No, we won't be trick-or-treating (because I don't need *MORE* candy in the house), but perhaps Sophia will get enough thrills out of answering the door.

There's a witch hat that goes with Sophia's costume (tricky to get on over the pig tails) and I decided not to torture poor Ella with more than this seasonal beret.  I'm going to go eat some miniature candy bars now before Esen gets home and catches me dipping into the Halloween stash... bye-bye!

That's an awfully long and hard to pronounce word, but it's what Ella was recently diagnosed with.  The most straight-forward explanation I can find online is at http://www.childrensmemorial.org/depts/otolaryngology/nosethroat5.aspx:

 

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Most of you know that Ella has had some pretty bad sleeping difficulties since the very beginning.  Specifically, we have only gotten her to sleep while lying on her stomach on our chest.  Any attempt at putting her down to sleep on her back (in the basinette, bouncy seat, swing, or car seat) results in her waking up and crying.  I really thought this was just her personal preference or that she liked the warmth of our bodies, but Esen has been convinced for weeks that there was something wrong with her breathing, particularly when she was on her back.

 

About two weeks ago, Ella caught her first cold and it came with a cough that got so bad that it would make her throw up.  I took her to the pediatrician and they thought she had Pertussis (also called whooping cough), which kids are immunized for but not until they are two months old.  It's been on the rise in the U.S. in recent years, so this wasn't a crazy diagnosis... especially with Sophia in daycare and bringing home all sorts of germs.  Pertussis, if not caught early, can land an infant in the hospital with pnemonia pretty easily, so the doctor put her on an antibiotic.  Her symptoms cleared up in just a few days.  Although I mentioned her sleeping problems to this doctor, he didn't think they were related to her cold and sort of encouraged us to just put her down in the basinette and let her cry for a bit.

 

After the Pertussis scare (we still don't have the lab results back yet, by the way, so I don't know if she has/had it), I started to be a little more sympathetic toward Ella, who I had really just started to think was an overly fussy, pain-in-the-ass baby.  I also began to pay really close attention to her breathing.  I noticed a noise that she made when she was nursing... kind of like a cute squeaky noise when inhaling after swallowing some milk.  I think she'd been making this noise for weeks (for example, I know she made noises like this when she was tucked in the sling at a department meeting when she was just a few weeks old), but I never really thought much of it.  It seemed to be getting louder and more pronounced over the course of a couple of days, so I did some digging around on the internet and discovered the noise is called "stridor".  A couple of youtube videos allowed me to hear it and verify it was the same noise that I heard Ella making.  Back to the pediatrician we went because a few minutes on Google told me that Esen had been right all along and that there was definitely a problem with her breathing.

 

The pediatrician listened to my description of all of Ella's symptoms and then listened to the squeaky sound she makes when nursing.  The sound, which incidentally becomes most noticeable when infants are 6-8 weeks old, occurs because her windpipe is too soft and it collapses when she inhales and is positioned on her back or reclined.  This condition is call Laryngomalacia.  Basically, little Ella's unwillingness to sleep on her back might have saved her life.  The pediatrician said that it would actually be really dangerous for her to sleep on her back because she might very well stop breathing.  Although I have felt like a total push-over these past six weeks that we have been sleeping with her on our chest, I have never been so relieved to learn that it was the right choice!

 

Here's what I know at this point:

1.  This explains Ella's sleep issues and general crankiness, which is also probably due to not getting nearly enough good sleep.

2.  This also explains why getting a cold caused her such trouble.  The pediatrician said that she will have a lot more trouble with every upper respiratory infection as a result of this condition and so we are supposed to bring her in for evaluation every time she gets sick.  I guess they'll want to make sure that she's getting enough oxygen when she's congested and breathing is even more difficult.  As a result, we're going to have to be really, really careful about germs... so prepare to wash your hands visitors!!  I think I'll set up a hazmat washing station on the front porch for Sophia to use daily.  :)

3.  There is no treatment for this as most kids grow out of this by the age of 1 or 1 and a half.  There are some kids who have problems that don't clear, in which case it looks like there's a surgical option to fix the airway obstruction. 

