5 months old and our cute little three year old.

Adam is now 5 months old! He now weighs in at a whopping 16lbs and is still thriving. He is such a ball of joy all the time and is starting to eat baby foods and and has become more vocal lately. He now gets mad if Audrey takes one of his toys and cry's until she gives it back, which is within a matter of seconds usually. Adam likes to hold onto toys and will even take his finger and scratch at little details. He likes to hold onto his feet and try's to eat his toes as well and has learned that by holding onto his feet it helps him turn over onto his side better. I am so glad that he is growing and learning. WE have had a few sleepless nights for the last couple of weeks with him though, because during the night he has not been breathing very well. What I mean about him not breathing well is when he sleeps during the night he tends to have little episodes where he will not breathe in and out as often as he should be doing and tends to hold his breath. He will sometimes hold it up to 20 to 30 seconds every other breath and sometimes every three to four breaths while his chest still rises up and down because he is trying to breathe in and out of his nose, but has difficulty and this will last for a few minutes sometimes, or longer and it has been happening quite frequently during the night. He has always been a very noisy breather and sounds like he is congested all the time and his breathing at night has always been a little abnormal. But just in the last week it seemed like it had worsened quite a bit, so we decided to take him to the dr. to see if he had sleep apnea. The pediatrician decided he would put Adam on an antibiotic and get him a BBG machine to see if that would help clear up his congestion and he also referred us to a ENT(ears nose and throat dr.) to see if he may be having more problems like sleep apnea and to see what is going on with his breathing. The BBG machine is a device that helps suck mucus out through the nose, but when we used this device on Adam nothing really came out. We took Adam to the ENT yesterday and found out a couple of different things about him, which is a combination that results in his problems during the night. He has a minor case of Laryngomalacia, Moderate sized adnoids, and said that Adam had some scar tissue on throat and thinks that he may have acid reflux. Also, we showed the ENT a video of Adam sleeping during the night and he said that Adam has mild sleep apnea. The ENT was able to discover all this by sticking a scoping tube down Adam's nose. It may all sound a lot worse then it really is, but the ENT gave us reassurance that he should be fine, but if his breathing at night does not resolve on its own we will probably need to remove his adnoids in the near future. He said that he would not want to remove his adnoids right now, since he is at such a young age. The ENT put Adam on prevacid to see if that will help him breathe better at night if he really does have acid reflux. He said that if the medicine does not help in a couple of weeks then he might not have it, but he said by the scar tissue on his adnoids it is very likely.

Laryngomalacia is best described as floppy tissue (epiglottis and arytenoid cartilages) above the vocal cords that falls into the airway when a child breaths in, so we think this is one of the causes of him not breathing very well at night. He does have a very minor case and the Dr. said he should grow out of it by the time he is 12 to 18 months of age. The ENT told us if we lay him on his side at night he should be able to breathe easier, because it opens Adam's airway more. He said that the worse position for him to be in at night is when he sleeps on his back, because the larynx will not open as much.

Well with the combination of the laryngomalcia, moderate sized adnoids, sleep apnea and most likely acid reflux he actually slept really well on his side last night and hardly made a peep. It is just unbelievable that is all it took! He is usually snoring, or gasping for air during his little episodes, or making some kind of noise. I still was up with him quite frequently last night, just to make sure he was still breathing because he was so quiet....... With Sleep apnea and Laryngomalacia he is at an increased risk for getting cyanosis at night(turning blue from not getting enough oxygen) but the dr. reassured us that he should be just fine. We feel like Adam should be just fine after all that has been going on.

Audrey just started preschool this last month and loves it!! We decided to put her into preschool because she was getting so bored at home. I can already tell that she has learned new skills and developed a ton from it. She has learned how to use scissors, but has not mastered cutting yet. Also, she is starting to trace letters and numbers a little bit and is still working on mastering that as well. Every time I usually pick her up she is so excited and tells me the things they have done at preschool and seems so happy about it all. Thanks, to her preschool teacher who is awesome and makes it so much fun for the kids! Thanks, Lori for referring us to the preschool we love it! Anyways, Audrey just started primary in at the beginning of January and loves to go in there and sing songs and is also the naughtiest one most of the time..... She just likes to run around, or jump up and down and not stay quiet. She is starting to be a little bit better, but I think she just has so much energy all of the time she can not contain herself. We love her though and she has made some progress in primary in the last month and just needs time to adjust to it.