December Delights

Happy December!  This is my favorite month of the year, and like always, it has gone by way too fast.  Here are some of our pre-Christmas activities.

At the beginning of December we had our Ward Christmas Party, and of course, Santa was there!

Mitchell had no problem with him and plopped right down on his lap and quickly asked for a third thumb to suck on, for variety.  Chloe wanted nothing to do with him and her feet became instantly glued to the floor when it was her turn in line. 

She wouldn't sit on Santa's lap, but she happily agreed to sing in the children's choir for the program.... Which seems less scary and more fun?  Asking a jolly  man for free presents, or getting up in front of lots of people and singing, getting nothing?  Go figure.....

On our way back home, we stopped to see Santa again at our local community center and the only way Chloe would get near the Big Man was with us..... the umbrella she is asking for this year may not make it to our house if she won't even look at him.  (I guess I should be glad she is only asking for an umbrella- a few kids in front of us were asking for iPods, cell phones and laptops.)

In our holiday shopping, we went to Ikea and Mitch shared a frozen yogurt with me.

He quickly learned how to stick out his tongue and lick the tasty treat, but then couldn't keep his tongue in his mouth for the rest of the day (see below).

Ben has been dying to buy the kids matching long underwear and he did it this year!  (They come complete with trap doors in the back).

There's the tongue.......

Like most the country, we have received our fair share of cold weather this last week.  We have all been enjoying the snow.

Cold weather cheeks!

For FHE one night, Chloe "played" us all some Christmas songs on the piano and even sang too. 

Sledding down our drive way (the only time it's GOOD to have a sloped driveway.....)

Mitch even joined in on the snow fun.  I somehow squeezed him into his 3-6 month snow suit from last winter. 

Here he is in it last year.  The suit was much bigger then (or was he a lot smaller then?  Only a few pounds smaller, actually).

Then off we headed to go sledding!

It was snowing really hard yesterday and with the remaining daylight, we headed over to the local elementary school to sled down a small hill.

Chloe & Ben at the top of the hill.

Chloe, our little outdoors girl, who cannot feel the cold, LOVED this activity.

Chloe with the Christmas Tree she made at preschool- the entire thing is made out of candy and sugary treats.

Happy December to all!

Eye Doctor, Part 2

Yesterday was our second trip to the Eye Doctor, this time to the pediatric ophthalmologist!  With an ophthalmologist being a medical doctor, the one that my pediatrician had recommended was covered by our insurance.  Hooray!

And what a difference- we could tell this place was geared for children as soon as we walked in the door!  There was a fish tank and TV with a movie playing in the waiting room, and the exam rooms were fabulous!  There were all sorts of cool lights and sound making toys that the doctor and the assistants used to get Chloe to look where they wanted her to while they ran the different tests.  The doctor was amazing.  He talked to Chloe non stop during the exam, asking her every kid question in the book- "Do you like pink or purple?"  "Rain or snow?"  "Do you have a dog?"  "Do you have a brother?"  He made her so comfortable and at ease (and he was quite entertaining for us, too).  Chloe felt so comfortable with him that when he asked her about Mitchell she quickly spoke up and said, "Yeah, he hits me sometimes too."

The results from all the tests were conclusive with what the optometrist had found last week- Chloe has amblyopia in her right eye, which is the fancy word for "lazy eye."  It simply means that there is poor vision in the eye that did not develop normal sight during early childhood.  Lucky for us, we are still in early childhood and the eye and her vision are not fully developed yet, so it can be corrected.  This condition is very common, affecting 2 or 3 out of every 100 people and is best corrected during infancy or early childhood.  We are so glad we have a wonderful pediatrician who detected a problem and sent us in to have it checked, because after the first nine years of life, the visual system is usually fully developed and usually cannot be changed.

It was very interesting to learn about amblyopia.  It is caused by any condition that affects normal use of the eyes and visual development.  It may be inherited, which is probably the case with Chloe.  My mom had amblyopia (among other things) and Ben had it as well.  Chloe really didn't stand a chance!  There are 3 different types of amblyopia.  Ben had one of them- Strabismus (misaligned eyes), another is Cloudiness in the eye tissues, and the third one, which Chloe has, is Unequal Focus/Refractive Error.  This is when one eye is out of focus because it is more nearsighted, farsighted or astigmatic than the other.  The unfocused eye "turns off" and becomes amblyopic (lazy).  The eye can look normal (which Chloe's do- they are not crossed or wandering) but her bad eye has poor vision.  This is the most difficult type of amblyopia to detect since the child appears to have normal vision when both eyes are open.  Again, we are very fortunate to have our pediatrician's office detect a problem, because we had no idea she couldn't see out of one eye.  She has never complained about it because she simply just stopped using or focusing out of her bad eye because she can't see hardly at all out of it.  She basically just uses her "good eye" and as long as she can see out of that, she had no reason to complain.  I can't imagine not being able to see out of just one eye, but many people in my family do it and I guess it is just something you get used to (or it's just always been that way and that's all you know).

