Sweet Yet Sour

Rena is right, I need to do an update.  Sorry! I have been terribly busy, too busy to even think about writing an update blog.  We’ll start with the update on Anna, and then when I have time I’ll update you on Mike and I…

First, I have been letting Anna play games on my computer, and as a result, my “a” key has been pounded into only partial functionality.  If there is a word or two in my update that are missing an “a”, you’ll have to forgive the omission.

Anna will be 7 months old in two weeks! Amazing!  She began this weekend to work on her consonants; before she really only talked in vowels.  We are now hearing “ba and ma” noises on a fairly regular basis, unless of course a grandparent is on the phone wanting to hear the noises, and then Anna is ungraciously silent.

Anna rolls like a tiny little steamroller all over the floor; she rolls into furniture and to wherever she wishes to go.  She’s trying to crawl as well, but only as far as scooching around on her tummy.  Pretty soon, we’ll have to baby proof and we are not looking forward to it – but she’s already able to roll over to the DVD player and press all the buttons, so the time is probably now.  Anna also rolls over on the changing table now meaning that I have become adept at putting her diaper on backwards.

A few weeks after her 4 month appointment I noticed that there was a small bump on the right side of her nose in between her eyes.  At the time I assumed it was from Anna’s many attempts to get a toy into her mouth that went awry and instead she had bonked herself.  After two weeks the bump had not gone away and I made an appointment with her doctor.  After much prodding and poking, the doctor was unable to determine what the bump was and said we should take Anna to a dermatologist.

At the dermatologist’s office, there was again more poking, prodding, some measuring and even some picture taking of Anna’s bump.  The dermatologist was still clueless about what was the cause of the bump, and we were referred to a dermatologist at Children’s Hospital.  A few weeks ago we saw the dermatologist at Children’s (after first seeing two nurses, and another doctor in his office) and Anna was her cheery self for the doctor and his four doctors in training.  After more prodding of the bump we were told that it is likely a “dermoid cyst”.

However, because of where the “probable” dermoid cyst is located, we were informed that Anna would need an MRI of her brain to make sure that there are no underlying structures involved.  Yep, those of you who know me know that I freaked out a bit at hearing “brain MRI”.  I really freaked out when I was told that in order to keep Anna still for the MRI she will need to be sedated.  The MRI is apparently really busy at Children’s, so Anna’s MRI will be on December 12th.  I have plenty of time to freak out about both the brain MRI and the sedation.  I (and my readers) should keep in mind that the doctor said that “it is unlikely” that there are any structures in Anna’s brain that are affected.

On the bright side, Anna is a lovely, bright, happy and active little girl who charms everyone that she meets.  On the really bright side, she’s started (cross your fingers I don’t jinx myself here) only getting up once a night.  Every once in a while I have to get up twice, but that is rare these days.  Oh, sleep, how I missed you these past months!  I have to admit I had to force this upon her – I began a few weeks ago by getting an alarm clock with a “nap timer”.  When Anna begins to cry, I turn down the baby monitor, hit the nap timer and for 10 minutes I go back to sleep.  If she’s still yelling after 10 minutes I get up and feed her or comfort her.  Generally she goes back to sleep before the 10 minutes is up unless she’s truly hungry and if she is still awake, she eats well.  It took about a week of doing that consistently to get her trained, but now, everyone sleeps better and longer in our house…

Oh, and she’s still really cute.  Here she is working on sitting up like a big girl.

Still cute!