4.  The only thing we can do is make it easier for her to breathe by putting her to bed on her stomach and keeping her upright at other times (particularly after feeding her).  Although there is some small increase in SIDS risk associated with tummy sleeping, the threat to her breathing from sleeping on her back is much higher.  As for non-sleeping times, I have no idea what we'll do without the ability to put her in a bouncy seat or other similar contraption.  She can't yet hold her head up, so most upright sitting options won't work.  For the time being, we're stuck holding her A LOT.  Feel free to stop by and do some holding!

5.  Given that Ella is thriving otherwise (already over 12 pounds!! no feeding difficulties there), there's no reason to believe that this will have any other side effects or that she has a particularly bad case.

6.  In the past 24 hours since we got the diagnosis and were told to let her sleep on her stomach, she has slept peacefully in her basinette for many hours (including right now!).  While she didn't miraculously sleep through the night, we did have a baby-free bed (at least until about 5am) for the first time in nearly 6 weeks.  Here's some visual proof:

 

We'll keep you updated as we learn more...

It's been a bit of a crazy week, so I've got a backlog of things to post.  We again had Sophia home from daycare on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, but this is the last batch of Jewish holidays that will torture us for a while.  I've also continued to have trouble with the blog site due to their stricter enforcement of the "no-nudey-pictures" rule.  Even though they almost certainly have a computer program that flags pictures that violate the policy, they only send me an email that contains a link to a *sample* of an offending picture.  It would obviously make sense if they just sent me links to *ALL* the pictures that violate their stupid policy because then I would remove them all and get on with things.  This last time they sent a link to a picture of Ella as she was being weighed in the hospital.  As a result, I've gone back and tried to delete all similar pictures of Sophia, but there are a lot of blog posts over the past 20 months to sort through, so I may continue to have problems.  Bear with me... I'm working on it.  Wish I could tell Microsoft the same thing!

 

OK, on to the backlog of goodies!

 

A while back Sophia got a really big splinter in her finger while playing outside at daycare.  Unfortunately none of the wood was still poking through the skin, so there was absolutely nothing to grab onto to pull it out.  Additionally, it was sort of a flat and softer piece of wood, so I knew that it would have to be dug out with a needle... ouchie!  Sophia wouldn't let us anywhere near the finger, so I took her to the doctor to have them take care of it.  The whole episode was horrible because it involved me holding her down while two nurses tortured her.  They didn't even numb the skin!  I didn't cry in the doctor's office, but I did once we made it into the car.  It was so much worse than when she gets shots.  Back at home, we applied an additional "sympathy bandaid" to the opposite hand, gave into a request for a binky (fyi, the binky has made a resurgence since Sophia found them when I unpacked baby bottles and such), and enjoyed some recovery on the couch with a video:

 

This week, on one of the days Sophia was home and Esen was able to stay with us, we took the girls to the zoo.  I was mostly underwhelmed as so many of the animals were napping, but Sophia seemed to enjoy herself.  Esen has taken her to the zoo several times without me, so whenever she sees a picture of an animal that they've seen together, she says, "Baba!" and taps her chest to indicate that she saw one of those with Baba.  Flamingos are always popular because of this, but so are giraffes, emus, and tigers and jaguars.

 

Although I had both girls all alone on Wednesday, I don't want you all to think I'm a big sissy.  I decided to embrace the madness and attempt some finger painting with Sophia.  I strapped Ella into the Baby Bjorn carrier, moved us outside, slapped a smock on Sophia, and let her go to town.  I gave her a couple of foam brushes to encourage more painting than finger painting, but she was pretty good about wiping off her fingers when she got paint on them.  The smock is one of my maternity tank tops that was particularly unflattering on me... I figure this is a good use for it!  

I noted two things during this painting extravaganza:  (1) she always asked for more blue and yellow, Fenerbahce colors (she can't say Fenerbahce yet, so she says, "Bababahce" which is incredibly cute), and (2) she was remarkably neat... I thought for sure it would be all over her face, but there were only a couple of smears of paint that weren't on the smock.  I look forward to another painting session where I don't have a baby strapped to my chest so I can participate more and more easily.

