Finally!

Cole absolutely loves swimming. He jumps off the diving board and swims all over the pool like a little fish, but he has been in a major rut in his swimming lessons. He has been taking lessons for a little over two years, and for the past year and a half he has been in the same level. I was getting impatient to say the least; I didn't want to keep throwing my money away if he was never going to progress, but I really wanted him to learn correctly. He is working on stroke development now, and I have heard he was in the toughest level, but it was getting a bit ridiculous. To pass he had to do what they call a "flagpole" on his side then roll on his stomach and do "one big arm" or freestyle stroke, and then roll on the other side, and it had to be perfect with toes together and arms just so. A few weeks ago we had to switch lesson times, and the new instructor is so awesome and a much better match for Cole. After a few weeks he finally passed his level. I am so proud of him and excited for him to finally learn something new.

Best Friends

Grant and the dogs are great buds. He loves to tease them and climb all over them, and they love all of the free tidbits of food they get from him. Whenever he is eating, they are anxiously waiting for dropped food. Grant has noticed this, and sometimes he pretends to throw food at them and laughs when they try to get it. When we come home, they always have a happy reunion of Grant squealing and laughing and the dogs licking and wagging. He loves to snuggle up next to them, climb on their back, and pull their mouths open to see their teeth. They patiently endure it all, and come meal time they get their reward.

Sleep Study

I have been worrying about Cole's quality of sleep for a few months now. He never seems well rested when he wakes up, even if he sleeps for over thirteen hours, and by five he looks pretty tired. When Cole is tired he doesn't get lethargic; on the contrary, he gets more hyper like he is trying to keep himself awake. He is a restless sleeper and at times looks like he is struggling to get a breath in and then gasps for air. Ever since Derek had his sleep study a couple of months ago, I knew Cole needed one as well.

Derek was diagnosed with "exceptionally severe" sleep apnea, and it is really scary to watch him sleep. He is never able to get a full breath in and continually gasps for air. The doctor was pretty disturbed by the severity of his obstructive apnea; he has over one hundred apneic episodes an hour and his oxygen saturations are primarily in the seventies when he sleeps-pretty scary. Now he sleeps with a CPAP mask which gives him continuous positive airway pressure and keeps his airway open. No wonder he would fall asleep whenever he would sit down- they said he really hasn't slept in years. Anyways, this has made me paranoid for the past couple of months about Cole, so we ordered him a sleep study.

We had to be at the sleep center at eight, which is pretty late for Cole- I had to keep him awake the whole way there. The therapist was so nice and really made Cole feel at ease, even though he was hooked up to thirty monitors. He had monitors all around his head to monitor his brain waves and facial movement, some on his neck with a microphone to assess snoring, and more on his chest and legs. They also watched him on camera. He was such a good boy and fell asleep while I was reading to him, and he was out the whole night. I wasn't suprised, but I was a bit disappointed when we found out that he does have sleep apnea as well. He is in the mild to moderate category for a child and has about eleven episodes an hour. At least we have an explanation for his tiredness, and now we can hopefully fix it.  Sleep apnea in children is treated with a tonsillectomy and adenoidectomy, and this usually cures it. A few weeks from now my baby boy is going to have surgery and I am stressing about it, but I am also really looking forward to him getting a good night sleep.

Kindergarten

Cole is a big Kindergartener now. His first day was this week, and so far he seems to be doing really well. He is actually going to the same elementary school that I attended, which is kind of cool. I had a hard time last week when we switched Cole to Waggoner, which is all day Kindergarten. I was prepared for half day, but he just seemed so little to go to school all day. His first day went without a hitch. He was very excited and strutted right into his classroom and when we left he gave us a behind the back wave. It was kind of surreal to take him to school- where has the time gone. He has been excited to go every day this week, but he has asked me quite a few times  why his school is so long. That breaks my heart, but I bet he will get used to it soon. It is a great school and his teacher seems wonderful as well. I don't really worry about him adapting to school; I know he is going to love it and make some great friends (hopefully he will be well behaved as well).

A successful first day!