Trains and Ponies

On the train

Looking at the pony grazing

Petting the sheep

Petting the goat

A big girl on the pony!

Playing on the frog

And the duck

Tired after a fun day!

We took Emily to the little zoo near us on Saturday. They have a small train that we took her on since she has been so into trains recently. She was a bit unsure initially, but then really liked it. We got to go through a tunnel and she thought that was pretty cool and has talked about the train tunnel since we got off the train. After the train, we walked up the hill to the little farm at the back. Emily looked at all the animals and then Greg took her into the petting zoo part. It's kind of neat having a mini farm at the zoo because those are the animals that are in so many of the little kid books. When we saw the goat, Emily said "goat, maaa," when we saw the sheep, she said "sheep, baaa." She had fun petting the animals, though she was a bit timid. I think it's been good that her sitter has cats and a dog because Emily is used to animals now. After the petting area (and a good hand wash), we walked past the pony rides. Emily kept watching and then asked to go in. We told her that she had to go by herself, without Mommy and Daddy. So she said, "Emmy ride pony by self." We asked her if she was sure, and she said yes. So, Greg went off to buy tokens and then Emily went in for her ride. She did great. No smiles, but she seemed to enjoy it. She has spent a bit of time talking about the ponies since we came home from the zoo, too.

We played at the playground at the zoo, had lunch, and then came home. While Emily sat on the potty before nap, I showed her the map from the zoo and showed her where we'd been during the day. The next morning, she was looking at the map (on the potty, again) and she showed me the train tunnel and the pony rides (in the right location!) without me asking anything, she just pointed them out and told me what they were.

We ended up getting a family pass to the zoo for future visits.

Emily's Eye Surgery

The afternoon of surgery, she's not as grumpy as she looks, but you can see one eye.

Taking a little break on mommy's legs

From today, if you click on the pictures you can see the eyes better.

I haven't mentioned much about Emily's eyes on here recently, but she had surgery on them yesterday to correct the eye crossing (strabismus). We went to the hospital at 6 am and after waiting for awhile in the big waiting room, we were taken back to a little pre-op room. They put a video on for her and we got her changed into her little hospital gown. They had a crib in the room for her, but she wanted nothing to do with that, so she sat on my lap while they did everything. After a bit, the anesthesiologist came into the room and started talking to us. He brought the mask that they use to put her under with and let Emily play with it for awhile. It smelled like strawberries and we practiced putting it on her face and mommy and daddy's, too. He went over her history and checked her over. Then the OR nurse showed up and our eye doctor. It was a pretty small little room (more of a cubicle), so there were a lot of people in with us. Once we went through all of the questions, Greg kissed Emily good bye and I took her into the operating room. They moved pretty quick once we were in there, they brought me a chair, I sat down with Emily on my lap and we put the mask that she had been holding on her face with the tubes attached to it. She fell asleep pretty quickly, so she was laid down on the table and got kisses from me and then the eye doctor walked me out. We talked about the surgery again, he asked if I had any more questions and then I met Greg in the waiting room.

About an hour and 15 minutes later, he came back out and told us that all went well. He went over what they did, and what we need to do after surgery at home. He also wrote down his cell number for us in addition to the night/weekend number in case we had any concerns over the weekend. When Emily started waking up, they let me go into recovery with her. Greg joined us about 15 minutes later. Emily was confused and uncomfortable. Almost like she was half asleep. They brought me a nice reclining chair on wheels and she was able to snuggle in on my lap. As long as she wasn't moved around she was fine, but she didn't like being moved once she was comfy. The nurse kept commenting about how well Emily woke up, I guess many kids scream and scream, but Emily only screamed a little bit, and the nurse referred to that as mild fussing. After a bit, they wheeled us into the same sort of area that we had been in before the surgery. As Emily came to a bit more, she got upset with the iv in her arm and the red light (pulse ox) on her toe. She was happy being sung to. She also saw the tv monitor that does the heart rate and asked to watch a movie on it. We got her to drink some water and tried to keep her relatively calm. When she cried, her tears were reddish pink and she didn't like having them wiped away. She was very happy to finally get her iv taken out and for us to get her ready to go home. She started asking for home and when I laid her down on the chair as I got her dressed she asked for a nap. Poor girl was tired.

