"I be three again today?"

All in all Avery had a great day. Even thought she had to spend 3 hours at the doctor's office today. She was so funny when she woke up this morning. I was sitting in bed with her and was singing happy birthday she got a very excited look on her face and then asked "I be three again today?" This is the first year she has really grasped the concept of her birthday and getting a year older. With having her party on Saturday we tried to explain she would be three on her birthday (today) and not this past weekend (at her party.) Needless to say we spent the rest of the day assuring her that yes she is three again today.

Avery decided to wear her princess outfit again today, and she rocked it out!!Avery was already scheduled for her three year well check today but they had to do more checking to get her referral for the urologist. Luckly there is one in town that specializes in renal and urology so we are waiting for our appointment to be scheduled. She was such a trooper, I would have run screaming from the room after being cooped up for that long but she managed to entertain herself the whole time. Granted a lot of her entertainment came from the fact that they had her get into a paper gown that was huge...but she had a good time with it!!
We also had gymnastics today so we decided to take cupcakes to her friends in her class. Gymnastics went okay, she had a couple of lapses of attention and had a hard time focusing but she had a really busy day. She had a really great time sharing with her friends. It was so cute to see her take the cupcakes in to the gym as she says "Friends you want to share cupcakes with me?" So precious!!

After finishing gymnastics we went to grandma and grandpa's house for yet another birithday celebration. Avery is very good at blowing out the candles on birthday cakes...or in tonights case brownies. It has been such a great day. Our miracle baby is another year older and it seems like just yesterday that she was placed in our arms for the first time. I can't believe I have a three year old, and I can only look forward to all the exciting times to come!!

Another day another set of "lasts"

Today has been very difficult for me. Today is the last day of Avery being 2, tomorrow we will move into big bad 3 year old status and I'm not liking that at all! It seems like just yesterday we were dealing with the fact that Ricky and I might not ever have our own biological child and here we are now having to deal with a whole new set of challanges revolving around our miracle being 3!

Avery continues to amaze me with things she does. Her speech continues to improve daily. Today marks another "last" for our family. Today was the last time Lee (our beloved speech therapist from ECI) came to the house and met with Avery. They have a love hate relationship and always kept each other on their toes but you can tell Avery really loves Lee and I think when it really sinks in that Lee isn't coming back to our house it is going to be a very sad day. Avery walked Lee out to her car once again today, then showed her gymnastics in the front yard but today was the last day for that. Wedensday she will start at "big school" with a whole new set of challanges and experiences to be had. It's bitter sweet for me because while I continue to enjoy all the new experiences I feel like my baby is slowing slipping away and becoming a big girl right before my eyes.

I made Avery promise me she will always be my baby, and she even said she would put it in writting so I could always have it.

No doubt tomorrow will be an exciting day, but a sad one at the same time (at least for mommy)

Birthday Party

Avery had a great time this weekend. She had her birthday party and she had some special surprise visitors. It's hard to believe that she's thisclose to being three years old but when asked she still maintains she is two! That's a girl for you hold on to your year as long as you can!!

Avery knew her Gogo, Papa and Grannie were going to be at her party but she was surprised when she got to her party and saw Lyn, Karen, Scott and Michelle. She LOVES Scott and Michelle and loves any time she can spend with them.

We finally got Avery to decide what kind of party she wanted, and she wanted to have a princess party. She was so funny when we were singing happy birthday, Avery sang along singing "happy birthday to Avery" precious!! She did really well blowing out the candles too, all in one breath!
After cake and presents it was outside to play with water balloons. She had so much fun with baby bobs and the water balloons...they defiantely kept grandpa busy.

We had a custom shirt made for her party and for her to wear on the Disney trip in December.

It was a great weekend. We all had a lot of fun and Avery already made out like a bandit with presents. She got several new dresses, lots of princess stuff, and a table and chairs for her room. She also seems to have picked up how this "birthday" thing works....she has figured out when we are in the stores if she tells her daddy something is for her "birthday party" then she stands a better chance of getting things.... this could lead to her having a birthday party every month!! At this rate we are really in trouble for Christmas!

More questions than answers

First I have to apologize for not updating after we went to the doctor on Friday. We didn't get any more answers and left with more questions than anything, I was exhausted and we didn't get home until late so I just went to bed.

We got to the hospital for testing (that was supposed to confirm the diagnosis the doctor gave us on Wed.) Apparently all of Avery's labs were 180 degrees different from what they have been in the past. We were there for over 2 hours and walked out knowing nothing. The endo has no idea why during the water deprivation test Avery continued to use the restroom but she no longer thinks that it is diabetes insipidus. UGH! So frustrating. When we left the doctors office on Wed she was 98% sure this is what she had, she even gave us the prescription to go and get filled because she knew we were going to need it. (Luckly we didn't open the medication so the doctor is going to buy it back from us so we don't have to waste that money.) So when asked why Avery was still drinking all the time and going to the restroom even more the medical diagnoisis.....STRESS! Seriously! I couldn't make that up if I tried!!! What in the world can a 3 year old seriously be stressed about? I could almost understand if her routine had changed even a little but it hasn't, it's the exact same as it has been for what seems like forever....much longer than 3-6 months. I have figured out "stress" must be the new buzz diagnois when doctors don't know the real answers.