 

I timed the painting session for about 30 minutes before Esen was due to arrive home.  I figured that if it was a total messy disaster, he could rescue us.  Given that rescuing wasn't necessary, my two athletes played some soccer in the backyard as the artwork dried.  I was recovering from the day by watching from one of the patio chairs and snapped a series of adorable pictures: 

 

 

OK, stay tuned for some Halloween pictures.  Our neighborhood is hosting an early costume party this weekend to give the kids a chance to "practice" being in their costumes.  I'm hoping that Sophia will agree to wear hers, but she's so good at saying no that I wouldn't bet much money on it.  Perhaps I can get her into it with jealousy: "Ella is wearing *her* Halloween costume... don't you want to wear yours, too?"  That's probably not a good long-term parenting approach, but it works for diaper changes and finger nail clipping (two battleground issues for us with Sophia), so I don't much care!

We all survived the first month, although it has left some of us more sleep-deprived and bitter than others.  Sophia seems mostly unphased, but then she's gotten her usual 10+ hours of sleep every night without much trouble.

 

As with Sophia, I'll take monthly pictures of Ella with the pink pig.  I thought about using a different stuffed animal, but I think I'll stick with the pink pig so that we can also compare how the two girls look at various stages.  Here's Ella's first photo shoot:

 

I started an "Ella Growth" photo album to the right and you can always go back and look at Sophia's month-by-month progress.  If you look at Sophia's one-month picture, you'll see evidence of what I've been saying all along:  they don't really look alike and Ella is much floppier than Sophia ever was.  It's still almost impossible to get Ella to sit upright or hold her head up while Sophia was easily doing those things at this point.  Perhaps that's the difference between arriving a week early versus a week late, or perhaps it's just one of countless differences between the girls that will emerge over the years.

 

All I know is that we're all glad the first month is behind us.  Although Ella still doesn't sleep in any reasonable way, she is a really good eater and is clearly putting on weight, so I try to tell myself I should count my blessings for that.  On the bad days, however, I'm still just counting *minutes* until the end of the day...

It's 9pm and, although Sophia is in bed, she is in there talking like one of those TV announcers who have the job of reading all the fine print at the speed of light right at the end of the drug commercials.  Sophia's vocabulary has really improved and she's also been stringing a couple of words together to make little sentences.  Most of those sentences are about things she wants, so they're like brief little orders (and usually spoken with great gusto and volume!).  Some of the "sentences" are just observational... commentary on things that she sees going on around her.  Here are some examples:

 

"More bus!" (the first two-word combo I noticed her saying... it refers to her favorite thing to observe when we're driving in the car... BUSES!)

 

"Mama sit" or "Baba sit / Baba otur" (ordering us to our places... sometimes preceded by "No Mama" or "No Baba" if we're not already in the right spot and she clearly thinks we should know better.  This has recently been replaced with "Mama sit *down*".)

 

"No Suzy!"  (granted, we have to discipline Suzy at times, but Sophia really takes it to a new level by chastising Suzy at the mere hint of her misbehaving - i.e., if Suzy is in the backyard and I mention the garage, Sophia starts wagging her finger and saying "No Suzy!" to remind everyone that Suzy is not supposed to be sneaking into the garage to steal cat food.)

 

"Ella crying" (thanks, I'll get right on that and try to keep her quiet for you)

 

"Ella milk" (sometimes an observation when I'm nursing Ella, but also used to indicate how I might stop "Ella crying"... again, thanks for the tip kid.)

 

"Suzy popo" or "Ella popo" ("popo" is the cute Turkish word for butt, and Sophia is fixated on butts and what comes out of them!  Consider yourself warned.)

 

"Mama help" (what I ask her to say when she's getting frustrated and wants help)

 

"More please" or "Daha lutfen" (she usually just says "more" and then tacks on the "please" when prompted)

 

"I want that" (her first three-word sentence... so versatile and useful!)

 

Much to my surprise, Sophia uses a simple "No" MUCH more frequently than "I want that"... I would have predicted the opposite. 

