big head......

so in addition to casey's ear infection woes, the doctor was also a little concerned about her head size......apparently she has been on one "curve" all along, and at her appointment last week she jumped to the next curve.......both curves are within the normal range, but apparently it's bizarre that at this age for them to jump up a curve.......so the doctor arranged for casey to have an ultrasound done on her head.......apparently because the soft spot hasn't completely closed yet, they can do the ultrasound (otherwise they'd have to sedate her and do a CAT scan - that's why the doc didn't want to wait, she didn't want her to be sedated).......the doc was worried about something called hydrocephalis - basically it's when a ventricle in the brain gets blocked and doesn't drain the fluid right, causing the fluid to leak out.......in babies this results in their head getting bigger, because it hasn't "set" yet........if it is hydrocephalis, then they have to do surgery to put a shunt in to help the ventricle drain properly........so some serious stuff.......anyway, she had her ultrasound today and both the technician and the ultrasound doc said everything looked totally normal and ruled out hydrocephalis.......apparently she's just taking after her dad and getting a big head.......i'm so crazy relieved.......it was so scary thinking something serious was wrong with her.......i know i'll go through this about a million more times in my journey as a mom so i better get used to the anxiety!.......

baby #2

so yes, it's confirmed, baby #2 is on the way.......i'll be starting week 7 tomorrow.......i have a meet & greet appointment with a midwife's office tomorrow.......i guess my idea of them being a "breathe through the pain" kind of place wasn't accurate........if they're ok with me having drugs, then i'm ok with them.......so we'll see how that goes......they don't have any late or weekend hours, which will make it hard for steve to ever get to go, but aside from hearing the heartbeat, they're relatively boring appointments......other downside is that they deliver at south shore hospital, which i think we were hoping not to deliver at this time around, but i guess we could deal with it as long as the midwife place was solid.......hopefully there'll be a different anathesiologist on the day we deliver so steve can avoid a fist fight in the delivery room.......

i'm convinced baby #2 is going to be a boy.......i'm STARVING ALL THE TIME.......which i definitely don't remember being with casey.......i could literally eat 6 full size meals if i let myself......it's really out of control at this point.......i'm only 7 weeks, and i'm afraid to weigh myself!!.......and i've also been really tired (which i was with casey too) and kind of nauseous all the time (which i don't think i was as much with casey).......so i'm sure i'll be wrong (again!), but i'm saying boy all the way this time!......

freckles......

i was feeding casey today and realized she's got some freckles.......they're so light and tiny you wouldn't notice them if you weren't looking closely, but they're there!......just when i thought she couldn't get any cuter!......

vacation & ear infections.......

a couple weeks back, we spent a week in the cayman islands to celebrate steve's cousin mike's wedding to ilana......it was a beautiful ceremony overlooking the ocean.......casey had a great time walking around looking and smiling at everyone.......after a stressful morning getting to the airport with 2 suitcases, 2 carryons, a diaper bag, a stroller, and a carseat, the flight down to the cayman's was relatively uneventful......casey was fantastic and hardly made a peep......she only napped for about a 1/2 hour but wasn't cranky so all was good......the crib they had for her at the hotel was about 3" longer than her and maybe 6" wider, so small in other words......after the first night (which went horribly) she seemed ok sleeping in it......naps were spent in her stroller, one of the three items we couldn't have vacationed without (the other two items were casey's toy aquarium and casey's sunscreen)......speaking of sunscreen......casey got a pretty bad burn around her eyes the first day we were there.......didn't think to put it so close to her eyes.......so she looked like the tough baby that got into a fight and had two "red" eyes........we learned our lesson and kept her bathed in sunscreen the rest of the trip........casey developed a bit of a cold about 1/2 way through our trip - runny nose and a cough......the day before we left to go home, we were running low on formula and decided it might be a good time to introduce milk.......as soon as we started giving her the milk casey turned SUPER cranky (to the point of being inconsolable), didn't want to finish her bottles, refused to eat solid foods, got lethargic and wanted to sleep all the time, and had VERY runny poopy diapers.......made for a delightful flight home......actually she slept about 2 hours on the flight, but the rest of the time was pretty whiny......i assumed a milk allergy or lactose intolerance......we switched back to all formula but when that didn't really help, we knew something was wrong......took her to the doctors and found out she had a double ear infection.......lovely.......so we started her on amoxicilian which helped almost immediately, and now with only one more day of medicine to go, she's pretty much back to her normal happy smiley self......thank god!.......