Oh crap! How has it been a month since I posted already?! The kids are all down for a nap, but it might not last long! This past month has been interesting. I finally had a few weeks of being healthy, until Dan and I got this stupid little cold. I think it's almost gone though. Arianna, however, is what made the month interesting. She was an absolute mess. I don't really know how to describe her. I know she's 2 (how did I miss her birthday on here!?), but this was far beyond any typical 2-year-old antics. I'm not certain we're out of the woods yet, but I was convinced something was drastically wrong with her. We had her diagnosed with so many things, trying to explain her behavior. She's still on Miralax, and is finally pooping about once a day. So that couldn't be her problem. At her well visit, I had them take some blood and test it for common food allergies. Nothing showed up, so that was a relief at least. Last week, on Monday, it peaked. She was begging to nurse, and sobbed and screamed and pushed me and my face and just threw a HUGE fit because I wouldn't nurse her again (she's already been nursing excessively), and nothing, NOTHING, would distract her. But that evening when Dan got home from work, she was a perfect angel. He didn't believe me, until I showed him the video I took of the tantrum on my phone! And ever since that day, March 1, she's been a completely different child! We can't figure out what changed, since we didn't do anything different! She's super sweet, giggly, loving, and obedient (well, for a 2 year old!). She's still struggling with her sleep, but it's nothing like what it was! Right now, someone has to be in her bedroom for her to fall asleep. During the weekdays for nap, that's obviously me. It's very difficult since Roman isn't always napping then, so sometimes I have to bring him in with me and hope he's quiet enough for her to fall asleep. And it usually takes her about 15 minutes to fall asleep. If someone isn't in her room with her, she just screams and screams and screams, and NEVER calms down. As difficult as it is to be in her room to put her to sleep, we're not willing to just let her scream for hours and hours, with the possibility that she'd never stop. Dan sits in her room for her to go to sleep at bedtime. That's been taking about 45 minutes lately, because she's been taking 2 hour naps - which is unheard of for her! It's been wonderful for her to finally get caught up on sleep. For a while, she was waking up more than Roman at night. Dan was getting up with her (I don't even hear her, plus I have to be with Roman anyways), and barely getting any sleep. Finally he ended up sleeping in her room. There's a twin bed in there, and he sits in her room to put her to sleep, then comes out til we go to bed. He goes to bed in our bed, but she was waking up around 11 just about every night, so he just ended up sleeping in there for the rest of the night for a few weeks. She's recently started staying asleep better, so he doesn't have to go in there til 3am or so. One night last week, he woke up in our bed and we were both surprised! We need to figure out something soon though, since Dan is going on a missions trip and there's no way I can be in her room all night when he's gone for a week. At some point the girls are going to share a room, and maybe that will help. But to do that, she'll have to be in a big girl bed. And that's scary! We don't really have a plan, but we've just been "surviving" lately! I'm so thankful that we have our sweet wonderful girl back though. That was a rough month or so. I have a feeling she is going to continue to be a challenge for us.

Right now we are trying to decide what to do for Marissa's Kindergarten year in the fall. The options are 1. Homeschool (overwhelming because of challenges with Arianna) 2. Online school (basically homeschool, just different, still slightly overwhelming) 3. Local school district (unsure about quality) or 4. Neighboring district (better, but 25 minute drive).

I'd like to write more, but Arianna and Marissa just woke up from nice long naps! So I'll finish up quickly: Arianna turned 2! Hard to believe! and Roman is wonderful, smiley, and growing! He has his 4 month check up in 2 weeks (how is that possible?!). Time to go get Arianna out of her crib!