proud girl - proud of my girl October 6, 2008

very proud of herself

I don’t want to be one of those bloggers who’s always blogging about their children’s pee and poop, mostly because I don’t find it too interesting, but I had to share.  Last weekend, Zoe decided that she wanted to sit on the potty.  A lot.  At first I was pretty excited.  Then I got bored.  It was a lot of her sitting on the pot while I grabbed a magazine or paper to peruse.  She’d go through a whole roll of toilet paper in one sitting if I had let her.  I didn’t.  But she didn’t, ah, produce at any of those sitting.  That is, until today at daycare.  We got the report of her day today that said that she actually peed in the potty this morning.  According to Chris, she was extremely proud of her self and talked about the potty the whole drive home.  Then tonight when I tucked her in to bed, I told her again that I was very proud of her using the potty.  She started singing “potty potty potty” while wiggling her little butt under her blanket.  It was probably the funniest thing I’d seen in a really long time.

day off October 3, 2008

I have Fridays off, but with things so crazy at the beginning of the school year and Zoe’s surgery before that, I haven’t felt like I really had time off until today.  Other than a quick trip to the vet for Tycho’s annual check-up and shots, we had nothing planned for the day.  It was awesome.

• Zoe and I got to the library.  In what may shock many people, I go to the public library far less often than Chris does.  I may well lose my librarian card for admitting this.  It’s not any particular reason other than I just don’t think of going to a library when I’m not at work at a library.  But we had a great time, and I need to remember it for future days with Zoe.
• Zoe kept saying daddy all day.  I asked if she wanted to have lunch with Chris, and she gave an emphatic head nod.  So we met for lunch.
• We also hit the park again today.  Zo mostly wanted to swing, but she also made me get on the swing a couple of times and pushed me, while saying “wheee!”
• Ever since reading this post on the Eat. Drink. Better. blog, I’ve been wanting to make applesauce, and today I got the chance to pick up some apples and give it a go.  It turned out really well and made the house smell pretty awesome.  I had not realized that applesauce could be quite so silky smooth.  A couple of notes on the recipe:
  • The recipe calls for sweet apples (not pie apples) because there’s no added sugar.  Of course, when I got to the store, I couldn’t for the life of me remember what a good, sweet apple was, because I’m always paying attention to tart apples.  So I picked up cortlands.  The resulting sauce is tasty, but a little on the tart side.
  • The recipe says to leave skin and seeds in and just put the sauce through a food mill to remove them.  I don’t have a food mill, so I peeled and cored the apples, and cut them into eighths instead of quarters.  I just cooked until it all fell apart in the pan anyway and mashed it with the back of a spoon.  Super easy.
  • I added a little cinnamon.

oh ugh September 24, 2008

After our wonderful morning together, I dropped Zoe off, wrote a blog post, did some laundry and headed to work.  I got to work just as an email arrived from Chris.  Zoe was being sent home from day care because it appears she has pink eye.  Ugh.  Chris took her to the eye clinic (because our regular doctor’s office was too busy to see her today), and the doctor confirmed that it was pink eye.  Luckily there doesn’t seem to be any concern due to her recent eye surgery (her eyes are pretty healed up at this point).  Unfortunately, it means we have to do eye ointment again.  When we did eye ointment after her surgery, Zoe would scream and cry and hide her face in our shoulders every time we tried to give it to her.  I have no reason to expect that it’ll go better a mere 2 weeks later.

coffee date September 24, 2008

Today is Wednesday, so I have the morning off again.  This time, Zoe and I hung out together until around 9:45 (she has music class at daycare, which she loves, and I didn’t want her to miss it).

