Sight for the Blind

I'm a month out from surgery and I gotta say it was the best decision ever!! It is so crazy to be able to see all the time. It has taken me a little while to adjust. For a few weeks I kept feeling like I was forgetting to do something. I'd get in bed at night and since I could read the clock on my bedside table I would think that I needed to go take out my contacts. Then I would remember "oh yeah.... I can see!"

The day of surgery I was incredibly nervous - I mean I was paying someone to burn my eyeballs ... thats not a very comforting thought. Jeff sat with me and kept me sane and the Valium helped me to relax. The surgeon assured me that all I needed to do was watch the blinking orange light. But to me, that begged the question- "what if I don't???" Dr. Sheets calmed me down by explaining the incredible technology built into these lasers with missile-grade eye trackers and automatic shut offs, or something like that. In short, there is no way I could possibly mess it up.

I went into surgery and came back out in less than twenty minutes. Jeff sat at a window and watched the whole time. Dr. Sheets sat with him and gave him the play by play. Sounds gross to me but Jeff thought it was cool! At one point he said he saw smoke coming off my eye and I distinctly remember the smell of singed hair! But it really wasn't as bad as it sounds. I was about the same amount of uncomfortable as when I'm sitting in the dentist chair. And amazingly enough, when I sat up I could see Jeff clearly through the window. What a nice sight after being so nervous! And on the drive home I could read signs! (that is, when my eyes were open). It was incredibly bright for my sensitive eyes.  I immediately went home and pulled the shades and kept my eyes closed for the rest of the day. The remainder of the weekend I felt up to hanging out with family but wore my sunglasses a LOT and made people very uncomfortable by keeping my eyes closed during conversations. :)

During my follow up appointments the weekend of surgery I was already seeing about 20/30. It was kinda sketchy and still a little blurry and my night vision was horrible. But it has steadily improved and at my appointment yesterday I measured 20/15!!! I am thrilled!! My night vision is back to normal and I can see better than ever before!

Super Cooper's 4th Birthday

Turning 4 is a big deal at our house because it means that you get to chew gum!  Cooper couldn't wait! In fact he had his very first piece immediately following breakfast on his birthday.  It was a good day! :)  The next day he had his Super Cooper Super Bubble birthday party with all our family.  He loved it!

I had some fun with the theme ...

My three little Super Men!

Cooper loves his new cousin, Everlee.  Here he is making sure LiLi is taking good care of her

He was so excited about his presents!  I think it took him less than 2 minutes to open all of them!

You can never have too many super hero costumes!

Cooper's First Day of Preschool

Here's Cooper on his first day of Preschool.  He was so excited to start school!  With the way his birthday falls, he'll actually do 2 years of preschool before starting Kindergarden.  We put him in the shorter program for this year so he only goes from 9-12.  He loves his teacher, Mrs. Courtney and I'm loving all the things he is learning from her.  She has the cutest songs that he comes home with!  We're looking forward to a fun year!

My little stud - this pose was his doing

Such a cutie! Can't believe he's gotten so old already!

Hudson's First Day of Kindergarten

I recently overhead this conversation between my husband and firstborn son ...

Jeff: "Hudson, are you gonna go to college?"

Hudson: "Yes - but first Kindergarten"

Yes, my sweet, practical little boy - first kindergarten.  And here he is on his first day ...

Isn't he so cute? I can't believe how big he is!  Almost 4 feet tall and going off for his first year of school.  He was looking forward to his first day ever since he did his entrance interview in the Spring.  He got Mrs. Haest as his teacher (pictured below at Meet the Teacher) and absolutely loves her!  We love her too!  She has been a family friend for years so we were excited to be in her class!

Aunt Shannon surprised Hudson with a bag full of goodies for his first day!  It's a German tradition called Schultute that their family does every year.  He got pencils and erasers and toys and snacks and a fun hat that says the Hudson Hawks.  He was pumped!