Her treatment, for now, is to wear glasses.  The doctor wants her to wear glasses for a month or two, then come back and see him to see if the weak eye has strengthened at all.  Her good eye will have no prescription in the lens- it will just be plain glass.  Depending on the outcome of that, we will then try patching the good eye to force her to use the weak eye to strengthen it.

Right now, she seems excited to wear glasses.  I told her on the way home all of the people we know who wear glasses (pretty much every aunt and uncle and grandparent she has).  After getting and being forced to wear the glasses all day, we'll see how excited she is then.....

As her mom, and her being my first baby, the thought of her wearing glasses was hard to take at first.  I first started wearing glasses in 6th grade and I hated them.  They were ugly and I felt ugly.  I was so glad when I was able to start wearing contact lenses.  I am glad that she is young enough to not feel self conscious about her appearance, but it is still hard for me because of the bad association I had with my glasses.  (I hated how I looked in glasses so much that as soon as I was able to wear contacts, I NEVER wore my glasses again, never.  To this day, I do not even own a pair of glasses.) 

I will not pass on my insecurities to her, but I am also sad because glasses will change her appearance and look.  This is my baby!  She is already growing up so fast and this will only speed up the process.  I have no doubt that she will look adorable in glasses (I am on a mission to find the cutest glasses in Washington State- no Harry Potter or Dwight Schrute frames for her), but she just won't look the same.  Change has always been hard for me, and now this change will affect our little Chloe.

  I also worry that she will not want to wear her glasses not because of how she looks, but just because she doesn't want something on her face.  It might just be another thing we have to fight with her to do (we are struggling with obedience as it is).  That thought alone is exhausting.  Reward charts and positive reinforcement may be coming our way......    

But as long as she keeps this beautiful smile, we will be okay!

Here's to our new step in life- glasses and fighting bad vision genes! :)

Happy Thanksgiving!

This year for Thanksgiving, we made the trek to Burley, ID.

I had my own little Indian and Little Turkey.

  It was a wonderful trip, but with every trip there comes with it the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.  

The Good

1.  We got to watch Aunt Catherine (my little sis) play high school basketball.  She is a great player and we loved going to 2 of her games.  Look at that follow through! (#31)

2. Meeting up with old friends.  This is my good friend from High School, Caroline.  I also got to go out to lunch with her and a few other friends later that week.

3. Sharing a pomegranate with Papa.

4.  Hanging out with my fabulous sisters.  (We are the Good, the Bad and the Ugly..... ha ha).

5. Spending time with cousins!!

6. Great food on Thanksgiving Day!

7.  The weather was beautiful- sunny and not cold!  We enjoyed a lot of time outdoors and the weather was perfect for driving.

The Bad

1. Mitchell refused to nap, except for a few times, and every time he was put down for nap or bed time he would SCREAM and scream until he'd finally drop into an exhausted sleep (for a few minutes).

2. Chloe would NOT listen to Ben or me.  She was having a blast playing with cousins and aunts, uncles and grandparents, which was great, but did not want a thing to do with us.  Obedience was a frustrating issue....

3.  Mitchell was into everything!  He would take things and hide them all over the house, pull things off shelves, and was under everyone's toes.  Here he shows his climbing and standing tricks- a true danger baby.

4.  My children are obsessed with the neighbor's horses.  This is good, but bad because Chloe was CONSTANTLY begging someone (anyone) to take her to see/feed the horses- she would ask multiple times a day.

They sure were cute with them, though...... This obsession is also bad if they start requesting horses for Christmas or birthday gifts some year.......

5.  Along with asking to go feed the horses every hour, Chloe begged someone to jump on the trampoline with her every 10 minutes.  She is more obsessed with the tramp than anything else.  Grandma, Ben and Aunt Amanda and Aunt Catherine were more than kind to jump with her multiple times during the week.  It is cute that she loves to jump and be outside, but her constant requests got..... annoying.  And she refused to put on a coat each and every time (where the obedience issues kicked in to high gear).....

The Ugly

Mitchell decided to fill his pants on the road trip to Idaho.  We could smell it in the car and knew it probably wasn't going to be pretty, so we decided to pull over and change him.  Of course, it was in the middle of nowhere and the only place to pull over was a scenic overlook.  It looked bad when we first pulled him out of the car seat......

But THIS is what we discovered when we opened his pants!  It was not a pretty picture.  Keep in mind there was no changing table to put him on, and we were outside and it was FREEZING that day.  It was definitely UGLY.

Eye Don't Like the Sound of This

I knew before I ever got married and had kids that my children would most likely have eye problems. Both of my parents and all 4 of my siblings and I wear glasses or contacts. My mom is legally blind in one eye and my dad and sister both had Lasik surgery done because their vision was so terrible. After I married Ben and found out about his eye problems and the history of eye problems in his family, I knew our kids did not stand a chance. I have made peace with that, but did not think (or I desperately hoped) it would not start this early.

