Night Terrors....

In addition to pink eye (Paige and Rose), colds, coughing, and an ear infection (Paige) affecting our sleep, Paige has been having night terrors once a night for about a week. She wakes up about 45 minutes to an hour after falling asleep and is totally unconsolable, confused, crying, yelling, squirming, and completely drenched in sweat. To clarify, they aren't the same as nightmares. She sometimes has her eyes open, sometimes not. She yells "I want my mommy!" when I'm already there. It is impossible to calm her down as she doesn't even know what is going on. Here is a more concise definition of night terrors:

"Children from age two to six are most prone to night terrors, and they affect about fifteen percent of all children,[1] although people of any age may experience them. Episodes may recur for a couple of weeks then suddenly disappear. The symptoms also tend to be different, like the child being unable to recall the experience, and while nearly arisen, hallucinate. Children who have night terrors are usually described as 'bolting upright' with their eyes wide open, with a look of fear and panic, and will often scream. They will usually sweat, breathe fast and have a rapid heart rate (autonomic signs). Although it seems like children are awake during a night terror, they will appear confused, will not be consolable and will not recognize others. Strong evidence has shown that a predisposition to night terrors and other parasomniac disorders can be passed genetically. Though there are a multitude of triggers, emotional stress during the previous day and a high fever are thought to precipitate most episodes. Ensuring the right amount of sleep is an important factor. Special consideration must be used when the subject suffers from narcolepsy, as there may be a link"

She has been having a lot of fevers lately, due to illness, which I assume is the trigger of these episodes. Also, another source claims that pain due to ear infections can cause it as well. The other interesting thing, as it says above, is that it can be passed genetically. Apparently Mike and Jen used to sleepwalk like crazy when kids, and Mike still talks in his sleep.

The toughest thing about it, besides the fact that it wakes Rose up, is that you can't do anything. Talking to her, trying to snap her out of it, yelling at her over her crying, and other measures only seem to make it worse. I have found that if I can get her to drink some water, or change her sweaty shirt, she will seem to calm down and fall right back to sleep, but this take about 10 or 15 minutes. I'm pretty shocked that this is happening at all, let alone once a night like clockwork. Every night I am so tired that I try to get into bed at 9:00 and it ends up being around 10:45 after I have dealt with Paige and Rose and their various issues. We had to laugh about it last night since it has been a really really rough 2 weeks. I can't even imagine that one day Rose will sleep through the night and we will all sleep all night again. It seems impossible.

Update! After Paige began her antibiotics for the ear infection, I am pleased to report that the night terrors have stopped (for now). I assume that is what was triggering them.

Laughing....

Downward dog...

Santa by Firetruck...

This morning we left the house early, braving the fog, to go to Burlington Mall where Santa was arriving for the season via helicopter. The whole way there we were wondering whether helicopters could fly in intense fog. Apparently not. Santa arrived via firetruck, which wasn't as exciting since we'd built up the whole "helicopter up close and personal" thing for Paige (And I bet Santa was a bit dissapointed too). It was still interesting to hear the Scottish band, and drink some free hot chocolate. Also, crisp fresh air is always nice when you're dressed appropriately. We didn't go in the mall to see santa yet. We'll wait a few weeks for that.

Sleep sack...

Basically a baby sleeping bag, it takes the guess work out of whether she is too hot or too cold, and prevents her from coming out of her blankets at night. Also, it's reassuring to know that she won't ever pull the blankets over her face. The sleep sacks come in various "togs" which is a measurement of the warmth, just like there are different thicknesses of duvets. This one is a 2.5 tog which is for room temperatures of 16-20 I think. That's the thickest. Our house is usually that temperature since we have AC in the summer anyway. Before feeding her for the night I zip her in, and then there's no swaddling involved when I place her in her bed. She seems to like it and can still move around, even flip over if she wants to, and you can see she can sit up in it too. The best part is that it is for 6-18 months. They just wear it really long, which is totally fine. Good thing it'll last that long since it was almost $75 with tax. Yikes! It may just be a fluke, but the second night in, she slept all night long, and that hasn't happened in a few weeks.

So sweet...

Paige's first eye exam!

I'm sorry the photo is blurry, but I had drops in my eyes and I didn't notice the photo I had taken was blurry! I assumed it was only my blurry vision!

