The hotel trip was a complete success.  Started off a little dicey with Nixi struggling during the two hour drive.  I was surprised because I consider her to travel really well....as night.  All of our Davis trips are at night and that apparently makes a difference.  She was very ansty, asking if it was going to take a long time over and over and when we were about 20 minutes out I texted Emily that Nixi was losing it.  Once we got to the hotel and got checked in everyone had a chance to regroup.  Our room was on the 5th floor.  I had told Nixi the day before we went that our room might necessitate the use of an elevator and that we were trying new things in 2014 so I thought she could handle it.  She agreed...and she did amazing!  Nothing more to say, she did absolutely outstanding.  Safi was just in live with it all...playing restaurant in the room and writing our orders on the hotel notepad, "calling" from one phone to the other phone in the room, she just thought it was all divine.  We went to a local park that was super fun and the girls enjoyed a lovely dinner in the hotel restaurant, with Safi ordering Marscapone Cheese Cake totally of her own accord for dessert.  They loved heading down to breakfast in the morning in their PJ's and getting lots of compliments from guests and staff.  They felt incredibly special and at one point Safi was marveling at the huge chandeliers and exclaimed, "Doubletree rules, other hotels drool!"  

My mom, the girls' Nana, came for a visit the day we returned from our mini trip and they had a blast.  They enjoyed alone time with Nana in the bedroom playing all kinds of absurd games and laughing hysterically.  They enjoyed their time with Nana and it was a great end of break treat for them.

Unfortunately, Nixi continues to struggle.  Specifically, she suffered from some command hallucinations this week that resulted in her biting her sister one day and pulling out some of her hair another.  Safi was irked but brushed it off because that's just Nixi, at least the Nixi Safi is used to.  Nixi was absolutely beside herself with remorse.  Tonight I increased her Risperdal again by .25mg, for a total of 2mg.  See, we head up to Davis on February 3rd and clearly the talk will be about changing meds.  She is approved to go up to 3mg of the Risperdal so I figure we increase if necessary all the way up to our visit because who knows, maybe at a higher dose Risperdal could still be appropriate for now.  I'm really good at coming up with all of these reasons for Nixi not doing well....the holidays, the trip, visits, etc.  Yes, these are stressors...good and exciting events but stressors nonetheless.  I am starting to realize that these events are also just life.  Life will always have events...a magic show at school, dance class, a kid's birthday at school....and if she's not coping with them she's not coping with life.  While I don't think I'll be looking to increase her meds every time a novel situation occurs, the reality is that she's not coping well on a good day when there's nothing novel.  I use the novel things as excuses for her struggling on regular days.  I can reason this a million ways but sometimes reasoning isn't the best approach.  Sometimes the best approach is to focus on the fact that she has a brain based medical disorder that must be treated if she is to have good quality of life.  So, that's where we end the week.  The girls had a great weekend visit with dad and I just gave Nixi her increase about an hour ago.  We'll see where the week takes us.  Tomorrow its back to school, of which Safi said she thought he had a fever and couldn't go.  She does not and she is going but more evidence that her academic life needs to be reevaluated.  Nixi said "I can't wait to tell my friends and my teachers that I went in an elevator and I was brave.  That's what I'm gonna tell 'em!"

Sarah