I have to say that with Elena it has been the terrible 3's and not the terrible 2's. Thankfully meltdowns and power struggles have subsided and she has become quite pleasant mostly in part to her recent surgery (more on that later). Elena loves school and gets the most joy out of being with friends and playing at school. She loves playing outside now that the weather is nice and has really taken advantage of the sandbox in the backyard. She likes to ride in her red coupe and is getting better at riding her tricycle. She loves to run, play with balls and dress up in her butterfly wings. She has had tremendous growth in her verbal skills and is now prefering English as her method of communication. For sometime now and to my advantage, the girls have entertained themselves by playing well together. Elena loves putting hats on her sister, feeding her (when she doesn't want to be fed) making sure that Marisa has what she has and giving Marisa anything to make her stop crying especially in the mornings when Elena finds toys to put in Marisa's crib when she first wakes up. I'm really enjoying this social stage and getting to know Elena more and more.
And now on the surgery. Elena had not been sleeping well for sometime now. She was getting a full 12-13 hours of sleep each day and staying on a schedule but on a daily basis she seemed continually tired or overly tired. We had come to the conclusion that Elena was not a good sleeper and it didn't help that we remembered those colicky nights she had when she was a newborn. After talking to her teacher at school about Elena's sleep and hearing her mention a few things to me it dawned on me that Elena might have something physically wrong that was preventing her from sleeping restfully. I made an appointment with an ENT and a month later my suspicions were right. After a simple x-ray the ENT found that Elena's adenoids were triple the size that they should be resulting in obstructive sleep apnea. The surgery was very minor and only took about 30 minutes. Elena was back to her normal self within 2 hours . After just a couple of weeks since the surgery and about a year of dealing with sleep issues Elena finally seems well rested. Her behavior has improved dramatically. As Omar put it, she still has her spark but she is not over the top. I think that best describes her now. We're all sleeping better now and really hope this is the end of physical sleep issues. As it turned out the ENT discovered during the surgery that Elena's tonsils were also large and he would've removed them along with the adenoids since they also cause obstructive sleep apnea. Previously though he thought they were moderate and chose only to remove the adenoids. So I'm crossing my fingers that we don't have to go there. Here are some pics before the surgery.
