a night at Le Meridien

We drove (clarification...Luke drove while Madelyn and I slept) to North Dallas this afternoon after Luke left work so that we wouldn't have to wake her up at 5am just to make sure we made it to our first doctor's appointment on time. We got a hotel off of hotwire.com (we have booked every hotel that we have stayed in off of that site for the last two years staying in the 3 1/2-4 star range and it has been awesome every time). So we are only 10-15 minutes from the doctor's office...which I know we will be super excited about in the morning.

We have kept it pretty low key this evening. We hung around the hotel for a little while then grabbed some dinner at a yummy Mexican food restaurant a few miles away. Other than that, we have just been entertained by our wild child climbing all over the furniture, making her silly face and giggling uncontrollably for 2-3 minutes at a time.

Just about every time she "smiles" at the camera now, it's some variation of her silly face. As ridiculously cute as it is, I think she is starting to think this is how to smile! Yikes! Can you imagine that for her first yearbook picture??

Madelyn as been giving me the best kisses lately (she hasn't dished them out so freely for Daddy which kind of evens the score considering every time we try to get her to say, "Mommy", she whispers, "Daddy", and grins).

Maybe we should rename this "the grumpy old man face".

Or the "has anyone seen where I put my dentures face".

She is always so expressive and making Luke and I laugh constantly. She definitely takes after her dad in that area. She likes to make people smile and laugh and she is good at it.

I seriously took like 15 "silly face" pictures tonight and I am not sure that we even said the words silly face once. We have created a silly face monster!

She just recently started to shrug her shoulders when she is talking and I think it is precious (naturally...I think everything she does is precious).

She was in such a fun and playful mood that she even snuck a few sugars to Luke.

She and Luke are sleeping now. I should probably go join them. I keep thinking about what a friend asked me this afternoon though and I can't sleep. She asked what we hoped to accomplish at the doctor's visits tomorrow. I'm not really sure. I mean, we are pretty confident that it is just terrible reflux that is causing her apnea and not something that's anatomically incorrect or something else of that nature. We know that it's either something that 95% of babies grow out of by 1 year of age or they don't and are the 5% that carry it with them in to childhood. What we don't really know is if we should expect her to continue to quit breathing for these extended lengths of time even if she has gone one or two or even three months without having many major problems? I am fearful of what happens if she doesn't "snap out of it" on her own if it happened again. I have really been fighting a spiritual battle trying to win over the "what ifs?" that keep popping in my head with scripture. God has been so good and I am constantly reminded of His faithfulness even in the small stuff. The fact is though, if something like what happened on Wednesday were to happen again, it could cause permanent damage because of the extended period of time without Oxygen. So honestly, I am not sure what we hope to "accomplish" tomorrow. Maybe nothing more than the reassurance that she's not the first child to ever go through this, she won't be the last, and that it might just take a little longer than we first thought for her to outgrow it? Our pedi referred us because he's not sure there is anything else we can do but wait and keep a vigilant eye on her as well as use the monitor for naps and at night. He's also bright enough and concerned enough to know that it wouldn't hurt a single thing to speak to two other doctors who deal with these types of problems more regularly than he does.

So although the mommy in me just wants my baby girl to be free from any discomfort, pain and apnea, I know that ultimately, no matter what it is that I want to accomplish, all of this will work out in His timing and for His glory.