Nora's Blog: March 2010

Friday, March 26, 2010

Not much to report

Ollie never gets any air time so I thought I'd let him have center stage.

I seriously think I need to make these tomorrow. Seriously, have you ever heard of anything so amazing?

We (the girls and I) will be headed to NY for Easter and spring break next week.

We've all just been doing our thing.

Emma has been busy with school and activities. Nora has not been napping every day so it gives us more time to do things before we have to pick up Emma. Like run errands or go to a park. It's nice to have more freedom to get things done and not stress about bringing Nora with me to the store. She'll usually sit in a cart for a least 1/2 hour before I need to break out the i phone. Things get easier as she gets older.

We are trying to plan a trip with my brother and his family and my parents for Christmas. Somewhere warm and sunny with white beaches and turquoise water. Maybe to Turks and Caicos Islands. Anyone have a house that sleeps 11 for rent over Christmas?

I'll let you know how the french toast waffles turn out. Seriously!

Thursday, March 4, 2010

Tooth!

Nora lost a tooth yesterday. I have no idea when, how or where. She went to school with all her teeth and came home without one. There was nothing that her teacher could think of that would cause her tooth to fall out. I hadn't noticed any loose teeth but she isn't so willing to let me look around in there for too long. It was a bottom tooth, not in the middle but one next to the middle. So not even a common first tooth to lose. So strange. She JUST turned four. Seems a bit early.

When we went to the dentist a few weeks ago, the one where they strapped her hands to her sides and velcroed her body in a big wrap to restrain her, there was no discussion of loose teeth. But then again, there wasn't much time to do much searching in there. Sooooo.... not sure what the heck happened. And I can't get a picture of it but I'll keep trying.

The tooth fairy didn't come since we don't have the tooth and Nora doesn't even know she lost one. Emma was wondering. Maybe for the next tooth.

Thanks for checking in
Lori

Only 2 more days until Alex gets home...phew.

Monday, March 1, 2010

Yo Gabba Gabba Mania

Nora is doing great. School is fun for her and she loves the bus. She is rocking her i Touch all day if we let her. But she is also into Yo Gabba Gabba! right now. She asks to watch it all the time so I got her a book, the cd and action figure of Brobie. She loves it. I have been looking for a stuffed animal or t shirt but apparently this stuff is hot right now and I can't find it anywhere.

Emma has been skiing and dancing and doing gymnastics so we have been busy as bees. She also had to do a report on a president, she got Abe Lincoln. It turned out very cute and she did a great job in her presentation.

Alex is in Japan for the week so hopefully I'll survive! Thanks for checking in!

Lori

Nora's history

Nora Frances was born February 7, 2006. She was a healthy girl, 8 lbs. 8 oz. Before she was born, we found out that she had an arachnoid cyst in her brain. Of course I was petrified but the doctors assured me that most people with these cysts never even know they have them. In future ultrasounds we found out that she had 3 of these cysts. When she was 5 weeks old, we had her 1st MRI done. Everything looked ok and we were told not to worry about the cysts unless there were problems. Nora developed on time up until around 9 months. She developed a "head tic" which I reported to her pediatrician. She said to "keep an eye on it". She also wasn't making good eye contact and she wasn't really responding to her name. By January, she wasn't crawling and we were starting to worry. We went to doctor after doctor after doctor. We finally went back for another MRI in March which showed some other brain abnormalities including agenisis of her corpus callosum and heterotopia. Then we finally saw a neurologist in March who scheduled an EEG in April. As soon as they saw her EEG we were sent to the hospital to start the anti-seizure drug ACTH. It has to be injected every day so we were trained on how to give the injections at home. Nora stopped having the seizures after one week on the meds.

Apparently the head tics we saw were seizures related to Infantile Spasms. The EEG showed hypsarrhythmias in her brain waves. If not treated IS can cause severe brain damage. Nora wasn't diagnosed until she was 14 months old. Even so, Nora showed development even on the anti seizure drugs (which usually slow down development). She started walking (well, taking steps) in May,2007. Since then, she's continued to develop and show us what an amazing little girl she is.