Last week, Chloe had her 4 year well child check at the pediatrician's. She is very healthy and STILL in the 95+% for height and weight, for any of you wondering...... Yes, my 4 year old could beat up your 8 year old. Anyway- she passed all the tests except the eye test.

The nurse had her sit in a little chair and put an eye patch over her left eye and had Chloe look up at the little board with letters on it. Chloe could name off the biggest letters on the top row with ease, but even by the second line, she started to struggle. At first, both the nurse and I thought she just didn't want to do this. There were only 4 letters to name off and Chloe had the letters memorized and started guessing by reciting off the memorized letters. She seemed very distracted and I tried to help her focus by directing her to look at the board rather than at me or elsewhere. After many more attempts to get her to say the correct letter, she turned to me and whispered, "Mom, I can't see it. I can't see it." By this time, I knew something was off. I was still hoping that it was just Chloe being impatient and not wanting to play this "game," but I knew that most likely wasn't the case.

The nurse seemed to sense that something was off too and decided to switch the eye patch to the other eye. This time, Chloe blew through the test with ease and was perfect- she got every letter right and with astounding speed. The nurse and I both looked at each other- we knew something was wrong with the first eye. She switched the eye patch back to the "bad" eye to test it again and it had the same results- she could only read the biggest letters, and after that she started to squirm in her chair and get distracted and whisper, "I can't see it, I can't see it." She even asked at one point if she could take the patch off the other eye so she could see better.

So my pediatrician recommended that I take her to a pediatric ophthamologist. He recommended 2 different doctors and I went home to look up their information. Not being very familiar with our vision and eye care insurance coverage, I wasn't really sure what I was doing in the first place. I did find out that these doctors were not covered by our insurance and I was crushed. I had no idea who to pick now out of the 40 or 50 names I could now choose from in our insurance. I chose one close to our house, but had a bad feeling about them as soon as I got off the phone from making the appointment. When I asked if they did pediatric care, the receptionist said, "Um.... yeah, we can do that. Sure! How old is she? Yeah, that shouldn't be a problem...... yeah, yeah, that's fine." I should have called back and canceled right away, but I didn't know if it was fair to judge the whole office by an incompetent receptionist. But I was worried about it for the 4 days before the appointment.

Today came and off we went to the eye doctor. I could tell as soon as I walked in that this office was not geared towards small children at all, but tried to stay positive. Everyone was very nice and accommodating, but as soon as we were called back for the first test, the machine did not fit Chloe and the lady helping us seemed awkward as she tried to adjust her to it. When the doctor came in to see us, I could tell within seconds that she does not spend time around children and even wondered if this was the first 4 year old she had ever treated. She was very patient and kind to Chloe, but she seemed very awkward in her speech and terms with Chloe and I could tell she felt weird giving Chloe instructions, as if she had never had to give these kinds of instructions to a small child before. If Chloe didn't understand what she was supposed to do (which was often- these tests are much different than anything she has ever experienced before), the doctor would turn around and glance at Ben and I with a "why is she acting like this" glance?

The doctor was great to answer any and all questions Ben and I had and ran many tests on Chloe. She diagnosed her with a word that I do not remember and explained to us that Chloe has one good eye and one bad eye. Her good eye sees 20/20 and the bad eye is significantly worse. Chloe favors her good eye and is most likely not using the bad eye at all, since she can hardly see out of it. This seemed to make sense, due to how Chloe responded at the pediatricians office last week. While I do not doubt the Optometrist's diagnosis, I felt very weary of her "treatment." She simply said that Chloe needs glasses and perhaps some eye patch therapy. She gave no written instructions for us on how to do any at home therapy and no suggestions on how to get a 4 year old to wear an eye patch and glasses. At one point she said, "After she gets her glasses, put the eye patch on her bad eye, wearing her glasses, and have her sit down and draw pictures for 2 or 3 hours so she can strengthen her bad eye." 2 or 3 hours? How many 4 year olds does she know that will sit and draw for more than 20 minutes wearing an eye patch, looking out an eye that they can't even see out of?

I felt very weary and uncomfortable for the entire appointment, and especially after we got home. After talking to my all knowing and very wise mother, I found out that I should have been seeing an Ophthamologist instead of Optometrist (especially now that Chloe has been diagnosed with a condition) and that I really need to see a pediatric one, as I knew all along. My mom said that an Optometrist is not really equipped to handle this, but that she should have at least given me a plan- a list of things that need to be done to treat and help this- we got nothing.

I will now spend tomorrow researching Pediatric Ophthamologists in my insurance and find someone who will give me a second opinion and give me answers. I know that what Chloe has is not extremely common and that I need a little more than glasses and drawing paper and a pencil.

Next time, I will follow my instincts. I never felt good about going to this place. We are just hoping we can get Chloe the help she needs before things get worse.

Despite our bad news, Chloe was such a trooper!  She had many lights shined in her eyes, many covers over her face, and even had to have eye drops put in her eyes to dilate her pupils, which made her vision even more blurry than it already was.  She was ready to go by the end, but did great.