fun times......

over the last two weeks or so casey has definitely figured out how to play.......she loves goofing around these days.......loves peek a boo......squeals her head off when she's chased, caught and tickled.......if we sit on the floor she'll run around us and "surprise" us when she gets to the other side.......and the latest is she'll carry around a sofa pillow with her, drop it on the ground and tackle it......face first......it's hysterical........she also loves putting toys from one bucket into another now too, and has FINALLY figured out how to put shapes through the corresponding holes.......pretty close to mastering the nesting blocks too - although she doesn't quite get the order thing yet.......at least she knows the blocks can go back inside each other........
anyway, she's a big ball of fun lately.......giggling her head off and figuring out new games to play......

what a difference a month makes.....

so i was just rereading my last post - and was first horrified it's been over a month since i last related any casey anecdotes, and secondly giggling about how bad casey's sleeping was going last month......giggling because i think pretty much after that last post (the night we re-instituted farber) she's been fine......like absolutely totally fine........back to two very regular two hour naps and bedtime at 8:30......i guess there were a couple weeks where she'd "play" in her crib from 8:30 until 9ish, but not like what was going on around last posting......

in fact, we just got back from a mini-cape vacation down at the cape house for memorial day weekend......steve and i were both very apprehensive about how casey would sleep down there - usually any break in routine - in this case her sleeping in the pack and play - creates havoc that lasts longer than just the trip........but she did fantastic.......aside from about an hour the first night when she woke up around 10 disoriented and kinda freaked out, she was a sleeping angel - for naps and bedtime.......it really made the weekend very stress-free and relaxing......it's great to have a happy kid on a trip........

the only down side of our trip was that merlin got sick......he started not eating and got sick a couple times.......we brought him to angell mspca hospital yesterday morning and he had to stay overnight.......they ruled out pretty much all the serious stuff.......and have narrowed it down to a bacterial infection.......so they gave him some antibiotics and tube fed him and he was doing good yesterday afternoon.......waiting to hear from them this morning to see if he can come home today.......we really missed him last night.......casey kept looking at merlin's cage and saying bird (well, her version of bird anyway which sounds more like "ber") and she was looking for him at bedtime to say goodnight to........she usually blows him a kiss before bed.......it was sad.......but hopefully he'll be home today and back to normal.......i'm so grateful we have such a great animal hospital so close to us.......it's nuts to think that they have doctors so specialized that they just focus on birds.......they administer antibiotics, anesthesia (which luckily so far merlin hasn't needed), do bloodwork, and take xrays all of these tiny little guys.......it's amazing.......

other news since last posting.......casey's first BFF, caroline, and her mom/my friend, maddy, moved to wisconsin.......it was very sad to see them go, but we tried not to tell them that because we knew they were happy about their new journey and didn't want them feeling bad about it.......judging by a facebook picture yesterday, it looks like they made it safely to their new home state.......it's funny that they'll now be living super close to anna and eliza who we were sad moved there about a year ago........i'm glad they'll be reunited!.......and i hope someday all our paths cross again!........it'd be great to have casey and caroline and eliza meet up when they're older - of course they won't remember each other, but we will!!.......

playgroup has ended for the summer which is also a little bummy......casey really enjoyed playing with the other kids and playing on the slide they had there.......of course we did get her a slide for our backyard since she clearly was loving it so much........and it was free!!........this great email group called freecycle is a place where people post things they have to offer or things they need.......so we got this fantastic slide from a woman named amy whose yard was too steep for her kids to use it.......casey loves it........we hope playgroup starts up again in september - right now it's subject to the pending funding........it's such a great thing to have a free place to go where casey can play with other kids.......

let's see what else.......well casey's turned into a very not good eater.......it's not so much about the food as it is about her mood.......she really hates sitting down at the table to eat.......whether it's reading a book or playing with my cell phone, she really needs to be distracted to eat these days.......it's hard to make sure she's not just eating crap like goldfish or pretzel sticks (her current favorites)........although she'd drink ANYTHING we put in a sippy cup........she's nuts about liquids........at least we know she's getting her calories somehow, although she seems a little skinny to me the last few days........so we're trying to get creative and hopefully this finicky stage will pass........

well i guess that's about it for now.......hopefully i won't wait another month to post again!......

i think i got it......

so we're pretty much into the second week of casey being a crazy bad sleeper - not going into her crib for naps and reverting to her napping on me while i get nothing done during naptime, hysterical screaming and crying when we put her to bed, waking up in the middle of the night........we had no idea what was wrong.......she seemed fine when she was awake, not all that cranky and whatnot........took her to the doctors - no sign of new teeth coming through, no fever, no ear infections.......nothing wrong with her.......we've given her tylenol to no avail.......nothing works.......but i think i've figured it out.......separation anxiety has set in........during the day she's been much more clingy to me and freaks out if i'm not in an arm's length of her......she gets hysterical if i go into the kitchen for two seconds and she can't see me.......i think this is a part of it.......she knows that when we get ready to put her to bed that we're going to leave her.......and she is at the age where she knows we still exist after we leave the room and she freaks.......ok, now that we've identified the problem.......what the heck to we do about it????.......we're going back to the old days of the farber method - 3 min, 5 min, 8 min, 10 min, etc.......of letting her cry then going in for 1-2 min to try to calm her down.......tonight we're really trying it - last couple times i broke and picked her up - which really to be honest didn't help at all......took a long time to get her to calm down and then we just started all over again.......better to let her cry it out and tire herself out.......hopefully she'll learn (again) that she needs to go to sleep when she is put in her crib........we're at the 10 minute interval now.......wish us luck!!.......

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!.......