She fell asleep on the drive home and then took a 2.5 hour nap at home. Once she got up, she did great and ate and drank like a champ the rest of the day. She would play well for a bit and then get tired and want a break and would lie down for a few minutes before getting up and playing again. While having her snack, she asked for her eye patch. She had been fighting it this past week, in general she's done great with it, so it was funny that she asked for it. She doesn't have to wear one right now, we'll see in a month or so if she has to start again. Tonight (Saturday) she asked for a patch for her monkey, Molly. We often pretend to put her patch on Molly before it goes on her.

Her eyes are much straighter now and she seems to be seeing some things differently. We went to a mall this afternoon and thought it would be a fun treat to have dinner at the Rainforest Cafe. We've never taken her there. She loved the fish as we walked in and after sitting at the table for 5 minutes, she completely freaked out, which she's never done for something like that. We ended up leaving before our drinks got there and once we were out of the restaurant, she was fine. We had a tasty food court dinner instead! We wondered if suddenly being able to see better contributed to her reaction at dinner. We won't really know, but we may try to take her again in several months, we really thought that she would think it was neat and we wanted to give her a special treat. We're hoping to take her to the little zoo by us tomorrow, so that'll be a good treat.

Tonight when I got her out of the car and she was in my arms, she looked at me and said, "mommy, you look nice." Wow! Maybe she is suddenly seeing better! One of the sweetest comments I've heard from her.

We go back to the eye doctor on Wednesday for our post-op visit. We also have to put an antibiotic cream in her eyes each night until Tuesday. We do it after she is asleep and it went ok last night. The inside corners of the eyes are fairly red and her eyes are a bit puffy. I put her hair in pigtails today so that it stayed out of her eyes. If you click on the pictures they will open up a bit bigger and probably easier to see the redness (if you want to see it, that is!).

SMU Girl

Pushing the box around

Pushing her stroller through the house

First thing in the morning, looks ready for a football game!

Uncle Nathan picked up this shirt for Emily from our alma mater a few weeks ago. She wore it this past week and looked adorable. She liked to point out the pony from time to time on it, too. We're definitely thinking that we need to get her to a Mustangs game this fall (Homecoming, maybe???).

That night for dinner, we had an appetizer before our meal, some potstickers since we were having a stir fry. We have told Emily before that we are having an appetizer and she has started calling it an "apple-tizer." Pretty funny. At the table she will ask for more apple-tizer, too.

Irvine

Emily in the trolley car at the playground
Holding Hands

Playing together

Kiss

The Beach!

We had a great day in Irvine with Chris, Danielle, and Oliver. We went to the beach, out to lunch, and let the kids play together. We had such a great time and it was so great to visit with them. It definitely makes us miss California, but it is good to be home, too. We're hoping that we'll be able to see Chris, Danielle, and Oli sometime soon!

Disneyland

On Dumbo, the Flying Elephant, our first ride of the day

Waiting in line for Mr. Toad's Wild Ride

In Storybook Forest

Chilling with Daddy

On Mommy's shoulders!

Tigger

Eeyore

Getting sleepy...

Passed out after a fun, long day

We had a lot of fun at Disneyland. We realized that any time that we've gone before, we've picked good times to visit and spring break is not a good time. It was packed. There were long lines for nearly everything, but fortunately, Emily generally enjoyed the lines because there were constantly new things to look at. I think her favorite rides were the Haunted Mansion and Pirates of the Caribbean, and her least favorites were Pinocchio and Mr. Toad's Wild Ride because they are a bit scary. Go figure that the Haunted Mansion wasn't scary, but she loved it! She also had a lot of fun on the Toy Story ride.

We met up with my friend Katie in Downtown Disney for dinner after our day at the park and had a great time catching up with her.

California, Day 5 - Legoland

We met Chris, Danielle, and Oliver at Legoland on Wednesday of our trip. Emily and Oliver really enjoyed it. Unfortunately, Legoland has a lot of height restrictions on their rides, even things that are slow, so Emily couldn't go on many things, she had to be 34" and she's half an inch too short. She didn't mind and didn't know that she was missing out on anything. At the end of the day, we let Oliver and Emily play in the big sand pit they have. They were trying to dig for dinosaurs, but shoveling into the bucket was pretty fun, too. It was neat seeing everything made out of legos, but the number of rides for a shorter 2 year old left a bit to be desired.