"At the Zoo"

Will had an ENT appointment on Friday, so we decided to spend the night in Little Rock that night. We wanted to do some shopping and take the kids to the LR Zoo. We picked Will up from school a little early and hit the road. We got to our appointment and only had to wait in the "big" waiting room for a few minutes before they called us back to the ENT waiting room, where they immediately took us back to a room (this NEVER happends). Will got a good check-up. Both of the T-tubes were in place and working properly. One ear had a little drainage but Dr. Bower told us that it was nothing that a few days of drops wouldn't clear up. Then he asked us about Will's sleeping . . . . we were like, "ummm, he doesn't". We'd talked with him about this before and have tried to talk to his pediatrician about it (although he had been little help). We give Will Melatonin, which makes him fall asleep and sleep for a few hours, but then he wakes up and is very restless for the rest of the night. None of us get much sleep. Mitch and I have been taking turns getting up with him (and sleeping the rest of the night with him) for months now, but it is not getting any better. We have tried the "Super Nanny" tecnique to get him to go back to sleep after getting up, but that was a disaster. Anyway, we decided it was time for him to have a sleep study and see if we can get some answers to this issue. Apparently kids with Down syndrome have a higher incidence of sleep apnea, so Dr. Bower wants to investigate further. We scheduled it for Oct. 16th, after we take family pictures with my mom, Guy and Julie.

After leaving ACH we went to the mall for a little while. We went to the hotel to let the kids recoup and then we went to Outback for supper. Ainsley was a little testy, but we had great food and shared a dessert.

The next morning we took the kids to the zoo. Ainsley had been talking about the zoo ever since we mentioned it to them earlier in the week. She wanted to go right then, and could not understand that it would be a few days. Over and over she said "I wanna go at the zoo" (and she is still saying it). The admission to the zoo was free that day since there was a LR Razorback game that night - who knew? (the school takes over the zoo parking and makes people pay to park, thus the free admission, but we found a spot on the street). There were very few people there and it was overcast most of the time, so it was not too hot. The kids enjoyed all the animals - monkeys, zebras, elephants, rhinos, lions, a jaguuar (named Sidney), a giant tortoise, giraffes, a bear, an otter, a penguin, an owl, flamingos, and lots of others.

We left the zoo and went to our favorite LR dive, The Purple Cow, with the best turkey burgers around! We did even more shopping and finally headed home late that afternoon. The kids were worn out but did pretty well. Will is still talking about the animals we saw, and Ainsley is still wanting to go "at the zoo".