 

I'm not quite as aware of how her Turkish language abilities are developing.  Her vocabulary is noticably expanding and she also strings some words together like she does in English.  She says "parka geldik" when we arrive at the park and "evde geldik" when we get back to the house.  Interestingly, she also appears to understand the number 2, but only in Turkish.  When she sees two cows in one of her videos, she points and says "iki" and has done this in enough different situations in the past week that it's clear she understands rather than it just being a fluke.  She hasn't demonstrated that she understands "two" in English yet, however.  There are a few other words that she consistently chooses Turkish over English:  "muz" instead of "banana" and "su" instead of "water".  I'm still totally floored at how she understands Turkish so perfectly with such limited exposure.  Esen's so pleased with the results of speaking exclusive Turkish to Sophia that I'm worried he might start taking that approach with me!

 

In other news, I recovered quickly from my stomach flu, but Sophia's runny nose from last week landed Ella her first cold this weekend.  Ella is already a pretty noisy sleeper (think hibernating bear with congestion or a dog having squirrel-chasing dreams), but the amount of grunting and snorting that came out of her when she had this cold was just ridiculous.  Fortunately, Ella seems to be on the mend.  Given all the germs Sophia brings into the house, little Ella's immune system will probably be highly developed before she even starts daycare.

Stomach flu.  I don't recommend it for sissies, however.  I spent much of the day in bed, so I guess the flu is also a way to get some much-needed sleep!  Thank goodness Sophia was at school and Esen was able to be home in the afternoon.  I just keep telling myself that this will get me back into my normal pants sooner...

Apparently there are some pretty creepy people out there because Microsoft took down the blog this week because of the naked bath pictures of Ella I posted recently.  The Code of Conduct policy prohibits any nude pictures of genitalia, which apparently were captured in one of the pictures I posted.  The warning email I received didn't make any mention of videos (or Sophia's recent streaking video), but I took it down anyway just to stay in their good graces.  I'll try harder to get some clothed videos of Sophia, but given her proclivity for nudity, I can't make any promises.  :)  As Ilke just pointed out, you'll just have to come to Sacramento if you want to see our little ladies naked!!

 

In other news, Ella still isn't sleeping well, Sophia has been exceptionally whiney and prone to temper tantrums, and (thanks to the nursing) I'm not able to drink enough wine to cope with it all.  I'll let you know when the situation improves.  Until then, I'll try to post on the random good days so at least you all can pretend that we're out here loving parenthood and our decision to have kids so close together in age.  Boy, I sound almost bitter... might be time to have my nightly half glass of wine.  Right now, the glass sure is looking half empty.

"Aw, crap!  Here comes my big sister AGAIN!!"

OK, so I know I've been complaining a lot about all the Jewish holidays causing Sophia's daycare to be closed so damn frequently in October.  We had another full day with both girls today... thankfully Esen was able to be home to help keep some sanity.  I did discover an upside to this whole arrangement today.  Sophia is really cute and fun (when she's not whining and driving me nuts, that is), and spending more time with her has forced me to be more creative about things to do with her that really reveal her fun side.  We haven't done anything too crazy (although I have *purchased* finger paints, but not yet gotten up the courage to open them), but there have still been several things out of the ordinary and it's fun to watch her encounter something totally new.  I guess it's easy to get into a rut with activities that we do in the evenings and even on the weekends.

 

After Sophia settled down a little tonight, she asked to hold Ella and sat nicely on the couch for us.  This was the first time she's held her like this, which seems strange to me now, but we've been working so hard with Sophia to teach her how to be gentle with just touching Ella.  The idea of handing Ella over to Sophia initially felt a little like putting my baby into the jaws of a hungry lion, but she was very gentle and sweet once I actually did it.  (Permanent link: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3928972962844769370&hl=en)

     

 

I've been so busy that I haven't taken very many pictures of Ella.  I snapped a few tonight while she was sleepy on my lap and looking cute and fat (those lips and cheeks just call for extra kissing!).

I need to get a good picture and put together some official birth announcements, so I'll try to get some more good pics of our new pudge-ball soon!

No, not for me (although I could probably use one, too), for Ella:

Sophia was really quite good.  I think it helped to put the baby bath *into* the bathtub where Sophia couldn't really be more hands-on.  :)

 

Here's Sophia sporting her new "Big Sister" t-shirt from Ilke and Lulu: 

When I look at this picture, I'm reminded that her hair is actually growing these days, making these top-o-the-head pig tails look a little silly... but it's the only way that I can keep the hair out of her eyes.  Her hair is still way too fine for any kind of barrette, so this look will have to last a while longer.