So now what? That's what my question was too. Why even when Avery doesn't drink does she still go to the restroom all the time. No one seems to know. So now we have to go back to the primary care and get new referals (thank you HMO). Since we have already spent so much money and no one seems to think there is anything too serious (hince the reason we have to go back to get new referlas) we are going to wait to get them until Avery's 3 year check up on Tuesday. Next referals will be to the renal doctor to look at kidneys and liver and a urologist to check her bladder. Maybe someone some where will be able to give us some kind of real answers.

I'll post about Avery's birthday party tomorrow but there are pictures on Facebook if interested!!!

Doctor anyone?

Today was Avery's appt with the pediatric endocrinologist. It went really well and we have a ton of information. First I have to brag about how much smoother things went at the TTU MOP today. I was a little worried when I found out that is where the appt was following our last encounter there was for the ENT that was miserable! We got there, they had everything streamlined. The nurse met us and she was wonderful, she talked Avery through everything she did and really went out of her way to make all of us comfortable. The rooms had Disney movies playing for the kiddos (and parents) while waiting and it made the short wait go by even faster.

Dr. Dremaine was also wonderful. She actually took the time to talk with us and explain everything. She made sure any questions we had were answered and she even took time to walk us to the front check out and try and get us an earlier appt for Avery's follow up testing. She explained the follow up testing, what they were going to be looking for, what they were going to do, everything. She gave us a prescription for a hormone that we had to go and pick up to bring with us to the testing on Friday. We have a new insurance that I know NOTHING about and she took the time to give me her personal cell phone and told me to call her if the insurance company wouldn't cover the medication.

So we go back on Friday for more testing. Avery gets to go through the night like normal (thank goodness) She will have to get up a little earlier on Friday but she gets to eat breakfast. Then we have to be back at the hospital at 8am to start her testing. They will do inital blood and urine tests then the pain starts....no more water! This is going to be really tough on all of us, but we are hoping since she's so little that it will show quickly in her labwork any changes. Dr. Dremaine said what we are looking for is no change in her output even though she has stopped drinking, ultimately this would make her dehydrate. At that point they will give her the medication and keep fingers crossed that it works and makes her stop going potty all the time. That would be the best case scenario because that means she does have diabetes insipidus and it's the type that can be managed with medication.

If it does work like Dr. Dremaine thinks it will then Avery will have to have a MRI to see what has caused this. What is known is there is some kind of damage to the pituitary glad but the question is what kind of damage. The one concern Dr. Dremaine has is why did this on set so fast and sudden but that is all to be determined.

So what does all of this mean???? More wait and see....at least until Friday!!!

And just for fun....a picture of Miss Priss today!

Busy, busy day!

I went to Avery's ARD today. She is going to start speech 2 times per week for an hour each time. There are concerns over several areas of her speech and what we are able to understand. She has 3 main goals for the next year, then we will evaluate and see what the plans are after that. The speech pathologist seems to think she could be in the program until she starts kindy but her current therapist feels like if she actually gets motivated and starts putting in the effort she could be done much sooner than that.

Avery had speech with Lee today. Next week is the last time we will have speech at our house, and as I have said before Lee has become a part of our family and we will really miss her alot. Avery didn't really put much effort into speech today but she had a good time playing with Lee.

After that we rushed to gymnastics. I'm not sure who planned gymnastics at 5:30pm after 4:00 speech but we made it! Avery worked really hard at the gym today. Her coaches worked on teaching her how to kick into a full handstand from a donkey kick.

She has to work on doing dips into kicks while holding the hula hoop over her head....doesn't sound to difficult until you notice she's the same height as the hula hoop!! LOL!! She made it work like a champ, and it's one of her favorite things to do.
At the end of class the kids get stamps to show they did well, Avery was so excited about her stamps today because they are gmynastics girls.

Beating mommy at memory.

Starting off with today's picture of the bruising. As with most injuries it looks worse as it is getting better. Today she has 2 black eyes and it is spreading outwards but the darkest areas are starting to turn green so that's a good sign.

We have played the game Memory with Avery a few times but it has always been a modified version. It started with all the cards facing up and looking for matches, then one of the cards was up and the other was down...this time we put out about half of the cards but they were all face down. Avery did really well for the most part. She did try several times to flip over one card then flip several others until she made a match but she eventually started to figure it out and started playing more by the real rules...she's really good...either that or my mind is starting to slip now that I'm in my 30's! (No comments are needed family!)
Making sure her cards match.

Looking for more matches.

Showing off her new Cinderella shirt that she got in the mail today. She also got a really great card from her cousin Michelle, that included a princess picture personally colored for her, along with a great card that we had to read about a million and twelve times!