An October Update

This will be a written "update" post and hopefully later this weekend I'll get some pictures online. Our computer and camera both broke over a week ago. I had a bunch of pictures that had been uploaded onto the computer, but I couldn't get to them. And still a few that are on the camera card, but not the computer. Both things turned out to be warranty repairs and I have to say that I have been thrilled with the way that Apple handled the repair to our Macbook and so far I have also been pleased with Canon's service on our camera. The camera isn't back yet, so some of the pictures still won't be up. It wasn't a good week with both the camera and computer breaking within a day or 2 of each other!

I have a couple of Emily funnies. This past Saturday I proctored the PSAT at the high school I taught at. Greg got Emily up and they had the morning together. Emily has been wearing her eye patch for 1 hour a day for "maintenance patching." Greg isn't usually around when she wears her patch, but remembered to put it on. He wasn't quite sure which eye it went on so he asked Emily. She likes to try to trick me into putting it on the wrong eye, but I never do. Well, Greg fell for it. She didn't say anything for the hour that she had it on that it was wrong. When I got home, Greg asked me which eye it goes on (he thought it may have been wrong, but wasn't sure). When I said the other eye, Emily started laughing. She loved that she pulled one over on Daddy! She'll tell me that Daddy put it on this eye (pointing) but it really goes on the other eye.

On Tuesday evening I had a haircut. We always go to meet Greg and he takes Emily to "Dinosaur Playground" while I get my hair cut and then we meet for dinner afterwards. When Emily woke up from her nap, I told her I had my haircut and she said "I go to the playground with Daddy!" I said "yes, which playground?" expecting her to say dinosaur (she and Greg made up the name). Instead, she told me "the playground in XXX (the town that the playground is in)." How she knew that is beyond me, it isn't a playground that we go to much except for my haircut days. I guess she must have overheard me talking one day, but she put a lot together to come up with that!

Emily had her eye doctor check up today. Last time we were there, about 2 months ago, we went from using the eye patch for 4 hours a day to maintenance where she only wore the patch for an hour a day. We had planned to be able to get her to read the eye chart a bit better and then have a baseline to go from on her eyes and likely give up the patch or reduce the amount of time. Instead, Emily read the eye chart with both eyes, the big ones with her weaker eye, and the big and a few smaller, but not super small with her stronger eye. As the doctor continued to check her, he and I could both tell that she is favoring the stronger eye. He asked if we had time to dilate her eyes to fully check them. The last time we did that was her first visit which was almost a year ago. After dilating them, he determined that she needs glasses. All young kids have eyes that are farsighted. Emily's are, but there is a discrepancy between her 2 eyes that is significant. A year ago, there was a slight discrepancy, but nothing significant. She is still favoring the strong eye because she sees so much better with it. The glasses should allow her to start using both eyes together and equally.

I made a bunch of phone calls this afternoon during naptime to check on glasses and prices around town. We decided to go with Lenscrafters and got her glasses an hour later. They really wanted us to get 2, one for a backup pair, which probably does make sense, but we didn't do that today. We explained to Emily that she can only take them off when she uses 2 hands, but really shouldn't touch them. We put them on when we got home (around 6:00pm) to show Greg. She wanted to take them off, but we distracted her with Sesame Street and I put my glasses on as well. She also had fun looking in the mirror at them. Within 10-15 minutes she still talked about them, but no longer tried or wanted to take them off. We could really tell that she is seeing so much better with them because she noticed pictures from across the room that she had previously only talked about from close up. She also would tell Greg how many fingers he was holding up from close to far away when she would never do that before. So, to us, she seems to be seeing much better already. At bedtime, we took the glasses off after stories and she commented that she wanted them back on. It is definitely easier for us to have her in glasses since we have been able to already see how much better she can see. We do need to go back tomorrow to get them adjusted, they seem to be slipping down on her nose a little bit. They seemed ok when we left the store, but were loose tonight at home.