Catch-Up!

 Woohoo! I finally figured out how to get pictures from my new phone to my computer! Now to figure out videos.....because I have some cute ones of Z doing his Tae Kwon Do:)

So, let's play picture catch-up, shall we?

I met a friend at the zoo a couple weeks ago. I brought the stroller just in case, even though Miss E insisted she didn't need it! She was in and out the whole time;)

Our very favorite thing we saw were the polar bears!! They were swimming and having the best time!

There is a cool place underground where you can go watch the polar bears swim over you. Very cool!

Their paws are just massive! We could've stayed there for hours:)

We went back to the zoo the following weekend as a family, with some friends. The weather is perfect for seeing animals~sunny, not too hot and not too cold! Look closely and you'll see the elephant is standing over another elephant taking a nap! So funny.

I want one, I want one! Red pandas are adorable! We watched this cutie scale a tree to join his friend, who was napping.

Beautiful (and scary) tigers snoozing!

The brown bears were devouring a delicious snack that was being tossed down to them from way up high.

We learned a few things about bears in the 10 minutes we watched them. One, they like fruits and veggies. Two, they do not like banana peels and can slice them open quickly and eat the insides out. Three, they have razor sharp claws. Four, and teeth! They can eat a raw sweet potato. Try gnawing on that!!

Since it was the day before Easter, bunnies were out in full force at the zoo:) Eliana usually doesn't like things like this but she wanted to go right up and give "Miffy" a big hug. Who is Miffy anyways??!

Cheese!

There were several bunnies to choose from but the only other one she was willing to hug was Buster and we talked the boys into joining:)

Love, love this beautiful trio!!!

We had another eye re-check last week. Goodness, look how big she's getting! Anyways, the goal is to match the vision in both her eyes as best as we can. Her prescription is now pretty good but her new dr added in another element....

The patch. I was really taken aback when he said we had to do this but understand the reasons why, even if I don't like it. We have to patch her right eye (her dominant eye) 2 hours a day for awhile (possibly 6 months) to give her left eye a chance to gain strength focusing, etc.

Surprisingly, she has taken to it really well! She asks to do it each day, which is a relief, because it's one more thing in my day, which is hard. She has to do focusing activities while wearing it and often towards the end of the 2 hours, per dr's suggestion, I give her a little time on her brother's Leapster Explorer as a reward for doing so well (plus it really makes her eye focus!) She has 3 girly colors to choose from so I let her pic each day what she would like.

More on patches later!

Lots of rain and storms lately but also more emerging sunny days! Yea for outside time!!

Ben had to work this weekend so he missed some time seeing the chickies. They are all over him like white on rice if he gets down on the ground!! (Samuel was there, too, but was off sulking because of an "injury." :)

Our weekends are very busy now!! Samuel started baseball practice Saturday and Ben is the assistant coach! As you can see, his team is the Phillies, which is funny since no one on the team likes the actual Phillies! Samuel LOVED going to practice and even game home sporting dirt from a "slide" on to base;)

And while Ben took him to practice, I took Mr Z (and E) to Tae Kwon Do. We met back at home for lunch and then B had to go to work til after midnight. Yuck.

But we enjoyed a really nice day yesterday, complete with a visit to the park and some DQ!!

Beautiful Eyes!

 It has been the busiest week this week! So many appointments and errands, working, etc. Ben has had meetings and things every night this week except Tuesday and has to work double jobs tomorrow night. Whew! We are counting down until Saturday:)

On Tuesday, we finally got Eliana to her new eye doctor. She has been long overdue for a check-up because everything got put on hold with the move this summer. I was SO proud of her during this visit! She had to meet a new dr, go through the full check up (which takes almost 3 hours!) including eye dilation and she was an angel. The dr said that if all of the kids he saw were angels like her, it would make his job a whole lot easier!

She was too cute answering their questions and trying to see the letters on the screen. Whenever she wasn't sure of a letter because it was too small, she would get really quiet and shrug a little and put her hands up like, "I don't know!" They were so patient and sweet with her!

She has to get new lenses though. They completely changed her prescription in hopes of making her eyes match up vision-wise a little better. I always dread a prescription change because a) it costs a lot and b) it makes me nervous that it won't help her or be the right prescription. Silly Mama.