Every time I take Paige to a new appointment it is the cutest experience. She is so so so good at appointments that it makes it quite a fun experience. I just get to sit back and let them tell me how well behaved my child is, and watch how cute she is. I think it helps that she has always had an appointment in combination with an appointment for me, so she can see what is involved and how relaxed I am. And for the past 3 years she has been dragged along to various dental, OB, and doctor appointments.

So anyway, today was her first visit....a lot earlier than my first eye doctor visit at the age of 20ish. After they checked my vision and got my eye drops going, Paige was up in the chair. Her eye exam was a simplified version for kids which involved looking at and naming pictures, rather than reading letters. She was too smart and kept looking backwards at the wall where the real projection was instead of in the mirror. She also got drops in her eyes, which surprised and scared her a bit, and had her eyes further examined. Everything is fine so far, but she does have a bit of astigmatism in the same pattern and eye as mine. Her vision was 20-30 which is normal for kids, and she tested well in everything else. She was so well behaved and cooperative that the eye doctor did the glaucoma test and pictures of her eyes with the camera. The ladies from reception came over and said "you don't understand, this NEVER happens with 3 year olds....we can never do these tests". I guess the kids are usually too squirmy and don't keep their eyes open or also open their mouths wide along with their eyes. Mommy was so proud.

Paige was quite excited to see her pupils dilated and said, "I can't wait to tell Daddy that my eyes grew!" It was funny to see her normally large eyes with huge black pupils as well.

Geekery...

I have the iPhone and Mike has the iPod Touch. With these devices we have access to our email, internet, calculators, GPS, etc. And of course all of the cool and fun apps. You may remember how I mentioned that I used the Photo Booth and Hipstomatic apps to take those cool photos. So there are apps like that, and then there are games. Mike and I have become addicted to a few games. We both play City Story, and starting this morning, Empire story. I also play Farm Story and maintain 2 farms on both of our devices. Sad, I know. I have a lot more time during the day to play these games usually when I am feeding Rose, and a few quick checks during the day) so I am a bit further ahead then Mike. They are quite simple and only involve planting crops, maintaining contracts or selling items to make money. Then you can buy cool buildings and decorations and expand to make your farm/city/empire even sweeter! They are addictive because you don't have to devote very much time to it all at once. You also need to make friends in the game and help them to water crops or clean buildings. The object of each game is to reach level 75.

Here is my level 50 city:

Mike's empire at level 7:

And my farm at level 47:

Oh how I would love for you all to see it in it's full glory when the grapes were ripe and the red quinoa was in full bloom....

Every night before we turn out the lights in bed we have to check on our cities and farms and prepare them for the night by adding 8-12 hour contracts or crops that won't expire or wilt before the morning (although I can often tend to them in the middle of the night). We say things like "did you see my eco condos?", and "look at this sweet river". I'm not sure what is sadder...that, or the fact that you can spend big time money to buy special items, which at the end of the day are just virtual pictures. OR, the fact that we've discussed buying itunes gift certificates for each other for Christmas so we CAN buy these virtual non-existent items, for the mere pleasure of seeing cool things in our cities.

And she grew and grew and grew!

Rose had her 6 month appointment last week. No shots this time as we are still 1.5 months behind on the schedule. Her stats were as follows:

Height: 25.9 inches
Weight: just over 18 lbs.
Head circumference: 42cm

Passport photos...

I took Paige and Rose to get their passport photos this morning. It was semi disastrous...and not on the part of the girls. First they had on white shirts which was not allowed (makes sense to avoid ghost head), so we had to go home to get darker shirts. Then there was a problem with the camera to take the photos and then it took a long time for them to develop. Rose started to get a bit fussy while we were waiting, but they did great considering the whole ordeal took about an hour!!

Where are we going you may ask?? Disneyworld! Mike finally got around to mentioning the fact that he had a conference in...ahem... ORLANDO!! He will work for about 3.5 days and then we'll go to a couple of theme parks, have a character breakfast etc. It only made sense for us to tag along, but we wouldn't have gone otherwise. Now we have an excuse! We'll be booking a 1 bedroom villa with kitchen so we have a place for Rose to nap during the day, and we can eat most of our meals at "home".

So now I am eagerly anticipating the arrival of our free "Disney Vacation Planning DVD"

Crawling 101

Various attempts at movement. All result in backward scoots and frustration...