September 21

I have lots of things to say about baby Isla tonight!

1. We got her x-ray results back today, and everything looks normal with her neck vertebrae. I didn't really expect them to find anything wrong, but at least we know for sure now. "Dr." Shannon, our physical therapist, wants to start more aggressive physical therapy to try to strengthen her neck muscles...starting tomorrow!
2. This girl is the queen of catnaps. And it is just about to drive me insane! She will take three or four 30-50 minute naps a day. I would so much rather her combine those naps into two 1-2 (or even 3) hour naps. I have tried everything I can think of to try to get her to nap better. Nothing is working so far. Some days, it feels like we spend the whole day trying to get her to sleep!

3. Early this evening, after an unsuccessful nap attempt, Daniel and I were a bit frustrated with Isla. Then, we got her out of bed and she was all smiles and giggles! She knows when to turn on the charm! Can't stay mad at her for long when she won't stop flashing you her sweet little smile. And her goofy giggle is adorable...I really need to try to record it soon.
4. Looking at these pictures, her forehead seems to be looking more symmetrical. At least, I don't notice it being crooked anymore...but that could be because I look at her every day. All of this flat head drama has led me to intently study her head all the time. And I study the head shapes of every little baby and kid that I see. I'm ready to stop thinking about head shapes.5. Isla is starting to look like Audrey more and more each day. Maybe it is because Isla is now able to wear some of the same clothes that Audrey wore. Since they were born in opposite seasons, Isla didn't end up wearing any of Audrey's newborn clothes. Seeing Isla in the same outfits that Audrey wore is like deja vu sometimes! Here is a picture of Audrey when she was just about Isla's age.

September 19

This dress that Isla wore as a newborn still fits her now...only it's more like a shirt than a dress! Seriously, this girl is getting ginormous! I think she is probably somewhere between 12-13 pounds now...over double the size she was when she was born!

Isla had her neck x-ray today. I was expecting the worst--with the technicians having to strap her down and Isla screaming bloody murder the whole time. But it wasn't so bad. They took three x-rays. Isla smiled through the first two, as she was fascinated by the light on the x-ray machine. She started to cry on the last one, as I had to pin down her shoulders and she didn't like that so much. Overall, it went much smoother than I anticipated.

We didn't hear anything back from the doctor today about her x-rays. I'm assuming no news is good news. We will see her physical therapist on Thursday, so she should be able to tell us more if we don't hear anything before that.

September 14

Wow, today was rough! Get ready for a long blog post ahead including: pictures of my sweet, ornery girls who refuse to sleep during the day, more concerns about Isla's head and neck, and a precious newborn photo shoot.

I started the day with the girls in their matching shirts. I have been planning to get a picture of them together with their shirts for the last 3 months and finally got around to it today! I would have liked for them to be in opposite order, with Audrey on the left and Isla on the right. But Audrey was being so squirmy, I was happy just to get her to be still long enough for a few pics.
Isla kept grabbing a hold of her hair, so I don't really blame her for not wanting to lay down next to her for too long. That girl has a strong grip!
So, we headed out with their matching shirts to go see Dr. Shannon (that's what Audrey calls her), Isla's physical therapist. It wasn't good news at physical therapy this morning.

Back when Isla was two months old, Shannon had some concerns about Isla's somewhat limited range of motion with her neck on both sides. She should have been able to turn her head a full 90 degrees to each side, but she was only able to turn about 60-70 degrees. Shannon thought that stretching exercises at home would help her develop the strength to turn it all the way on both sides. We have been doing this exercises at home consistently, but it is frustrating as Isla just doesn't want to turn her head!

Well, here we are 6 weeks later, and while Isla is getting stronger, she is still not turning her neck more than 60-70 degrees on each side. Shannon is not sure exactly what is causing this. She wants to rule out the possibility of a problem with her neck bones. She says that it is very rare, but sometimes there is something wrong with the bones of the neck. If that is the case, then this kind of physical therapy is not going to help...it might even make things worse if we continue.

So, now we have to take her in for a neck x-ray to make sure everything is okay with the vertebrae in her neck. Seriously, this girl is trying to give me a head full of gray hairs before she is even 4 months old! If everything looks okay with her neck bones, then Shannon will move on with a more aggressive physical therapy plan to stretch her neck muscles. If something is wrong with her neck bones, then I have no idea what will happen next.

(Actually I just did a little internet research and found a name for this: Klippel-Feil syndrome. It is when some of the neck vertebrae fuse together. It's kind of scary to read about all the possible problems associated with it. So let's just pray that everything looks good on Isla's x-ray!!!)

Daniel was off work this afternoon. So after physical therapy, I left him with the girls and went to take pictures of my friend's new baby. This was a bright spot to the day. Baby Havanna was the perfect little model, sleeping and snuggling all the way through our photo shoot.

After the photo shoot, I came home to two little girls who were refusing to nap. Audrey especially was just a mess all afternoon and evening. Today was definite proof that she really still needs to nap daily!

The long day continued as I also taught a few piano lessons and cooked dinner for our family and for two other families. Why did I squeeze all of these things into one day?? All of this on only three hours of sleep last night, as I have not been sleeping well lately at all.

I am staying up way too late blogging about this long day. Time to get some sleep now and hope for smoother sailing tomorrow!!