Indiana traditions

Ba and Neemaw help the grandkids pop a shot!

Bah humbug!

Well we are back from Christmas "break" and I'm more than slightly bah humbug about the whole thing. We had a great time but crammed in a lot and are exhausted. But here is a peekat the holiday card and some photos from the trips!

Merry Christmas!

We are currently conducting our annual Indiana holiday road trip. Having so much fun with family and sharing our (mostly) delightful, hilarious little man!

Happy holidays to you all!

Poor man

Emmett had a rough week at school. First he fell on a sidewalk and skidded, resulting in this face injury. Then on Friday a "friend" bit him.

He wore this sweater to go see Santa today. He was frikkin terrified. I loved how he looked in his tiny preppy sweater though, even if when I bought it, mike asked if I was gearing up for an ugly Christmas sweater party. No, mike. This is a cute sweater!!

Today we took one of the rails off Emmett's crib and added the piece that makes it a toddler bed. 50/50 shot that we end up putting the rail back on. I'm sure we will regret it. But it's worthy shot.

Reading Mike's favorite book

Mike hates this book. Baby has read his first hundred words like a million times.

If you can't spot the sucker...

...you probably are the sucker.

I told him he could have some m&ms if he colored on some Christmas cards. He ate the m&ms and then refused to color. Who's the chump? Me.

Bedtime struggles

I've got it! I can post on the blog as I sit on the floor of emmetts room while I wait for him to go to sleep!

(Parenting... Super fun btw)

One of my coworkers told me to put him to bed earlier. I tried that last night. He got so freaking heated up over it, he barfed hot dogs all over his crib.

What? No, my child doesn't eat hot dogs for every meal. Why do you ask?

Very little is grosser than hot dog barf. Seriously.

The thing is, nothing prompts opinions from all kinds of people more than parenting problems and sleep specifically. And I've found little that works other than a stiff cocktail for mommy and daddy.

So here I sit, waiting for Sir to drop off to sleep. It's not like I could be working or doing laundry or wrapping Christmas presents or making gluten free toddler food from scratch. No, nothing better to do. Nothing! Argh.....

Dumb stuff

Sometimes I think, this thought it too long for a facebook post.  Also, I am probably posting too much on facebook. I should act like I care about facebook a little less.  You know, to not look too eager.  haha.  I wish I had somewhere else to put this drivel.

Oh yes, I have a blog.  I guess.  Kind of.

I've never really been a "blogger".  I'm not a great writer.  I'm not really all that interested in getting out my feelings in other venues other than in a phone call to my Mom or sister.  But whatever, maybe I should write a little bit more.   It was originally a way to keep up with people.  Now that we have Sir, we have less time to keep up but more people that are actually interested in keeping up.  I mean, we are BORING.  But Emmett, he is funny!

Speaking of a funny little man, his talking is going great - I read somewhere that if you say "the car is orange" that kids catch onto colors better than if you say "the orange car", so I've been doing that.  His colors have been taking off!  It's so funny.   He said his first whole sentence last week - "DADDY, WHERE ARRRRRRRRRE YOOOOOOOOU?!!"  He is a total Daddy's boy, he is always so sad when we get home and Mike is in Chicago.  Yesterday I was changing out of my work clothes and Emmett was Johnny on the spot to point out that I had a butt "Butt, butt!" and that the shorts I changed into were pink "PINK BUTT."  Oh my.

Back to the original thought that was too boring and long for facebook - Yesterday my flat iron broke.  SADNESS.  I looked it up to see when I bought it to see if it was still under warranty and realized that I bought it in 2008.  Holy poop.  My flat iron is older than my kid.  Not hard, but still kind of funny.  Also, it only broke b.c I dropped it on the floor and the plate broke off.  So totally my fault.  I'll be buying that EXACT same flat iron again.  Hopefully it lasts four years like its predecessor!

I need to find an app to post straight from my iphone via blogger.  Any recommendations from anyone?

Eyeball update

I feel like it's going to be hard to put into words the experience we've had since the last time I updated about Emmett's eyes.  The words "ringer, going through it" come to mind.

We went back in May, and the doctor confirmed that he would need the surgery we'd scheduled in June.  Unsurprising.  She indicated that there was since a very small chance that his measurements would change between then and the surgery, we didn't need to come back to recheck the measurements.  I figured that any chance was a chance I didn't want to deal with - not for something that would take us only an hour to do.  So we made another appointment with the surgeon for the day prior to the surgery to double-check the measurements.  I had some dental work scheduled for that day so Mike took him.

Oy vey, people.  The surgeon confirmed his measurements... then suggested to Mike that we schedule the surgery.  Mike responded that we had, that it was queued up for the NEXT DAY, and the surgeon said "Oh.  Have we decided how much to correct for?"

Whiskey. Tango. Foxtrot.  I GET that the amount his eye was crossed changed throughout the day and was different if he was in glasses or out of them.  But still.  She's the surgeon.  You do NOT want to hear that she's unsure of how to handle the situation.

Unlike what I would have done, Mike kept it together.  I would have given the surgeon an extra eyeroll, told her that I didn't go to med school, and to get her shiz together.  Mike gently prompted her through a discussion of the different thoughts on the topic and encouraged her to consult her fellow practice members. 

The next day we had the surgery done - the process was relatively easy.. Emmett was great.  And was totally fine afterwards, downing some gluten-free sausage pizza only hours after leaving the hospital (surgery was outpatient).

We were very hopeful, but the eyes looked awful.  They were really bloody looking, which we expected.  But one eye actually looked like it wandered out.  He looked so bad, and it certainly wasn't an improvement to have him walleyed!

For the first week, I teared up when I looked at him.  It was so hard, I was so freaked out and I was convinced he'd need to have another surgery.  Words cannot describe how AWFUL it looked.  Then, the week after that it started getting better day by day.  I still think it gets better every day, but that second week - LEAPS and BOUNDS are the only words for it.  Enough to pardon the surgeon from the unholy cursing Mike had planned for her at his two-week post checkup.  She actually was quite pleased with his progress.  She did say the outcome judgement day is really two months post - there can be quite a lot of change up until then, and until then we are patching his "good" eye for an hour a day to ensure his brain keeps processing images from his "bad" eye.

As of now though, Emmett's eyes are looking pretty good.  Check out the pic of my brother, E and I last week:

Still not perfect, will have a better idea at his two month checkup.  File this in the drawer labelled "Cautiously optimistic".