On The Mend Monday

My little munchkin is feeling much better post surgery, and is in the mood to play!
Fortunately, I did some online shopping retail therapy during her recovery "downtime" so we have some new boxes toys laying around. =)

Wintertime playground!

Isn't this about the sweetest little card you've ever seen?
"Get better Emerson. To Emerson. From Tyler Rudd."

It worked out perfectly that her first week back to preschool there was PJ Day!
We will thankyouverymuch! =)

With all the chaos happening around here lately, Jeff and I decided to sneak away this past weekend. I had a sitter scheduled to come Saturday morning. Naturally, Friday afternoon 15 minutes before the Dr. office closed, Emerson threw up, Ryan spiked a 102 temp, and they were all coughing  like they've smoked all their lives. I talked the nurse into letting us run up for quick strep tests (LOVE OUR DR!), and Julia tested positive. We left with prescriptions for all kids.  Again. It was a ROUGH Friday night, (cleaning barf out of bedding in the middle of the night is totally the way I imagined motherhood to be!) but by morning the kids seemed stable enough for us to run out the door before the sitter could change her mind get outta dodge. Saturday night, we received a text that Julia had a loose tooth.  Her first! It came out Sunday morning, and she's been excitedly showing off her new smile ever since.
Which, by the way, I saw a LOT of today, since she stayed home from school sickie today. On a positive note, she did make it to the toilet to throw up. Thank you, Jesus!!! Seriously. Maybe the highlight of my day!

Hopefully, tomorrow will be better! Because not only are the people falling apart around here, but everything is going awry! Glass half full, we are having lots of opportunities to be thankful still:
The front door is broken. Won't close. I'm thinking the high winds we experienced last night did something to it.
Thankful I was able to stand out on the porch, and Ry was able to get it locked from the inside this am so at least it wasn't hanging open!
The garage door broke.  This is giving us a great opportunity as we jump out and manually open/close this to appreciate modern inventions!
My cell phone froze up several times and then died. When I went to Sprint tonight, they said there isn't anything they can do. Even though I have insurance. It's apparently a problem on Samsung's end and there will hopefully be a fix out in a few weeks. A few weeks?!?!  Thankful at least I have a phone. Ok. Truthfully, I'm not fully embracing this one yet. And I'm thinking anyone who has stock in Samsung probably should get rid of that...because when everyone's plan comes up, they will NOT be replacing with that brand. Ever. Again. I had an interesting conversation with the tech at the Sprint store about this!
Making a green drink smoothie, the blender broke.  Chocolate, anyone? =)

Seriously, are these two gaming freaks related, or what?!?!!
They are apparently very close to beating something down there, which is apparently very exciting.
I'm gonna take their word on that one.

The week is totally going up from here!!

Followup Eye Visit (and good news!)

February 1, 2013 - I snap a pic of Em's eyes while we wait anxiously to see Dr. Blatt and hear what he thinks about her eyes and the success of the surgery.

Em has a little heart to heart with Big Bird...after she gives him (her?) a big ol'juicy kiss on the beak.

Dr Blatt says while Em's not straight with her glasses, she is "straight as an arrow" without them.  I literally about jump out of the exam chair for joy. So, our plan for now is to keep her out of her glasses for the next two weeks.  Hopefully in this time, her eyes will begin to work together, and when we return Dr. Blatt will most likely reintroduce glasses to her eyes. Phew! I'm elated! I don't even care she's going to be seeing blurry the next two weeks!  As long as we don't have to do that ick surgery again!

February 2, 2013 - Em enjoys a huge sucker during Ry's basketball game.  This works to keep her sitting still for approximately 2 minutes, in which time she somehow manages to become a wet, sticky mess. Thanks, Mom!! HA! =)
I am trying to relax and not freak out that these eyes sure don't seem "straight as an arrow"...worrying certainly will not change the outcome! Deep breaths! 

Ry and his friend Braiden build a a Lego creation to submit to the Lego Club Magazine.

Blurry baby sister comes in to check out the creation and decide if she wants to wreck it or not! =)
You can see her eyes are still bloodshot (expected), but her swelling is gone, and her playful self is mostly back!

Em's Eye Surgery

A little background eye info on Emerson and our strabismus journey:

Oct 2: Bring Emerson  (12 mos) to her first Optometrist appointment (Dr. Chen). Am told she has a "high" prescription, and to bring her back in 6 months to be most likely fitted for glasses. Or sooner if the eye crossing worsens.  My gut tells me this is an inaccurate diagnosis.  My suspicion is confirmed when they bill our eye insurance rather than medical insurance and am told that "strabismus" is no where in the Dr.'s notes.  I'm frustrated -- I didn't bring my baby in for a checkup! I brought her due to the eye crossing!

