Beautiful weather

It was so nice here on Sunday that we decided to load up and go to the zoo.  The animals were enjoying the weather too, and the giraffes were hanging out right at the fence, like THEY were watching US!  Stephen loved it!

His favorite, though, was the swimming Grizzly Bear.  He just wanted to sit and watch him swimming and playing in the water.

This happy boy will not be very happy with us for the next couple of days... tomorrow (Thursday), Stephen will be checking in to the Children's Hospital for an airway scope, and then potentially (likely) cut out the enlarged tissue that is causing his sleep apnea.  So that means an over-nighter for Mommy and Stephen at the hospital tomorrow night, and probably several days of recovery for our little guy.  But hopefully, in the end, this will result in better sleep for all of us, and a happier family.

Busy times!

We've been keeping ourselves pretty busy here in the Heine house!  But we still managed to find time to visit our local fire station last weekend.  When Stephen was in pre-k last year, they'd had a field trip scheduled to visit one, but Stephen was sick and couldn't attend.  After a neighborhood kitchen fire 2 weeks ago, we decided it was time to go!  Stephen loved looking around the truck, of course, and the fire fighters were super nice to let us come look around - THANK YOU to Station 17!!

We also had a bit of a scare last week as well.  As if Stephen's sleep apnea issues weren't enough to put us all on edge, I noticed on Saturday that Stephen had developed a twitch that affected his left arm and hip/leg. It got worse as the weekend went on, and on Monday, after letting his teacher know about it, she contacted me to tell met that it was almost non-stop during recess.  I got Stephen in to see his pediatrician early Monday afternoon (how's THAT for service?!?!  I love them.), who confirmed our suspicions that it was a TIC.  She referred us to a neurologist, with instructions to video tape Stephen's tic, in case it took a few weeks to get in.  Luckily for our anxiety levels, we were able to get in the NEXT DAY, thanks to a cancellation.  She also agreed that it was a tic, and said that it would start to subside, and that Monday would probably be the worst day.  She was right, of course, and we have only really seen it pop back up when Stephen is really tired.  Yes, being tired can exacerbate the tic, as can stress.  This may be a one-time occurrence, or it may come back, but even if it does come back, he will most likely outgrow this in a few years.  There's very little that can be done; it can't be prevented, but if it interferes with his life too much (if it comes back), we will look into medications.

So that's what all we've been up to.  Pa and Kim are coming for a visit this week, which should be fun, and then the next week is the visit to the ENT, and Thanksgiving!  We are also planning on taking Stephen to see his first movie in the theater - Wreck It Ralph!

Sleep Study Results and Halloween

So.... Stephen had his sleep study, as I posted before, and here are some pictures.  This one below was taken before he was hooked up to anything, perfectly happy to be goofing around WELL past his normal bedtime.

 And then we have this.  You can kind of see that Stephen has his lower lip out here - he wasn't sad, though. He was trying to use his lips to push the sensor off before resorting to ripping it off with his hands.  Stephen HATES to have stuff on his face.  :-(

He managed to tear all of the face stuff off, and ended up in the splints, which didn't really affect the results at all.  We all headed to visit with a sleep psychologist on Tuesday, who revealed that he really couldn't do much for us, as the preliminary sleep study results said that we are looking at sleep apnea again.  Stephen was averaging 11.6 apnea episodes an hour during REM sleep, which is what causes him to wake up so early.  And whatever sleep he gets isn't very restful at all.  As soon as we got home from this appointment, and got Stephen off to school, I got on the phone with our pediatrician's nurse, who put me in touch with the Ear, Nose, and Throat doctor that took out Stephen's tonsils and adenoids 3+ years ago, and I managed to get an appointment for mid November.  Hopefully we can get this figured out soon so our little boy can get back to the business of being a little boy, instead of a sad sack of exhaustion.

In the meantime, we enjoyed a great evening of trick or treating!  Stephen dressed as Pablo from The Backyardigans (of course!), and this is the ONLY picture of him wearing the head piece.  This was also our first attempt at taking the "talker" out into the neighborhood.

 Stephen used his talker tremendously well, and we are so proud of him for that!  We didn't have an opportunity to practice beforehand, but I did show him the buttons he would need so that he could do it easily.  We marched up to the first house, and I reminded Stephen what he needed to do.  He said, "Trick or Treat!" "Thank you," "Happy Halloween," and then because no one knew what he was dressed as, "I'm Pablo!"  He repeated this at every house with almost no prompting, and our neighbors were just thrilled to hear his "voice."  This even gave us some new ideas for encouraging him to use it at school as well, which the Speech Therapist is excited to implement this coming week.

Stephen also got a new swing this week - it is an early Christmas present from his grandparents who wanted him to be able to enjoy it while the weather is still nice.  He really likes the back support, but it's certainly more independent than his previous swing, which he is now too heavy to use.  Hopefully he will continue to remember to hang on!