We walked over to my favorite nearby coffee shop / bakery.  The bakery is one of the best in the city, so it’s nice that they decided to locate so near to me.  I got my favorite breakfast there, a fruit focaccia.  It’s a perfect little rectangle of focaccia, but instead of olive oil and rosemary on top, it has fruit (this morning grapes, but they’ve also done strawberries, raspberries and blueberries) baked on top in the little holes that are on focaccia, and it’s dusted in powdered sugar - not too sweet, with yummy little bursts of fruit.  I keep meaning to try to make my own, but it’s so good and so near by, I don’t have much motivation to try.  Zoe got a slice of the rustic bread that they had out for samples. Then a cup of coffee from the coffee shop and we were good to go.

The coffee shop has a sign saying “unattended children will be given an espresso and a puppy.”  I’ve since seen that sign other places, but this is the first place I’d seen it, and it always makes me chuckle.  Despite the warning, I settled Zoe onto a chair with her bread and walked a couple steps away to get her a glass of water.  I was a little disappointed not to find a puppy and espresso when I got back, but maybe it’s for the best.

I thought about other people I’ve had coffee with through the years: friends, boyfriends, coworkers, fellow students, family members.  Thought about our conversations as I listened to Zoe point out the dogs, babies, trucks, and other nouns that passed by the window.  Though I’ve had many great times getting coffee with others, many great conversations, and I look forward to meeting up with most of the people again over coffee, today, this morning, there was no one I’d have rather seen across the table from me than Zoe.

that’s what mothers do September 7, 2008

Zoe is trying to walk down the stairs all by herself, without holding on to the wall or railing.  And she can almost do it, but it’s pretty terrifying to watch.  I offer my hand for her to hold on to, and she yells “no!” as she wants to do it all by herself.  “Ok,” I say, “I won’t hold your hand, but,” I continue, in what sounds more like a threat than the promise it was meant to be, “if you fall, I WILL catch you!”

things I learned from Zoe’s surgery August 26, 2008

Zoe post-surgery. Her eyes are quite blood shot, but they are noticeably straighter.

• My little girl is a hard-core trooper.  If I had just gone through surgery, I would have been on the couch demading that Chris bring me grapes and bon-bons.  Zoe was up and running around and laughing and playing that afternoon.  And demanding grapes.  She is my daughter after all.
• People rock.  The internet facilitates the rocking.  Seriously, I was touched by all the warm wishes and thoughts from old friends, new friends, and friend I’d never met.  I had often wondered if it helped to leave notes on someone’s blog wishing them well, especially if I’d never met the person.  Well, it helped me.  I loved reading everyone’s messages, and even made one last check right before leaving for the hospital to steel myself for the upcoming events.
• I am so glad that Chris was my partner in this.  I would not have wanted to go this alone, and there’s no one I’d rather have gone through this with.  He went with Zoe to be put under because he knew how hard it would be for me to do it, and he knew that he would be a comfort to Zoe.
• Holding your screaming daughter as she is just starting to come out of anesthesia, while she cries bloody tears and tries to rip out her IV is definitely a low in my short time as a parent.  I am enormously thankful that it only lasted 20 minutes (though it felt like 20 times that long), and once she really woke up, she downed 3 glasses of juice and asked for crackers.

surgery tomorrow August 24, 2008

So tomorrow is the big surgery day. We’ll be getting up at the crap of dawn to get to the Eye Institute by 5:30 in the morning. Actually, “crap of dawn” might be misleading since it implies that the sun might actually be close to coming up at that point.

I’m trying to stay calm about the whole thing, and mostly being successful, but the fact that my mom and I spent the afternoon washing dishes, sweeping, vacuuming, dusting and otherwise cleaning is a pretty strong indication that I’m not so calm inside. Because normally, I don’t do that.

I’ve been asked by a few people to give updates, so I think I will add any updates to this post on little four eyes. I don’t really expect to be on the computer too much, so if there’s no updates, you can assume that I’m just snuggling the girl.

surgery restrictions August 7, 2008

We just got the packet from Zoe’s ophthalmologist’s office with “Information you need to know about your surgery.” Which isn’t too helpful since Zoe isn’t doing much reading yet. I blame her farsightedness - it makes it difficult for her to focus on the fine print. That and the fact that she isn’t 2 yet, and can’t read.

