Birthday

Jed is 3!  I don't know where the time has gone.  He is so independent, talkative, handsome and smart (and I am not biased at all).  He had a great birthday with cake and a few presents.  He also will be having some small get togethers with the rest of the family next weekend.

 

 

He got some sunglasses that have blinking lights.  He thought they were fun, and so did Julia!

 

 

 

 

 

It has been such a privilege watching Jed grow.  He teaches me everyday how to be a better person and to love more.

 



 



Finally...a good appointment

Julia had a great appointment with her pediatric opthamologist!  Finally!  No surprises, no bad news, no scheduling surgery or anesthesia.  I was so happy and relieved.  Here is the rundown...

Her eye pressures are 14 and 17.  Normal is 16 +/- 4.  So these are great!

Her right eye has grown a millimeter and a half!  This is a front to back measurement, not side to side.  Basically this means her prescription has changed two diopters in that eye.  The left eye only grew a half a millimeter, so the prescription really didn't change.  This is very strange...but good!  It means the prescription in each eye is getting closer and closer which is a good thing.  It also means the right eye is catching up to the left eye in size. 

Her cornea is still SUPER steep (hers is a 56, a normal adult is a 43). 

Doc says it seems like her visual system is trying to find an equilibrium.  He is stumped, but pleased.  It seems Julia's eyes are not behaving like he would expect.  We are just going to keep checking in every 3 months to see how it goes.  At this rate, it is quite possible that she won't need the implant because the script in each eye will be so close together.

So her new prescription is a +10.75 in the right, and +5.25 in the left.  But this is just for near vision.  She is getting a bifocal in her right eye, so it will actually be a +8 in the right and a +5.25 in the left with a +2.75 bifocal in the right.  We are getting her new glasses and had them made as transitions so she isn't so affected by the sun.  (And the best part is First Steps is paying for them!)  Here is a pic:

Obviously the color is a bit off in the pic.  It is going to be a burgundy pearl color.  I hope it looks good on her skin.  We also got a sheet of pics to start working on with Julia.  We are hoping to get her to be able to point to or name a pic when she sees it so we can get a better estimate of her acuity.  They look like this:

 

 

We are still patching.  We had a nice discussion on patching with the doc.  It has been pretty rough lately.  Hopefully with the new glasses things will go a bit smoother.  Her current prescription has her clearest point only 3 inches from her face!  No wonder she rips the patch off!  We are going to try for 3 hours.  I asked if we needed to do more and he said that obviously patching 6 hours a day will get more results, but we are in this for the long haul.  He said we need to balance quality of life and also not damaging her sound eye.  So we are going for a solid 3 hours a day.

 

So there you are!  A great appointment!  Thank you for all the prayers.  I know they helped.  I'll post a pic as soon as her glasses are in.

Easter

Easter was awesome.  The weather was perfect (the kids not so perfect - but that is to be expected).  We started with dyeing eggs last Sunday (while it snowed 14 inches).

I know I shared egg dyeing pics in the last post, but I had better ones on my camera that just got uploaded.

And of course, the Easter Bunny came and brought awesome baskets.  (The Easter Bunny really shouldn't go go Target anymore - he really goes overboard).

Then it was time to find all the eggs the Easter Bunny hid.  Julia wasn't super thrilled, but once she realized there was candy in the eggs, she was all for it.  Jed was very excited, and had to dump open every egg as soon as he found it.

He is a little ambitious.  What can I say?

Then they attacked their baskets.

 

 

Yes, I got Julia "egg" glasses for Easter.  You know it's funny.

And they got bunny ears.

And then they started eating candy.

Time for church!  We tried to get a pic of them all dressed up, but that is about as easy of pinning down an octopus.

So instead we had a family member take a family pic after church.  Not too shabby.

There was another egg hunt with the Schultz cousins.  I can't even tell you how perfect the weather was! 

As you can see, Jed ran everywhere...too and fro, running, running, running.  Julia stayed close to the front door.  I think the sunshine was bothering her eye.  And while the camo patch was gone, she was still sporting a camo basket for camopatch Sunday!

Time to see what we got!

Notice the chipmunk cheeks that are full of jelly beans.

She is probably eating a jelly bean too.

And a pic of all the Schultz cousins!

My kids never cooperate for photos.  Sigh...

 

And then another egg hunt with the Gierer cousins.

 

The bow was long gone by this point.

And Jed had lost his sports coat.

And finally, checking out the next haul of candy with some cousins.  Just hanging on the front porch.

By the time we got home the kids were overtired, over sugared and just plain crabby.  But I would do it again in a heartbeat.  Jed loved the entire day and Julia seemed to enjoy herself too.

Now we get to enjoy a week of spring break.  Poor daddy still has to work.  Julia and I will be heading to the eye doc tomorrow, so keep us in your prayers.