Surgery, Snow and Sunshine!

It has been a long time since I have posted.  Life has been busy and hectic!  Work is overloading right now, and all the snow days have messed with all of our schedules.

Julia had her second strabismus surgery on Jan. 14th.  She was a trooper.  I was a mess.

She was happy as a clam with her new toys and scrubs.  They gave her some happy juice and she willingly went with the nurses.  She came out of anesthesia pretty well and we were home in a jiffy.  Honestly, I don't see a huge difference in alignment but am hoping that as the muscles "settle" things will straighten up.  I don't know if I am willing to do another surgery so I hope I don't have to face that decision.

As far as her eyes go, things are status quo.  We go for a low vision evaluation with Lighthouse for the Blind in March.  They will look at her functional vision and determine if there is any equipment (magnifiers, technology, etc) that she would need.  If there is any, they provide it free of charge, along with training. Once that eval is done, we will begin to prepare for transition to the school district and out of early intervention.  Right now she is seeing her vision instructor once a month and a speech therapist twice a month.  We will have to see what services the school district thinks she needs.

SNOW!!!  We have had so much snow - it has been overwhelming.  So far we have had 7 snow days.  

Several of the snow days were so very cold that we couldn't even head outside.  But when we could, we played in the snow.

Jed loves the snow.  Wants to play, dig and sled.  Julia is more like me.  She tolerates it for a few minutes, and then is ready to go in and have hot chocolate and watch cartoons.  The beauty of all the snow is that Julia is potty trained!  We were stuck at home for 5 days, so we just put on underwear and went for it!  She caught on quick, and is in underwear full time now.  Hurray for not having to buy diapers!

A lot of the month was trapped inside.  We did a lot of coloring, busy bags and any watched a lot of movies (my kids can recite all of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Mary Poppins.

Do you see what I see?

After several months of bitter cold and crazy snow, we have had a small heat wave! Jed has been begging to fly a kite, so Daddy got him one.  They were able to fly the kite on the deck yesterday afternoon.

Today it was really warm, so we decided to enjoy the sunshine and head to the park.  My kids have a lot of energy and maybe a touch of ADHD so any chance to run around outside is welcome.  They loved swinging, climbing and sliding.  Jed is fearless and will tackle any obstacle or playground equipment.  Julia is a bit more hesitant, but once she gets comfortable, she will run around with the best of them.

Of course, it is supposed to chill down again tomorrow, and flurries are in the forecast.  We probably won't get to the playground for another couple of months.  But we enjoyed it while we could!  Until the weather warms, we will enjoy the days inside!