The bad news is that we have to show up to the eye institute where the procedure will be done at 5:30 AM. Ugh. The good news about that is that the surgery is early in the morning so that Zoe will be asleep for most of the eating restrictions. She is allowed clear liquids, which includes jello, up to 3 hours before surgery, but that means she would have to have it before 4:30 AM, and I’m not about to wake up that early just for a jello snack.

The toughest to follow will probably be the post-surgery restrictions. Zoe will have to wait 24 hours after the procedure before she can:

• drive a car
• operate power tools
• drink alcohol
• make important decisions
• sign her name

damn! I was really hoping she’d be able to drive me home so that I could take a valium during her surgery.

better but not perfect July 25, 2008

Zoe had another eye appointment today, this time to follow-up on her new prescription. Unfortunately, while the doctor (and I) could see that the glasses were helping with her eyes, as the doctor said, it was only better, not perfect. As in all the other appointments, the doctor had Zoe look at a toy up close, and she would hold lenses up in front of Zoe’s glasses to see if the stronger prescription would straighten out her eyes. Unlike the other appointments, none of the lenses made any difference.

Zoe's crossed eyes

So in essence, we’ve done as much as we can with glasses, and the doctor brought up surgery. I knew the possibility was there. When I was being honest with myself before the appointment, I knew that it was even likely, but it didn’t make it any easier to hear or think about. We asked a whole bunch of questions, and we’re satisfied that the surgery is our next step. The surgery is scheduled for a month from today. It is apparently an easy, outpatient surgery, probably less than an hour, with a recovery of one day.

I was really shaky and upset this morning after the appointment, but I’m slowly coming around to accept that this will be ok, that Zoe will be ok, and in fact, we’re hoping she’ll be better than ok, and her eyes will start to work together so that she can start developing binocular vision. That’s what this is about, right. This is about her, this is about getting Zoe what she needs for her vision. I keep trying to remind myself that we have so much to be grateful for, that she is healthy, that her strabismus is treatable, that we caught it early. But it’s hard, I had been so hoping that the glasses alone would be sufficient.

Zoe

I suppose one good thing is that the discussions with the ophthalmologist pointed out just how much I’ve grown to love Zoe’s glasses - you may remember that this was not always the case. This morning, when the eye doctor said Zoe would still need glasses after the surgery, I sighed a little sigh of relief that she’d get the keep wearing them, because I think she looks so dang cute in those specs.

(this was cross-posted to my Little Four Eyes blog).

I am not always so helpful July 14, 2008

I mentioned in my last post that Zoe’s hit her independent streak, and that last night she wanted to put on her pajamas herself. Well she wanted to do that tonight as well. This time she nearly managed to get her pajama bottoms on right - both feet first went through the same leg hole, but we got it sorted out, but before she could pull up the sleep shorts, Chris decided to try and help her with her top. So while all this is happening, she also has little pajama pants hanging around her knees. So Chris keeps trying to explain how to get your head through both the bottom of the shirt and through the neck hole, which Zoe doesn’t quite grasp. He keeps trying to bunch up the shirt to make it easier, she keeps saying “no!” while pushing his hands away. So she gets the shirt over her head, but doesn’t get her head through the neck hole, and instead is trying to push her head through an arm hole, which isn’t working. She can’t see anything and is starting to turn around trying to see where she is when she runs into her dresser with her head and kind of bounced off and falls on her butt. (She didn’t hit her head too hard or anything). Up until this point, I had been trying to help her into the pajamas, but once she hits her dresser, I totally lost it. I dissolved into a giggling mass on the floor while Chris kept trying to help her without letting her know he was helping. I’m guessing that my shaking on the floor as I valiantly tried not to laugh out loud was less than helpful.