Sarah's Eye Journey: More Anesthesia & Her First Glasses

Sarah's journey with congenital cataracts and glaucoma continues. After moving here to Virginia, we started with a new pediatric ophthalmologist, and the first thing he wanted to do was put her under so he could do a really thorough exam. 

 Off we went to the local children's hospital. Fortunately, they had an awesome playroom full of fun things to distract Sarah after the complete trauma of having her height, weight, and temperature taken. Seriously, you would think she was being tortured to death to hear the screams that come when anyone pulls out a thermometer.

 Sadly, they sent us off to an exam room to wait for another hour with no toys. Lame. This gave her plenty of time to get super sad and scared. She finally retreated to her safe place in the stroller and went to sleep while I pushed her back and forth. Poor kid. Her special elephant, who has kept her company through all of her hospital visits, was there to take care of her. On a side note, I don't know why hospitals can't handle getting gowns that are small enough for children. I think I need to do a service project and make tiny hospital gowns.

Luckily, this was just an exam and not a surgery, so she didn't have to be out very long. Her doctor came out with the good news that her cataract looked stable and her eye pressure was normal. However, he wanted her to start wearing glasses. This did not make me excited. How are we supposed to keep glasses on our two year old?

Thus began the long process of finding glasses that would fit her tiny face. I didn't like any of the toddler ones I had seen, but we couldn't find any at the normal glasses retailers that were small enough.

 One of the discouraging things while we were glasses shopping was that she literally would not wear a pair of glasses for more than two seconds. This did not bode well for the future.

 We finally found some frames we liked, and they even carried them at an optometrist's office a mile from our house. Score! It took a few more weeks to get the frames in, do fittings, order a different size, and then get the lenses made. Finally, it was the big day. I took Sarah to pick up the glasses. We put them on, and she actually left them there! I think she was surprised to suddenly have sharper vision. It was a cool moment.

 I wish I could say that she left them alone and hasn't given us any problem wearing them since, but she pulled them off as soon as we got in the car. 

 That was the night of the ward party, and she overwhelmed everyone with her cuteness.

I didn't think Sarah could get any cuter, but I think it may have just happened. Her little glasses are so cute! By the way, this is the face you get when you tell Sarah to smile. We are working hard on getting her to wear the glasses consistently, but it has been a battle. They have a removable strap that helps keep them from falling off, but she thinks it is annoying and always pulls it off. Yesterday, I caught her stashing her strap in one of Kelson's shoes. Little stinker. She will get used to them eventually. The good news is that she is doing great with her patching lately (at least most days), and she is off all eye drops right now. 

Ringing in 2016

We have officially turned in to old people who care more about sleep than staying up late to celebrate the new year. We still had a fun celebration at home, though. We babysat for our friends so that they could have a New Year's Eve date, and they took Sarah for us the next day. Sarah and Elaina had a fun evening (with only a few sharing-induced tantrums thrown in by Sarah).

 Both of us grew up having sea food for New Year's, so we kept the tradition alive with shrimp salads, crab legs, and scallops. It was delicious! The girls enjoyed the french bread.

 We didn't quite make it to midnight, but it was a fun evening. 

 Kelson and I enjoyed our New Year's date the next day by strolling through a cute shopping district in Newport News and looking at all of the Christmas displays. Then we tried a Mediterranean restaurant called Saffron for dinner. It was so good! We love trying new kinds of international food. 

2015 was a fun and exciting year, and we can't wait to see what adventures are in store for us in 2016!

Christmas Day 2015

We had a very relaxed Christmas this year. Traveling home for Christmas was a little out of our budget, so it was just the three of us. As usual, Sarah crawled into bed with us around 7 for a little morning cuddle time. I convinced her it was time to get up and go downstairs by reminding her that Santa had come to visit while she was sleeping.

 The first thing she said as she came down the stairs was, "painting!". We had to spend some time drawing pictures before we could open any presents.

Helping Mommy take down the stockings.

 Sarah was happy to help unload all of our stockings - especially when she realized Santa brings chocolate.

 Santa brings Play-doh too? We had to take another break from the presents after she found this one.

 Sarah has this weird thing right now where she insists on wearing socks on her hands. These fuzzy socks made perfect mittens.

 What little girl wouldn't be thrilled to get a puppy for Christmas?

 Sarah's big Christmas gift was a Little People princess castle with all of the Disney princesses, which I picked up on Craigslist months ago for $10. I have been anxiously waiting to give it to her. She played with it all day long.

Aunt Amy made Sarah a "cray hair, don't care" shirt. She knows our girl well.

Kelson got lots of new socks and a case for his watches.

 And some gummy bears, of course. Sarah was happy to help with these.

 Apparently Kelson was getting a little emotional over the Little Engine that Could.