I've been checking into the best options for getting new glasses or lenses because of the cost. We just got her current pair a little over a year ago and were hoping that she would have plenty of time to wear them and grow into the frame. A new pair of her glasses are $230. They said if we did lenses only, she would have to send in her current pair and they would be gone for up to 2 weeks, leaving her to wear an old ill-fitting pair. But the cost is a lot cheaper.We tried to explain that to her last night and tried on the old pair and she got really upset! She did not want to send in her new pair!

Today we went back to the eye dr and spoke with the woman who handles new prescriptions and she agreed that Eliana was too stressed out over wearing the old pair and we should find a different route. She suggested taking her pair to Walmart and they can fit lenses in in less than 1 hour! Sure enough, I took her over there right away and they confirmed that they can do that and it's no problem with her bifocal or anything (which sometimes causes issues!) So tomorrow morning she will hopefully have her new lenses and it costs a whole lot less than a new pair. We can save that for next year. Whew!
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The boys are doing so well. They both did some testing at school and got into some better programs to challenge them. Both have been expressing a lot of boredom, which we hate to hear! Hopefully everything will work out really soon.

And Samuel joined the student council! He has his first meeting tomorrow morning:) He has been alternately excited and nervous but felt better when another classmate of his signed up. Can't wait to hear how it goes!

The boys are waiting for me to read a book to them before bed so off I go....another day down!

The Face and Charts!

Winter came back! Gone are the 50-60 degree days and instead, we have icy snow blowing and we're back to winter coats and accessories. I wish the weather would make up it's mind!

Miss E and I braved the morning rain and went to her first eye check-up since getting her cool new glasses. She did great! First time with no tears, although she did sport her new grumpy face half the time (see below). As soon as we pulled up in the parking lot, she put on grumpy face and said, "Wan' it eye dotter." "Wan' it' means DON'T want it in Fissy language!

She got a good report, lowered eyebrows and all, and doesn't have to go back for 4 months!

More cuteness from yesterday:) She looked so cute in her dress and her brother's shoes:)

Here is an example of "the face." Sometimes she does it with no apparent reason at all! It's a pretty darn cute grumpy face, if I don't say so myself:)

And she's back! She can turn on and off those emotions with the pro of a 2 year old:) In other Missy news, she peed on the potty for the first time tonight! I got her a little cheap potty from Ikea last week and I ask her before bath if she wants to sit on it. Sometimes she does, sometimes she doesn't and there's no pressure! Tonight she wanted to sit on the "big potty" and so I held her on there for a few minutes while she looked at a book and she went! Big girl!

Two of my main guys:) Both have new charts up with incentives to earn prizes. Samuel, who was jealous of Z's chart, has a "Good Attitude-Be Nice" chart since he struggles with the attitude part and being nice to little bro. Zakkai has a "Potty Chart" because he's working to stay dry all night. He even has a sign with a big toilet on it hanging right above his head on the bottom of Samuel's bed that says, "Go Potty, Zakkai!" on it:) He's such a deep, deep sleeper that he struggles in this area and often doesn't want to leave his warm, cozy bed in the morning. With our new plan of Rays being gone and some other things we put in place, including the chart, he is ready to go! In the potty that is:)

Both were thrilled to earn stickers today and begin working for their rewards. Go boys, go! We can't believe how easy it's been to get Eliana off the paci and Zakkai away from finger-sucking. I guess they were ready! After all the battles we've fought over the years over many things, it's nice to have a couple of them go easy on us!

Eyes and Funnies.

This morning we had eye re-checks for Eliana and Samuel. Eye check-ups are a big deal because we live 40 minutes away from the place where they currently go and we are always there for 1 1/2-2 hours!

Thankfully they are nice about checking 2 of our kiddos in the same room at the same time, which helps. Samuel got tested due to some focusing issues they thought he had when he came back in May. His headaches have been almost non-existent since school has ended which has been nice so the dr said his reading glasses should really help with that this year as he does close school work and reads a lot.

He's so sweet and quiet when they check him and always nervous but so brave:)

Eliana has to have re-checks every 3 months at this point to make sure her glasses/prescription are working well and that nothing new has come up. At the center where we go, there are lots of "residents" who do the testing and then check in with the attending. Usually they are really good but today the lady who checked Eliana was asking her to do eye exams that were too advanced for her and was so unsure of herself that E picked up on it and was crying and not cooperating well.

