20/15

I had my eyes checked this morning after yesterday's LASIK, and I can see PERFECTLY! Or better than perfect, if that's what 20/15 is. Yay!!! The whole process was very, very bizarre, and definitely not painless, but that was only about 20 minutes of burning sensation and then the Valium kicked in and I passed out for 3 hours. So it was still worth it. The doctor was very reassuring to me as I left yesterday, saying that I was very brave (I think he could tell I was nervous from my trembling hands, legs, arms...) because the ones who aren't brave don't get the procedure done at all. I won't go into detail here because I'm not sure how squeamish my readers are, but basically it was a lot of contact in my eyes that I would normally do my best to avoid. I have little red blotches all around my corneas from where they attached the suction thingy that held my eyeballs in place during the procedure, and I feel like I've got a whole ton of sand in my eyes and I can't get it washed out. Tonight and tomorrow night, I have to wear the clear protector shields while I sleep, but after that it's just a few more eyedrops daily (and no eyemakeup for 2 weeks) and then I'm free and clear! It really is as good as I had been dreaming of. So far, a few of my favorite things include:

• Nuzzling Emily's tummy with my face
• Pulling a sweatshirt easily over my head without catching my glasses
• Rocking Emily to sleep without having to keep swatting her hands away from my glasses
• Peripheral vision! That'll help me not trip over my own daughter...
• Not having to deal with fogged up lenses when I drain pasta or come inside from the FREAKING cold
• Waking up and seeing everything clearly
• Watching TV snuggled up with my head on a pillow
• Not having to look for my glasses before I take Emily downstairs for breakfast in the morning
• Looking in the mirror and not seeing crooked glasses
• Wearing sunglasses any time I want!
• Being able to see really, really well!! My contacts were never this good, and my glasses were so scratched and small that they didn't work well either.
• Not having to rack my brain if I've brought my glasses case or contacts case or spare contacts or contacts solution when I go on an overnight trip.

OK, a few of those I am still looking forward to, but I'm sure that's just the beginning of what I'll find! I am a HAPPY GIRL!!

Farewell, Blind-ey

As my husband is so fond of calling me when he is desperate to find fault with me (generally after a discussion where I've clearly kicked his butt ;) ), "Blindey" is one of the many things I will be glad to leave behind after today! It's LASIK day!!

Yesterday was Emily's 15-month checkup, and she did a fantastic job. I felt SO bad when they gave her her shots, though; she cried as though she was saying "...but what did I ever do to you? We were having fun, and now this?? why??" It was pretty heartbreaking, cuz she was so pleasant and agreeable and charming through the rest of it. She is still 95th percentile for head size and height, but moved down again in the weight percentile to 55th. It's nice that even though Travis and I provided a lousy selection of noses in the gene pool, at least she'll fare well in the physique department.

They asked her if she could say 3 - 5 words, and I was thinking that's pretty accurate, but it's probably more like 15, depending on your definition of "say," to sound Clintonesque. She's got 8 - 10 signs, and a few words, but lots of appropriate babble, like "zhuuuu" for shoes, "Yaiyaiyaiyai" for kitty, etc. It was funny to me that they asked only about her verbal development and not her motor development. Okay, honestly, it was disappointing to me because I think that's where she really shines and I could show off a bit. :) I guess they asked if she can feed herself with her fingers, and I told her she feeds herself with a spoon! So, that was my moment of being That Mom.

So, today we are hoping that Grandma S can get past her snowy gravel road and come down to help me out as I recover from the procedure this afternoon. Stupid snow!! When it comes right down to it, I am really pretty nervous about being awake as they cut open my eyeballs, but I am doing my best to trust and have faith and all that. Apparently I'll be pretty drugged up, and people do this all the time, right?? Wish me luck!!!

Pee!!

Yes, I am excited about pee! Over the past two months, Emily has twice made puddles on the bathroom floor while waiting for the tub to fill, so I hatched a plan to try to avoid more puddling. I put a potty on the floor next to the tub, put her on it (in her birthday suit) while the tub was filling, and she sat there and played with a toy until it was time to get in the bath. I had done it one other time, and she didn't want to sit there and just hopped into the tub. But this time, when she stood up, there was pee!!! She did it!! I don't care if this is all she does for the 6 months, or the whole year, because that's one diaper every 2 days that I don't have to change - or, one puddle that I don't have to clean up. Maybe I can teach her the sign for potty while she's sitting there? Or maybe she'll decide that's a nicer way to deal with pee than keeping it with her in her pants. Or maybe she'll never do it again, but it was sure a fun thing to do tonight. My baby is such a big girl now!!