Here we are dropping him off at school - his brothers waiting patiently in the background.  He was totally cool with me leaving.  I was so thankful for no tears - from him or me! :)

I love this face.  He was so sweet to let me take a bunch of pictures.  But this face says it all.  

"Mom - really? Can you go?"

He came home from his first day and immediately told me, "I didn't learn to read today."  I assured him he'd learn eventually.  Love this kid! :)   

20/20

Surgery is coming up on Friday and I have to say I'm getting a little nervous.  I just keep reminding myself that it's worth 20 minutes of horrible-ness and a few days of discomfort to have clear vision!  I've been wearing my glasses for 3 weeks now and have had just about enough.  I don't know how people stand wearing glasses full time.  They drive me crazy!  So thankful that I've been able to wear contacts for so long and that in a few days I won't need glasses or contacts!  

Just for fun I found a website that mimics your eye prescription.  

www.eye-sim.com for those of you that want to see how your spouse or child views life without glasses.

All you do is plug in your glasses prescription.  Here's mine ...

The one on the top is 20/20 vision.  The bottom one is how I see.  I'd say its fairly accurate.  I'm so glad to live in the century I do.  I can't imagine living before eye doctors.  I would be a very useless person.  I suppose I could sew - very, very close to my face.

This one is pretty crazy too.  It's found at www.billaur.co.il/simulator.html

I'd say this one is close but not totally accurate.  I can usually at least make out the shape of the top E.  The second like looks very familiar though!  They flash that on the screen at the doctor's office and I just laugh.  There's two of something! But I have no idea what those somethings are! haha! 

Corpus Christi

A couple of weekends ago we took the boys to the beach.  It was so fun for our little family to get away for a long weekend.  We had such a good time!  We drove to Corpus Christi on Thursday afternoon so it was getting dark when we arrived.  After talking about the beach for weeks and driving for 7 hours it didn't seem fair to just toss everyone in bed when we got there, so we took a walk down to the surf.  Oh. my. goodness. I had to watch Garrett every second we were down there!  That kid is fearless!  He walked right into the waves and would've just kept going on out to sea.  He really started to scare me after awhile.  I just knew he was going to go under and I wasn't going to be able to find him.  So we called it a night and came back when it was daylight.

Daylight for us meant we were on the beach by 7:30 am.  It was early, but it worked out great.  We missed the crowds and the heat of the day and still got plenty of beach time!  Hudson and Cooper loved "chasing" the waves and making sand castles.  Garrett wanted to be in the ocean as much as possible.  We also spent lots of time at the pool at our condo.  It was such a good weekend!  I'm so glad our kids are all at an age where we can start doing more of these family trips!

All ready for some fun!

That's Jeff way out there with Garrett - our little water baby

The view from our condo - so pretty!

An early morning on the beach meant catching a beautiful sunrise

Cooper being a goof wearing Mommy's hat

Checking out the town - I sent H & C up to the dolphins to take their picture and before I knew it G was up there too.  He did not want to be left out! :)

Soccer

I am officially a soccer mom (the team mom, in fact!)  Hudson has been so excited to play soccer!  We made him wait until kindergarten and here we are!  We really wanted him to be able to play on the same team as his friend Joe, but since they are in different school districts both dads had to coach to make that happen.  Awesome dads that they are - they agreed!  Hudson is so excited to have his daddy as his coach and we're looking forward to lots of fun Saturdays watching soccer.  Go Sharks!

So long, old friends

I've worn glasses or contacts since I was in the seventh grade.  It started as a bit of trouble reading signs in the distance.  Sixteen years and three kids later I'm about as blind as a bat.  When I take off my contacts at night, everything is a blur.  I can make out forms but not faces, objects but without details.  Even colors blend together into an unrecognizable mush.  It's a very strange thing to be in such a fog.  