The poor lady disappeared for a long time and thankfully came back with my very favorite dr whom we saw the first time, the chief pediatric opthamologist. She is incredible with Eliana and gets her to cooperate so well. She's gentle and has a great sense of humor. I was so glad to see her!

She said E is doing great and doesn't have to have a change in her prescription until the next time she goes in this fall, which is good. She was pleased at how well the glasses are helping!

So it was a long first half of the day and by the time we got home, it was already 1pm! Eliana had fallen asleep on the way home and when we got here, I kept the car running and asking the boys to be quiet since she was asleep, ran to unlock the door so I could carry her in. I was back at the car within less than a minute and Zakkai had woken her up! I was so ticked because, despite trying to lay her down, her nap was ruined for the day.

Fast forward to tonight. We had just gotten home from grocery shopping (which takes a minimum of 2 hours with all 3 kiddos) and I was busy feeding E a quick dinner since I knew she was tired, putting away groceries and making dinner. I ran down to the basement to store some canned goods and Eliana decided to get my attention.

First I heard, "Mama!" Pause. "Mama!"

Another pause.

"Ma! Ma!" I was like, "Ma? What in the world?" She thought that was pretty funny and moved on to....

"Heidi!" brief pause. "Heidi!"

And then as I came back up the steps, smiling at her cuteness, she topped them all.

"Shweetie! Shweetie!" I laughed SO hard and then she knew she was pretty funny and kept up a good stream of "Shweetie's" until she had a sudden out-of-the blue meltdown that let me know the fun was over and bedtime was nigh.

She was in bed asleep within 15 minutes, by 5:45pm.

I love those silly moments!

Her Eyes.

Two weeks ago, while we were in Ohio, Eliana woke cross-eyed. It came out of nowhere, with no warnings. Completely blind-sided me (no pun intended!) and freaked me o.u.t.

Of course, it doesn't take much to freak me out but still. Waking up one sunny morning to find that your toddler can't focus on you well is really disconcerting. To say the least.

I had some really anxious days that week. Thankfully, my aunt, who is a nurse, was able to watch her and relieve my fears that it was a neurological problem but I went ahead and made an appointment with a pediatric ophthalmologist for a.s.a.p.

We have been watching E closely over the past 2 weeks, noting when she struggles the most and what she is looking at when it occurs,etc. It is mostly her left eye that turns in and struggles but a little in the right, too.

Today was her "long-awaited" appointment. She got a fantastic doctor, an answer to prayer. Turns out she was the chief pediatric eye dr! She was able to get as much info as she needed, despite Missy's screaming and crying every time she even looked in her direction. That's our girl!

Turns out our little Sweetiana is extremely far-sighted. When I say extremely, I mean extremely! the guidelines for the refractive error for esotropia (what E has~esotropia hyperopia) is 0-2 mild, 2-4 moderate, 4-6 severe and 6+ extreme.

E's numbers were at least 6! Wow. Apparently farsightedness is hereditary so we are still trying to trace the family lines and figure out who started this thing! :) It's something that usually strikes kids when they are 2-3 and not quite so severe.

So our Little Miss will be getting glasses. Sniff. Little pink ones. It looks like she will have glasses (or contacts) for the rest of her life. We are so thankful that nothing else is going on; that it is something that is correctable and that she'll get help soon.

I admit, I am a little sad that I won't be able to look at her sweet face without glasses for much longer. It is such a beautiful little face! Don't get me wrong, I think she'll look adorable in them and I have nothing against glasses. B and I both have them! But it's just a little weird to get used to the idea that her look will change forever pretty soon.

According to the dr, most little people (surprisingly) love their glasses! We're hoping this will be the case with E:)

She and Z (who also had an appt) had their eyes dialated and it was kind of funny to look at them the rest of the day with their huge pupils! They both had to stay inside with the blinds closed because it was SO sunny today. Poor kiddos! They should be back to normal tomorrow morning and will hopefully get to enjoy the nice weather.

(Don't tell Mama but I'm gonna take off those silly glasses every chance I get! I might like them but I'll never tell. Gotta make her life exciting! ~E)