An amazing holiday

We have had a crazy past few weeks. We really put on the miles this holiday!

We celebrated Christmas in Barnum, which included an agonizingly long Christmas Eve service with a sprinting and enthusiastic drummer boy, and lots of casual fun time with the Sullivans. We were in Rockford for the Johannsen Christmas, where Emily joined right in with her cousins, tearing apart the house and having a fantastic time. We had dinner with my aunt's family in Ames, and then went back up to Rockford en route to Mankato for New Year's Eve. Emily stayed in Rockford with her grandparents and aunt and uncle and cousins overnight, and she had a really good time. It was my first overnight away from her, and it was probably harder on me than her, but I had a good time at the party too so I can say it all worked out well! Even though she was pretty happy the whole time I was gone, when I came back I think she was actually angry with me. This afternoon, she was exhausted and crying and I think she was remembering that she couldn't find me... maybe I was reading too much into her expression but the guilt was crushing. But, at least while I was gone, she had a good time and wasn't really upset without me at all. Such a nice girl she is!

It's funny how talking to other people about parenting and about Emily's development will inevitably bring up things that make me question whether I'm doing all that I can for her. I asked my grandfather (who is child developmental psychologist) about Emily walking on her tiptoes, and he said it's important that she break that habit and that I need to have her wear shoes all the time. I know Emily doesn't like to, and I think it's because her feet have been growing so fast that her shoes don't fit! Her cousin Megan is a year older and wears a size larger sheos, but it turns out their feet are the same size. OOPS. I asked why it's important that she learn to walk not on her toes, and he said it's for development of the nervous system, that there are nerves in the feet that are closely tied to vision and balance. So, I guess Emily will be wearing shoes now! And my sister will have to remind Megan not to imitate Emily all the time by walking on her tiptoes. :)

I haven't been teaching Emily a whole lot of signs, just a few that are fun, probably just because I'm lazy. but apparently I'm deaf, too! All during the past week and a half, people have been telling me what they heard Emily say, "plain as day!" and I haven't been acknowledging or encouraging her starts of speech. There are some things she says that are clear - "Doh" for dog (or any animal except a cat), "rouw, rouw" for round, round, and a few others, but a brief list of things that others have heard includes: Apple, Up, Down, Thank you, Blanket, and Blue-purple. I am doubting the last one, but the others I should be listening for and encouraging, I suppose. Another oops. I know she understands nearly everything she hears now, so now I just need to be more vigilant in looking for her to say it back to me.

Well, I'm exhausted from the wild holiday, and I don't have much more for details to share. Emily had a most wonderful Christmas, and together I feel like we are the luckiest little family in the world.

Elation

January 13 - LASIK for me!!!!!! Yay!!!! I am so incredibly excited. The doctor was really nice, and was happy to know that my mother-in-law was one of the people he used to enjoy working with when he did surgery in Ft. Dodge. So that was cool too. I am so happy and relieved tonight, and a little blind still from the dilation.

Travis made chili this Sunday, and I don't know when I've ever seen Emily eat more!! It was amazing. She is really good with her signs for "eat" and "more" now, and she kept asking for more chili, bread, mandarin oranges, and animal crackers. When I took her bib off, I could see her HUGE tummy, and it looked like it was going to burst. (Pictures on picasa, of course) I thought she might have a tummy ache but she was really happy and went to bed at a normal time. The next morning, I set her down in the kitchen and she walked right up to the refrigerator signing "eat," and she ate a ton for breakfast, too. Crazy girl! And apparently chili is really a good trainer food for using a spoon, cuz she was getting pretty good at it.

I have to play cribbage with Travis now because he bought a new board online and we have to break it in. :)

My little Emily Post

Emily is working on another skill - eating with a fork! She has done it a couple times the past few weeks, including one day over Thanksgiving, but tonight she was really able to confidently use her fork to scoop up chopped-up spaghetti. And she didn't really think anything of it! She likes to use her right hand with the fork and her left to eat just stuffing it in, and of course she still prefers stuffing it in when she's super hungry. But she enjoys keeping her right hand clean (and I use that word loosely), or seems to anyway. It's pretty amazing to see.