 

Ella took a nice nap just now in her new swing, which was borrowed from friends (thanks Lauren and Maria!!).   

At this point, Sophia has actually spent more time in the swing than Ella.  I believe the weight limit is 25 pounds, so Sophia looks pretty ridiculous in it (especially given that she is 3 feet tall!).  We're trying hard to avoid territorial problems with Sophia, so I'm content to let her learn that it's good for them to share things (even things like baby swings).  Sophia also likes to sit in the bouncy seat, which does convert to a toddler chair so at least it's not quite as ridiculous to see her in it.  :)

 

Sophia, like most toddlers I suppose, is a little obsessive-compulsive about things.  Recently, it's been Ella, Ella, Ella!!  But this morning, Suzy, Suzy, Suzy got a turn.  We think that Suzy has been pleased with the new addition to the family because Ella seems to distract Sophia sufficiently that Suzy isn't quite as tortured.  That was not the case this morning (permanent link: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6836939186311891424&hl=en):

      

I suspect that she'll be back to obsessing over Ella this evening!

I took Ella back to the pediatrician for a weight check yesterday and she was well on her way to bulking up... weighed in at 9 pounds and 5 ounces.  The doctor officially proclaimed that Ella is a professional nurser, but I clearly had plenty of observations available to know that already!  We also took her back to the nursery at the hospital to repeat her hearing test.  She failed the one given to her the day after she was born, but that was probably because of excess fluid in her ears... she passed easily the second time around.  While she seems to have eating and hearing down, I wish I could say the same for sleeping.  Ella is still torturing us quite a bit in that department, but I'm hopeful that she'll settle in to something more reasonable in the next week or so.

 

Esen and I were sort of needing a night out after the last couple of weeks.  That's not exactly possible just yet since Ella is still sort of nursing "on demand" and not yet on any kind of reliable routine.  Still, when friends mentioned Oktoberfest happening on Friday night, we opted to get a sitter for Sophia and just take Ella in a sling.  The plan worked quite well... Ella slept in the sling while we were there and Sophia got a few hours of play time with Melanie, her former daycare provider, rather than just the shared/partial attention of Esen and I (also known as sleep-deprived zombies).  Kace and Walter also have a newborn (8 weeks), so our table got some stares from other Oktoberfest attendees (and the scorn of the little Nazi woman taking tickets at the door who thought it was horrible that we would have babies outside in the *cold* 60-degree air!):

While I only drank about a half of a beer, it was nice to get out of the house and feel almost like a normal person again.

 

We're took a divide and conquer approach to things today.  Esen took Sophia out for a bit this morning while I stayed home with Ella.  She was supposed to nap so that I could grab a little shut-eye as well, but all she did was squack like a discontented duck.  Ella broke my heart again this afternoon by *NOT* napping while Sophia took her 1.5 hour nap.  The end result is that I'm not any better rested this evening than I was earlier in the day.  While most people would probably respond, "Bummer" to that, the sleep deprivation really is getting old and is more than bumming us out at this point.

 

I realized tonight (when Sophia was running around naked after her bath) that I forgot to share a really funny story with you all from earlier this week.  One night after her bath, she was doing her usual naked streaking through the house and she temporarily plopped herself on a big gold pillow that we have sitting on the fireplace (to prevent a falling child from cracking her head open on the brick).  I wish so desperately that I had a picture of what she did next because it was hysterical!  She laid on her stomach and looked back over at us with this devilish look... it was totally a pose fit for Playboy!  While Sophia's pose was certainly funny, it was Esen's immediate and visceral reaction to his 1.5 year old daughter in a Playboy pose that caused me to laugh for the next 20 minutes.  I haven't seen him move that fast since we were late getting home for a Fenerbahce game... he jumped up and grabbed her and got a diaper and pajamas on her faster than I thought possible.  Seriously folks, he's really going to enjoy having a couple of teenage daughters, huh?

 

Diapers changed: 10

Threatening and/or sympathy-inducing text messages to Esen: 5

Videos watched:  2

Sophia tantrums resulting in time out: 1