Time Flies...

I can't believe how quickly the time is passing us by.  I looked today and realized it had been over a month since I last posted.

Things are pretty much the same around here - I haven't got a lot of updates.  Miss Sunshine has been complaining increasingly of her legs hurting, especially at night.  She has been diagnosed in the past with growing pains, and we believe this is what we are again experiencing - she grew two inches between July and October!  In fact, when we went in October for a visit, she had broken 30 pounds (finally!) and was almost 31 pounds, and was 39 inches tall.  That has moved her up to the 22 and 47th percentiles, respectively.  Considering that she was in the 5th and 12th percentiles at her 3 year well child check - we are ECSTATIC!  She's FINALLY gaining ground.  Everything else has been business as usual with her - she had a fantastic report at the dentist office last week.  She will go back to our local ENT in February, along with her yearly physical and immunizations.  We hope that her tubes continue to function, and in absence of that, that she would test negative for fluid so that another surgery would not be necessary.  They are keeping a close eye on her tonsils, as they are anatomically enlarged (this is their natural size) and could cause problems down the road.  We of course do not want them to be removed unless necessary, but neither do we want to face possible breathing problems.  She has Daddy to thank for those huge tonsils - his are crazy big as well.

Monster Boy has been our health issue child lately!  I did get a referral to see a pediatric allergist when I took him in for his school physical in August.  He literally breaks out from everything.  I can't use any kind of fabric softener, and we are limited to two kinds of detergent, both of which are expensive.  He can't use any kind of sunscreen at all - he has a photoallergic reaction with them, meaning that while indoors the sunscreen has no effect on him, but once he gets in the sun, he has an allergic reaction to the chemical reaction that occurs when the sun is combined with the sunscreen.  We are thankful that he is dark complected so burns are less of  concern for us, and we use sunshirts instead of sunscreen to protect his skin as much as possible.  Well, when we went to the allergist, I was expecting to get a laundry list of allergies.  We didn't get that at all! He only had one reaction, to dust mites.  However, we did find out that he has asthma!  I felt badly about that - after all, he is almost eight years old - how did I miss that?  He has a very mild form of asthma, almost borderline.  He has been prescribed a rescue inhaler, along with a daily dose of Zyrtec.  Its likely that the dust mite allergy is the cause behind his asthma, and the hope is that the daily dose of Zyrtec will control the allergy enough to rid him of the asthma.  We go back later this month for a follow up test on that.  He is doing amazingly well at school - in fact, they wrote up an IEP for him to get advanced level work in all core areas!  He tested beyond END of year expectations in Reading, English, and Math at the BEGINNING of this school year.  He is reading at nearly a fifth grade level.  He is so incredibly smart, we are so very proud of him.  Discipline wise he has been doing much better at school this year as well, although we do need to work on his talking out of turn in class.  That is about the only thing he ever gets in trouble for, but it's on a pretty much daily basis. 

I got admitted to the nursing program, and will start my clinicals in January.  I am excited and nervous, and have a lot to get done between now and then.  Fingers crossed that I get everything handled I need to!  Other than that, things are going well for us now.  I will try to not shirk so much through the holidays, but I make no promises.  I will continue to update as we learn more on Miss Sunshine and where we go from here with her cleft.