On August 31 I hope to be rid of the fog and the contacts and the glasses forever! (at least until I get old and need readers)  I'm undergoing laser eye surgery and I'm thrilled!  What fun it will be to wake up in the morning and be able to see, to go swim and not lose a contact, and to get to the end of the day without contacts drying my eyes out.  It's going to be great.  Getting to that greatness, however, is a little daunting. I watched a video about the surgery that had me squirming in my seat.  The procedure is quite disgusting!  The nurse assured me that with a little valium the 15 minute surgery will be over in no time.  I'll then spend the weekend resting my scratchy eyes.  The doctor told me that he'd write a prescription for me that included no cleaning, laundry or preparing meals! :)  I'm actually quite looking forward to sleeping for a few days!  --- until then I'll be going back to my junior high days of wearing glasses full time in preparation for surgery ... good times!

Update on Cooper

Cooper has been cast-free for almost 3 weeks now! (as usual I'm a little behind).  He is doing great and we are almost out of the danger zone - the doctor told us to be careful with his arm for a month.  He told us that it was very important not to let him fall during that time period.  I wanted to ask if we could just keep the cast on for another month because trying to keep a 3 year old from falling for a month is absurd!  But thankfully he's had no major spills and everything seems back to normal.



The day of the cast removal was pretty traumatic.  Jeff went with him to the doctor and said he was very brave.  He wasn't bothered at all by the loud saw cutting next to his arm (maybe because he's used to living in a construction zone!).  He did get upset when the doctor started using scissors to cut off the cloth.  Cooper said that part hurt.  He came home upset and spent the rest of the day resting on the couch.  He did not want anything to touch his arm.  I think it was pretty sensitive but by the next day he didn't even seem to notice it anymore.


I am so very proud of Cooper!  He did not complain once about wearing his cast.  That thing looked heavy and annoying and hot but he never let it bother him.  He learned how to do lots of things one-handed and got pretty adept at eating and coloring with this left hand.  In fact, he might be better at coloring with his left hand!  Here's one of his left-handed Spider Man masterpieces ...

At lunch the day after he had his cast removed he asked me if he could use his right hand to eat.  I told him he could use either hand - whatever he wanted.  He smiled, looked at his hands and started eating with his left hand. :)  Sweet Cooper! So glad the "hulk arm" experience is behind us! 

Cast Buddies - a friend at church with a similar injury

This will just sting for a minute ...

We've started renovating the boy's bathroom.  We didn't want to start.  We've been dreading it.  The last renovation is still too fresh on our minds.  But it's like a bandaid, you just gotta rip it off.  It'll sting for a minute then it's all better.  And this time it will so much better because ... wait for it ... this is our LAST project!!  Don't get me wrong, we still have things that we'll want to do to our house.  But this is the last renovation.  No more ripping down walls and rebuilding!  I'm ecstatic!  At least I will be when it's done.

Renovating with 3 small children is no picnic.  And this is probably the hardest one because it is right between the boys' bedrooms.  All week the kids and I have been nomads, spending our days and one of our nights at other people's houses to avoid the hot, dusty mess that is in ours.  I stuck the pack-n-play in the back of the suburban and each day set off to find activities for us to do and a place for the boys to take a nap.  Thank goodness for family in town!  But Jeff and Evan have been working hard on it and it's going fast.  The demolition is complete, termite-ridden studs have been replaced, electrical work has been done.  It's already time to start rebuilding.

Here's what I'm most excited to get rid of during this project ...

This door.  Who designed this door?! It bangs against the cabinets when you walk in.  In order to open the cabinets you have to go all the way in and then close the door.

This horrible, nasty potty.  It leaks water from the tank.  We have containers under it to catch the water that drips every time it is flushed.  It makes the bathroom smell like a gross, musty locker room.  So sick!

The tile.  Blue and pink.  Definitely not my favorite.

Preparing for surgery ...

Scalpel, please ...

The hallway looking toward the bathroom ...

And now the bathroom looking out toward the hallway ...

This picture makes me feel like I need to cough.  I can taste the dust and feel like I'm inhaling insulation just looking at it.  Ick!