Our strong willed girl

Hi everyone!
It's been a couple weeks since i've sent out an update. I hope all is well.
Ayla is doing good. Her mouth finally seems to be feeling a bit better from the surgery and she goes in next thursday for a follow up.
She was cleared last week from the 2nd break. It's all healed and we got the "go ahead" which we already had. He didn't see any difference on the xray in bone density.
She seems to be handling being off the steroids well. We are hoping that she starts to grow and gain weight now. She wasn't sleeping well for the first week or so she was off them but now she's okay so it must have been withdrawls.
On November 1st she has 2 appointments at Sick Kids in Toronto. One is with a dermatologist (dermogologist/rhuematologist are the ones who actually diagnosed her) to make sure she doesn't have any more signs of flare ups. The other is with the lead rhuematologist at sick kids to do a follow up on Ayla and see the progress she has made. At this time she will see "tons of residents and fellows" so her Rhuematologist said, "i hope she's in a good mood!" As most of you know Ayla is never in a good mood for strangers...especially strangers with white coats or scrubs all staring at her and talking about her like she's not there and possibly touching her. So i'm thinking of limiting who can come in and see her...as much as people need to learn she doesn't need to hear all that's happened to her over and over again. I'm all for people learning and if i could put myself in her shoes i would say the more the merrier, but not for our wee girl.
This week i started reading a book called, "Aaron's Will." It's about strong willed children and how we as parents can understand it and gear it to be something positive (as hard as it can be). When i started reading the book i had Ezra in my head because he has always been strong willed. While part of the way through it dawned on me..."ON NO! I HAVE 2!" Ayla filled all of the definition of a strong willed child and then more. Sometimes it can be really frustrating when there is nothing i can do to coax her into doing anything...even something simple like, "where a sweater b/c it's cold outside." That turns into me saying, "fine. Don't wear it. But don't ask me to put it on you when we are in the car driving down the road." Sure enough she screamed ALL THE WAY TO WINDSOR (ABOUT 30 MINUTES) that she wanted her sweater on NOW. And some how managed to get half of her body out the head hold of her shirt while being buckled into her car seat. Some of you may think, "oh no...not sweat little quiet Ayla"...BUT OH YES, SWEET LITTLE QUIET AYLA! So in my thoughts i realized how thankful i am for her having that strong will. If she didn't have that, where would she be now? God blessed her (and Ryan and I) with that nature for her good and for our good. Thank you God for both of our strong willed children and give us wisdom to guide them. I think they get it from Ryan...but some people have recently have informed me that maybe...possibly...they MIGHT get it from both parents:)

Ayla's surgery

Ayla had her dental surgery today. It went pretty well. It was only supposed to take about 1.5-2 hours and it took them 3 instead...no one came to tell us, so we were a bit worried because there was mention of possibly extractions. But the reason it took so long was because she was able to save some teeth. So Praise God for that. Hopefully now that she's off of the steroids, her teeth will improve as well. Other than being dopey and sore she's doing pretty well. She was eating and drinking immediately after, so that is good.
Other than that she is doing well. She is walking even better this week and her foot is turned mostly in!
I met another mom of a boy in Ayla's preschool/therapy this week. She has a little boy that has some disorder where his bones will gradually curve (feet and hands). Usually they don't catch it until kids are 10 years old, he is 3. My heart broke for her when she said, "he'll never be able to play sports, or work with his hands...i shouldn't say never...but probably not." I shared with her how "they" (docs) wanted us to move to Toronto and if we didn't Ayla would likely not recover fully/or walk well ever. I told her that we are Christians and after lots of prayer we felt led not to go, two weeks later Ayla was taking steps on her own...so don't get bogged down with never because all things are possible. And the woman looked at her now and said, "she gets around great!" This for a kid that 7 months ago people were thinking she might never walk (without pain or struggle) ever again. So i said a prayer for her and her boy...you just can never know.
Ezra is having some bad dreams...he's really struggling to sleep and not be afraid. Prayers for our little man would be so very appreciated. We aren't really sure what else to do...
All in all this week was a good and slow week and so will next week be. Thank God for that.
Thanks for all the prayers over Ayla for her surgery and all else!

God Bless.
Lacy