We had a hard weekend. We drove up to my grandmother's 90th birthday celebration in Holstein, which was a really nice affair and I'm glad we went. But schedule-wise, nothing worked for Emily. I kind of knew going into things that no matter what I did, I was going to make the wrong decisions for her. We stayed last night in Barnum, and her sleep schedule was so messed up that she was awake until about 8:45. I always love having grandparents around to see how lousy I am at comforting my daughter in a strange place. I was up all night on the can because I finally got some variation of the trots that's been floating around my extended family. That left me unable to eat anything, and I have a headache tonight probably because I'm dehydrated. Today, she wouldn't sleep in the car on the way home, so her nap went too late for her to get to bed on time - even though she was REALLY tired. She finally crashed at about 9:15. Just awesome. We've actually got quite a bit going on this week, so it's just stellar that we're starting out on such a positive base. *sigh*

I am really glad I went to the party, because it meant a lot to Grandma that we were there, and Grandpa recognized Emily (pretty good for someone who is 94 and whose mental acuity is sadly decreasing), and enjoyed watching her toddle around. We were at the nursing home where Grandpa is and the assisted living where Grandma is, and everybody who encountered Emily enjoyed watching her. She did a lot of practicing her spins in the big open spaces of the nursing home, and in her little dress it was absolutely adorable. So, it's nice that she brought some joy to those people's weekend.

My initial appointment for LASIK is next Tuesday - FINALLY. I hate my glasses so much that I don't know what I'll do if they say I'm not a candidate. After I cry, of course.

Emily update

I was going to write about the insane weekend we just experienced, but it seems like Emily has been changing and growing every day so I think I'll tell you about some of those things instead. Or, first, anyway.

Emily has learned how to talk on the phone. She loves listening to either of her grandmas on the phone, although she doesn't have anything to say back. After this weekend, she is even more crazy about her grandmas, and the feeling is certainly mutual! She picked up a little electronic game that I had originally had out for her cousins to play with, and she was carrying it around on her shoulder yakking, and I'm certain she was imitating me on the phone. She had done a little of it with her uncle Pat's actual cell phone, and apparently any small electronic-looking thing is a phone to yak into. It was pretty cute, although I did feel a little bit mocked. She also laughed at me tonight while I was trying to get her feet into her little footie pajamas. She kept getting the one out as soon as I'd get the other in, and I was getting frustrated, which was just hilarious to her! I can't get her to laugh out loud like that any other time, although Travis can.

Emily flaps her arms in front of her when she's excited about butterflies (happens more often than you'd imagine, actually, with books about caterpillars and such), and she can sign for "more" now. She has the cutest little thing she does if you ask her for a "hug hug hug" - she puts her hands on her chest and wiggles her shoulders back and forth. It goes nicely with her pirate dancing. :) She's particularly fond of one of her pairs of pants, although she'll take any of her clothes and play with them - PJ's, onesies, socks, whatever. Travis didn't think I was funny when I suggested that she might become a "materials" engineer. I guess because it's not really that funny. :p

She also had her first experience in the snow (pictures on her picasa site), with the help of her cousins showing her what fun snow can be. I've got two snowmen in my front yard, although one seems more like just a big spear. It was a beautiful snowfall, but it made for rough travels for my parents and sister's family, and for my grandparents who were trying to get back to Ames after dropping visitors off at the airport. They stayed with us last night, unexpectedtly, and it was a lovely visit. A nice way to wind down after a crazy 4-day weekend.

I am thoroughly impressed with how much work it was to make dinner for everyone on Saturday night, and I didn't even do it all myself. I made mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, and rolls, and somehow I was absolutely exhausted at the end of the day. Did I do anything else? I can't remember. Jenny did the pies and corn, and mom did the turkey and gravy. How on earth did women use to spend all day in the kitchen making meals for big farm families? Without running water in the house? Insane. But my fridge is full of leftovers, so that's a nice side-effect. And I had a really great time with my mom and my sister, right up until everybody started throwing up. Nothing like a stomach/flu bug to really bring everybody down. :( I feel so bad for my 3 nieces, who all took turns throwing up in their car, and especially bad for my sister who not only had to clean it all up, but also weather her own stomach ailment. Travis was sick all day today, too, and for the whole morning he could only sit and whimper. I hope Emily and I don't get this!!!!!!!