The Wilkinson Family Blog: Urology appointment and other odds and ends

I'll get the urology appointment out of the way first so we can get to the good stuff. We had our appointment with the urologist on Wednesday to go over the tests that Clara and Grady had done about a month ago. The good news on Clara is that the ultrasound came back looking completely normal. The bad news is the doctor wants to have her go in for a VCUG to make sure she doesn't have reflux too. There's apparently a 40% chance that a sibling of someone with reflux will have it too, and the ultrasounds rarely capture it. So, back in for her. Grady's is a little more complicated. He continues to have level 5 reflux and will need to have surgery on it eventually. The right side, the bad side, continues to be the same - not getting worse but not getting any better. The one good news on that side is that the upper kidney has now completely vanished, so we won't need surgery to get rid of that. This time though the ultrasound caught a bit of dilation on the left ureter, which has previously been pretty well behaved. Grady has to go in for a test to see overall kidney functioning, for which he will need to be sedated. We had this one once before, but it's never fun. Depending on the results, he will either have surgery relatively soon (if the left side is starting to lose functioning) or at about 3 years old.

On to the more fun stuff.

Clara's demeanor has continued to improve. At this point, I think she is fussy mainly when she is tired. She's at the stage now where she is more interested in figuring out the world than sleeping, so napping has been a challenge.

Hm, not the intended result

Her night time sleeping has plateaued at about 3 hours at a time from 9/10ish to 6/7ish. She is a very loud sleeper. The good news is that she is now sleeping well in the cosleeper for the most part, although she is doing her napping in our bed. Here she is, looking sweet.

She's also doing some social gooing and aahing, which Grady is pretty taken with (mommy too of course).

And she continues to gain strength. She is rocking the tummy time, and weighed in at an ounce shy of 14 pounds at the urology appointment (with clothes).

As Clara mellows out, Grady has become more of a challenge. The kid really knows how to push our buttons, and it's harder to stay calm when sleep-deprived - although we are trying. Luckily his sweetness far outweighs his two-ness, so we will keep him a bit longer. A couple highlights: I was reading Grady a book about animals before his nap. A page will be something like "I paddle in the water and have webbed feet, what am I?" And Grady will say "A duck!" We got to the frog page: "I make loud croaking noises and keep others up at night, what am I?" to which Grady enthusiastically replied "Clara!" Can't argue with that!

He also cracks us up with his word mistakes - like instead of chick peas, chicken beans. Instead of "na na na na na na na na na bat man!" he sings "na na na na na na na na na na THAT man!"

He is super chatty, especially after swimming. He got a little camera shy, but you can get the idea here.

He also decided this morning to climb down the stairs without holding on! By the time I got the camera out he was a bit tired, but you can see him do 2 of the 3 here.

And here are some other odds and ends from the week.