and how often do I give it, and oh yea, remember not to let her eat or drink 15 minutes before or after...argh!! It can make a mommy crazy - and these are not things that you want to make mistakes on!
This is the situation I have found myself in this week. After just starting to get caught up at work, Lexi came down with one heck of a virus that has her running a pretty high fever, along with a very nasty and unreleting cough. She's miserable because she doesn't feel good, and I'm miserable because my baby is sick, and the rest of my life is now falling by the wayside...again. Last night was a particularly tough night. She had been waking up about every 5-30 minutes with one problem or another. Daddy just won't do at night, so I had made about my thousanth trip to her bed and back. I climbed back into my bed and rolled over, hoping to get a few good snores in before the next call. Suddenly I heard a noise coming through the monitor that was just...not right. "Chirp chirp chirp..." I glanced over and the lights that indicate the monitor is picking up sound were not reacting. I propped myself up on the pillows to listen harder to what that sound could be. Just then Ahren sat straight up in bed and smacked me across the face.
Me - "Ah! Why did you hit me??"
Ahren - "Huh? Oh...sorry."
Apparently I somehow gave him the sudden impression that I was falling out of bed, and in his attempt to save me, he almost gave me a bloody nose. Since he was awake (or so I thought) I told him about the odd chirping sound coming from the monitor. Now, I watch WAY too much "Ghost Hunters" so this kind of thing obviously has me thinking that the ghost of the previous owner of our house was trying to talk to me through Lexi's monitor. I insisted that he listen to it with me, because I was too scared to hear it alone. I brought the monitor over toward his pillow and we both just listened (with me giving him an occasional poke to ensure he wasn't falling back to sleep). As the sound came in clearer we realized that we were listening to some poor southern fellow singing about his latest lady who done him wrong. Yup, it appears as though our monitor is picking up a country music station... Now reletively confident that the prior owner would not be communicating as a male country music singer, I simply chose to turn down the monitor so I wouldn't have to hear it.
As I snuggled back into bed I told Ahren that I felt silly, but I was still a little creeped out by the monitor issue - that and being smacked across the face out of the blue. As he pulled me in close to make me feel secure he said, "Don't worry honey...you're safe with me. Sort of..." And with that, he drifted back to sleep...and just as I started to dose off as well, I was beckoned back into my baby's room for another nose wipe.

Neurology Visit

Lexi and I had a very busy day this morning. Still feeling really bummed about the very disappointing Pats loss, and quite tired from being up late trying to repair our 30 year old dishwasher (toast), it was not easy to drag ourselves out of bed this morning. Actually, Lexi had no problem at all, Mama was the only one suffering (I'm sure Daddy was too, but I slept through that).
We started the morning with a visit from the PT, who brought a note explaining her evaluation to the neurologist. That was good, because I was not sure I understood the explanation on Friday. While Mary Ellen was working with Lexi, I was chatting with our "handyman" Nate who was explaining that our portable dishwasher that had been serving as a junk holder for the last year, would not easily be converted to an installed dishwasher. This meant that I would spend much of my afternoon purchasing a new dishwasher. Ugh. Lexi did great in PT, and as Mary Ellen was walking out the door, Gigi was walking in, ready to go with us to see Dr. Raffalli. When I told Lexi that we were going to see Dr. Raffalli this morning she said, "Is that the doctor who made Peter better when he was sick?" No, I explained that she would be seeing a human doctor today - not the vet. :)
The visit with Dr. Raffalli went well. He felt as though her feet and hamstrings were tight, and did toy with the idea of doing another MRI. However, by the end of the visit he decided he would just send an e-mail to Dr. Smith (the neurosurgeon) and unless he felt differently, would hold off until our next visit (in six months). I think she was probably tight today because I haven't had her adjusted in many weeks. I usually have her adjusted before any evaluations or doctor's visits to make sure she is as good as can be...things were just too nutty this time. However, Mary Ellen and I have decided that I should have regular, monthly chiro visits for at least the next six months to see if that helps the tone issues she is seeing. I like that suggestion and plan to call Annie to discuss it with her...as soon as I have a second. :)
After our visit with Dr. Raffalli we went out for a nice lunch with Gigi, and then to Lowes for some dishwasher shopping. I'm sure I'll be happier about the new dishwasher when I'm actually using it - right now the whole thing is really annoying me.
Well, I'd love to write more, but Lexi has just informed me that she does not want to nap anymore, so I have to go get her out of bed!!

Lexi's 3rd Early Intervention Evaluation

Today Lexi had her third early intervention evaluation - her first was at 4 months, her second at 17 months, and today was 29 months. It was a nice morning because the eval was done by Mary Ellen (her current PT) and Courtney (her old OT that we haven't seen in a year). The evaluation is basically a big test, where she is tested on the following skill sets: Gross Motor, Fine Motor, Cognitive, Language (expressive and receptive), Self Care and Social Emotional. In order to qualify for services at her age, she needs to be seven months behind her age.


Here's how she scored:

Cognitive - 35 months - Actually, she scored right to the top of the test. Courtney said she is sure she could have gone on, but there was nothing else to test her on. She didn't miss one test in this section! Many of the sections only require two answers, and Lexi gave even more than she needed to (example - can you put the car in, on, under, behind, etc. She only had to do two and she did all four).


Language - Receptive - 31 months and also the top of the test, Expressive - 31 months. Courtney could not give her credit for knowing that she smells with her nose, hears with her ears, etc. because she would not answer that question. She knows this information very well, and actually answered correctly for Gigi about 20 minutes later (out of earshot of the testers). In looking at the test, I know she could have scored 35 months (top of the test) had she not been silly about not answering that question.


Self Care - Average 29 months - Feeding - 33 months, Toileting - 29 months and Dressing - 26 months. I'm not concerned at all about the dressing portion of this skill set. I'm sure she could do the stuff they were asking if I ever gave her a chance...it's one of those things that I do automatically for her all the time. Courtney gave some good suggestions of ways to begin getting her into the habit of doing this stuff herself.


Social Emotional - 34 months. Courtney just laughed and said, "She's a very outgoing kid." No surprises here. :)


Fine Motor - 31 months. The two concerns in this skill set were that she drops her wrist when releasing objects. They said that this is atypical, but it is obviously not effecting her function (as she scored above her age). They noticed it when she was stacking blocks, however she only needed to stack 7, and she was able to stack 12 so they aren't concerned, but they find it interesting. Courtney also noticed that she flares her hand when she reaches out to catch herself if she looses her balance. This is an indication of increased tone, but again she says it's not affecting her function.

Gross Motor - A very surprising 31 months!! Woohoo for Lexi!! This means she has caught up and actually passed her age range! Her last eval at 17 months scored her at 13 months, so this is quite impressive. Again the concern here is the flaring of her hand when she looses balance. Another concern is the weakness in her core (abs) and the stiffness of her hamstrings. These are not surprises...we have known this for some time, and have been working on it. We are meeting with the neurologist on Monday, so it will be good to discuss these tone issues with him.

Overall it was a great evaluation. Although Lexi scored out of qualifying range, we have asked for "Clinical Judgement" which means that she can continue services until August 1st. As far as we're concerned, we may as well continue to work on these weak areas until the resources run out. I was so proud of Lexi today. She deals with these evaluations so well - she is very patient to answer so many questions, and she doesn't get frustrated by the fact that they hand her something, ask her to do something specific with it, and when she does they take it away. She's just such a good natured kid. I will certainly update again on Monday after her appointment with Dr. Raffalli.

Have a great weekend!