More snow

Seriously, I am sooooo ready for spring.  Next weekend is Easter and we are hovering around 35 degrees here.  And to top it off, we got over 12 inches of snow on Sunday!  So, we ended up with a snow day on Monday. 

This is not even the full amount!  It was still snowing at this point.

 

Don't get me wrong, I love being able to stay home with my kids, but I would prefer to stay home in May when the weather is better. You see, every snow day we have adds an extra day to the end of our school year. So now we are at May 23rd as our last day. Boo.

 

So the day it snowed, we decided to go ahead and dye our Easter Eggs.  Nothing fancy, but we sure had fun.

 

 

Julia is definitely becoming more aware.  She understands that she needs to wear glasses and is definitely becoming a pro at all things related to the EYE.

 

 

 And with having to stay inside comes the multiplication of germs. Both Jed and Julia have been through two rounds of antibiotics for ear infections. Julia and James both had the stomach bug. Julia's was really bad and she ended up in the emergency room. So glad that spring is around the corner. Maybe I can teach the kids to clean up their germs?

Nerves have set in. Julia is seeing the Pediatric Opthamologist on Tuesday and I am nervous. I seem to be more nervous when I think things are going well. It is like I am waiting for the shoe to drop. I am praying that this appointment goes well and there are no surprises. I am kind of hoping for a new prescription so that we can get new glasses. I would like Julia to have transition lenses for the summer, and since First Steps is paying for a pair, I figure this is as good of a time as any! Not sure if she will graduate to a bifocal yet or not. We will have to wait and see what good ole' Dr. H says!  The bad thing is Julia is fighting the patch again.  And boy can she fight!  We've been using the arm braces again because otherwise she will rip the patch off every 2 minutes.

Cheese from the cheese ball!

Patch off.

Here mom - I don't need the arm braces.

Here, you can have the patch too.

 

So wish us luck.  We will head to Children's on Tuesday (thankfully we are on Spring Break) and see what the docs have to say.  We also will be having therapy with the Occupational Therapist and vision specialist this weekend.  Hopefully spring is coming soon and we can put all the snow behind us!

Home sick

It seems lately that the only time I can blog is when I am home with a sick kid.  This time it is Julia.  She had an ear infection in January (see the last post) and about 10 days ago she had another one.  We finished the round of antibiotics, and she is still sick.  She was vomiting and her ear was draining.  So we are doing another round of a stronger antibiotic and we are having the gunk from her ear cultured.

In some good news, she is finally talking!  She will say Mommy, Daddy, and night night.  As long as she keeps adding words every month, we won't need to add speech therapy.

We had a two snow days a few weeks ago.  I ended up only working two days that week because of President's day and two snow days.

 

 

 

And Daddy got a new tractor.  Jed actually wasn't too thrilled with the ride, but he loves "helping" Daddy fix it.

 



 

 

As far as the EYE goes - it is pretty much status quo.  We had to order a new set of snuggle wraps (arm immobilizers) because she has started ripping off her patches again.  She has a doctor appointment over spring break and I am anxious to see what our next step is since we are past strabismus surgery.

See my EYE.

 

 

 

Jed's been having fun too.

 

He found a box of outgrown clothes.  These are a pair of Julia's 6 month pants!

 

 

 

 

We are ready for spring so that we can play outside!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



 

 

 



 

 

 

Surgery, Slides, and Sickness

Nope, those things have no specific relationship other than they have been my last few weeks.  So lets tackle them one at a time.

SURGERY

New "lovey" for the hospital (thanks Grandma Joan).

It is over!  The doc had a cancellation so they bumped up Julia's surgery. It really was a blessing.  Less time to fret and be anxious.  They called on Tuesday and said there was an opening on Thursday.  So we made arrangements and phone calls and got ourselves ready.

Eyes before the surgery.

Had to be at the Hospital at 6:15 am.  Julia was great until they tried to put the hospital bracelet on.  She wailed.  She did not want to be touched at all.  I knew then that it was going to be a long day.  She got into the gown, we talked to a ton of different people (and answered the same questions over and over) and then the time came for her to go back for surgery.

Chillin with Daddy and waiting to get started.

They had given her some versed (not sure if that is spelled right) so she was a little loopy, but not loopy enough to just go to a stranger.  So I walked her to the OR doors and handed her over.  Then as I walked away I could hear her crying as they walked in.  So of course I teared up and then when I got back to the room, James was teary as well.

Waiting to go back for surgery.

Surgery was about an hour and the surgeon came in and said everything went fine.  He also took measurements for an IOL and said we could move forward with that in a few months.  I'm waiting for the Dr. H to talk with the Surgeon to develop a more definite plan.  We have an appointment scheduled in 8 weeks to see Dr. H and figure things out.

We finally got to go back to recovery and get my baby!  She was inconsolable.  She does not come out of anesthesia well and we have dealt with this every time.  This time she was strong enough to try to rip out her IV and heart monitor leads.  She needed some meds to calm down and then we were finally able to go back to our room.  After an hour of cuddles, we got the IV out, got dressed and came home. 

 Tired

 Thirsty.

Sleepy. 

Snuggly.

 

 She slept all afternoon and then was back to her usual self!  She ate a big dinner and ran around with her brother.  It was seriously the easiest of all our surgery recoveries.  And her eyes are so straight.  She looks amazing!

Eyes after surgery!  So straight!

SLIDES

This weekend (yes, just a few days after surgery) was the birthday party for my niece and nephew.  It was at this place called Jump4Fun.  We actually had Jed's 2nd birthday party there.  Doc had said that Julia had no restrictions, so we just let her have fun!  Jed had a blast and probably would have played there all day if we could have.  Julia was hesitant, but then enjoyed climbing up the slides.  She didn't enjoy going down them as much as she did climbing up.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Yes, every pose from Jed is a different time down the slide.

SICKNESS

And a bug has hit our house.  Julia has an ear infection, so we saw the doc yesterday for some antibiotics.  We had been treating it for 6 days with antibiotic drops, but it hadn't cleared, so she needed something stronger.  Thank God for ear tubes.  I can't imagine how much pain she would have been in without the tubes.  If the gunk flowing out of her ears was any indication, she would have been miserable.

Waiting for the doc.

Still waiting.

Literally, I got home from being at the doc with Julia, and James told me that Jed had been throwing up.  He puked several times last evening and once in the middle of the night.  So I kept him home from daycare and we have been cuddling today.  He hasn't been sick today, just tired, so hopefully it was a short-lived virus. (I'll save you from a pic of a puking kid.)

And the reason I was able to write this post is because I am sitting at home with a sleeping boy!  So there are positives to everything.

So now we are waiting to discuss the implant, have another dilation/refraction and hopefully Cardiff test to see where her acuity is.  In the meantime, we are just plugging along (we need to start planning for Jed's birthday (how can my boy be turning 3!), looking toward summer, and of course saving up for OeyeO!

 Eye is straight - even when patched!