 Kelson surprised me with a new guitar. I can't wait to learn to play it.

 Grandma Bonnie sent Sarah a beautiful quilt

 And Aunt Jehana sent our puppy-loving girl a new towel.

Between her parents, her grandparents, her aunts and uncles, and Santa, this girl had quite the Christmas. She spent all day playing with her new toys, and so did Mom and Dad. We finally got dressed sometime in the middle of the afternoon. It was a perfectly relaxing day.

 Kelson made a delicious stuffed pork roast for dinner, and we drove around town delivering a few secret Santa gifts while it cooked.

We enjoyed our simple Christmas dinner and then spent the evening at home watching a movie. It was a wonderful Christmas. The only thing that could have made it better would have been to spend it with our loved ones. Thank goodness for video chatting!

Christmas Eve 2015

We spent our Christmas Eve cooking, making last-minute preparations, and eating dinner with our good friends, the Phillips. They have a little girl exactly Sarah's age, and we all had lots of fun together.

 After dinner, we enjoyed some Christmas carols. 

Elaina helped me out on the piano while Sarah took care of the percussion. The Little Drummer Boy is her favorite.

It was dark by now, and Sarah declared it was time to go see Christmas lights, so we went for our traditional evening walk.

 We did a scavenger hunt with the nativity pieces as we talked about the Christmas story.

 Sarah was excited to open the final box in the advent calendar and find a tiny nativity scene.

 After Sarah went to bed, Kelson and I got to help Santa out a little bit. Kelson put together Sarah's easel while I played with arranged her princess castle. We had a little too much fun. Christmas is so much better with children in the house!

We had so much fun decorating and preparing our new home for Christmas. This room looked so happy on Christmas Eve!

We finished our Christmas preparations about 11:00 and walked outside to look at our Christmas lights for a moment. We looked up and saw the most amazing moon. This is apparently called a moon halo, and it is a rainbow caused by moonlight refracted through ice crystals in the atmosphere. It looked awesome! We both felt like it was a special Christmas treat, like seeing the Christmas star.

 All ready for Christmas!

Christmasing

This Christmas season, we enjoyed plenty of festive things around the community, but we also made sure to have plenty of time to enjoy Christmas things at home. We made a special effort to set the stress of the holiday season aside and really enjoy ourselves as a family, and I think we were pretty successful.

Sarah has played non-stop with her Little People nativity set since Thanksgiving.

 Giving baby Jesus kisses.

 Making gingerbread cookies

Sarah loves playing with play doh. Cookie dough was even more fun.

Adding frosting and M&M's. Sarah was happy to taste samples.

 Sarah & I had a mommy-daughter date to the Smithfield Christmas parade. It was a fun parade, but Sarah got bored toward the end, so we snuck out ahead of the traffic.

 We stopped for donuts at O'Doodle Doo's on the way home, and Sarah was delighted to meet a giant rooster.

 Kelson carved a beautiful set of chopsticks for his parents for Christmas, and I made them a shiny case.

We took Sarah to Bass Pro Shop to meet Santa Claus. Mostly she wanted to watch the fish in the giant fish tank.

Santa was pretty much terrifying. Sitting on his knee was definitely not happening.

 A couple days before Christmas, we went to Colonial Williamsburg to see their Christmas decorations. We didn't really take any pictures that day, but it was very festive. It had been pouring down rain all morning, so the place was deserted. The rain had pretty much stopped by the time we got there, and we had the park practically to ourselves. This was Sarah enjoying the coloring room in the art museum.

 Sometimes, getting out a real ladder is just too much work. That is when you have to use your head to solve the problem.

 Sarah was amazingly excited to wake up from her nap one day and discover that we had a Christmas tree in our living room. She helped me hang up the ornaments, and then she really didn't bother them for the rest of the season. She would walk all around the tree pointing at each ornament and naming it, but never trying to take them down.

 She did add things occasionally. Notice that her glasses found her way on to the tree. I also found some interesting items from her play kitchen, such as a bagel and some lettuce, tucked in the tree.

All ready for the ward Christmas party. This is the face you get when you tell Sarah to smile. Sarah had a great time at the ward party. She kept slipping away from us to get up in front and dance during the musical program.

One of Sarah's favorite things was opening the boxes on our advent calendar each day. It was always one of my favorite parts of Christmas as a child too, and it was fun to watch Sarah get excited about it.

 Ready for church on the Sunday before Christmas.

Sarah LOVES Christmas lights. I don't even know how many light viewing walks and drives we have gone on. Each night, around the time it gets dark, Sarah wraps herself in a blanket and announces "Go lights!". She is going to be very sad when discovers that people take down their lights after Christmas.

We have been having so much Christmas fun!