Oct 20: Consult another Optometrist (Dr. Weiss), who confirms that Emerson should be seen immediately for strabismus, and says "the only mistake you can make right now is by waiting 6 mos."  She calls Children's and sets up an appointment for us. She's the most amazing Dr! (And a longtime close friend!). Too  bad her practice is in Florida!! =)

Oct 25: Meet Opthamologist at Children's Hospital (Dr. Leuder).  He says she needs glasses immediately to help correct the eye crossing.  He says at this time that if it is not corrected with the glasses, she will require surgery.

October 31: Em starts wearing her first pair of eyeglasses.  Solid purple indestructible (we hope!) frames with a 3.75 prescription in each eye. With each passing day, she seems to be crossing less and less, although still occuring.

December 26: Return to Children's to evaluate how the glasses are helping. Am told that before glasses she had "40% cross, and now 20%ish cross" and will still need surgery for complete correction.  Em was totally uncooperative at this appointment, and we never saw the actual doctor. I don't think the assistant who was charged with doing her "measurements" got accurate responses, because she hardly looked at him in the 5 minutes he spent with her. He refers me to a nurse to schedule surgery for January 4. (Which I later cancel because I have such a bad feeling about this). When I call to cancel and cite the reason is that I think she might continue to get better with the glasses, a very rude nurse tells me "well, we don't know what the future holds, do we!?"

January 10: Meet Opthamologist (Dr. Blatt) at St. Louis Eye Center. He confirms that Dr. Leuder's diagnosis is accurate, and Em will need surgery.  He recommends patching her right eye for 1 hour/day so she doesn't lose vision in the left eye while waiting for surgery. This is called amblyopia. The brain pays attention to the image of the straight eye and ignores the image of the crossed eye, resulting in vision loss. Strabismic amblyopia occurs in approximately half of the children who have strabismus. We schedule surgery for Jan 30.

January 18: Consult Optometrist  (via telephone) who specializes in therapy for bionocular vision. Told they can most likely help Emerson, although it will be time consuming, costly, and not covered by insurance, as there is currently no scientific data backing up the face that vision therapy actually works. After an internet search, I find therapy vs surgery is a very "hotly" debated topic among vision docs. I have some hope, as Harvard is currently putting money into this therapy at one of their teaching hospitals due to the positive anecdotal evidence it works. I call our insurance company and ask for an exception for this treatment to be covered. I'm told we will find out in 5 business days.

January 25: No word from the insurance company. I call them and am beyond annoyed to learn that they needed another piece of information to process the paperwork, yet apparently didn't attempt very hard to contact me and let me know this piece of information. A customer service rep promises to call me next week and let me know of a decision. (Update: I never got this call back.)

I call Dr. Blatt's office and tell the nurse I think I am going to cancel the surgery for next week, as Em seems to be responding favorably to the patching.  She tells me I need to bring her in for the Dr to evaluate and make sure she isn't experiencing amblyopia. We keep our appointment already scheduled for Monday.

January 28: We meet with Dr. Blatt for Emerson's pre-operation appointment. I  communicate to him I am considering canceling the surgery, as I feel like with the patching I am seeing much improvement.  I ask if this progress will continue, particularly if we incorporate more eye therapy. He assures me she will still eventually need the surgery, therapy alone won't work in her case, and I am putting off the inevitable. Also, the younger a patient is when surgery is done, the better chance her brain has of learning appropriate depth perception. I agree to proceed with her scheduled surgery. I can't wait for this agonizing experience to be behind us.

Jan 30: The surgery takes approximately two hours.  Other than waking up so crazy early (Thanks to my mom for getting the "big" kids off to school!), the hard part of the morning is keeping Em happy without giving her food. It breaks my heart that she is so upset saying "More! More!" to me yet I am not allowed to give her anything to eat or drink. She is mad when the anesthesiologist takes her away because she knows I understand what she wants, and she is crazy frustrated I won't feed her. Little doll walks over to a sink and shows me what she wants even! My momma gut still isn't sure we should go through with this yet.

After the approximately 2 hour surgery, the Dr. comes out to tell us he is finished and he feels it was a success. (The realist in me knows he can't possibly know this information at this time, afterall, I might have very well earned an honorary degree with all the reading I've been doing on this topic on Google, and wonder what defines success!?!  That he didn't damage my baby's eyeball while he was hacking on the muscles attached to it? Humm.)  I like Dr. Blatt. Don't get me wrong. And I realize he is trying to help her. It's so hard to see your baby so swollen like this (lucky it's  not a clearer picture!!) and know that someone did this to them!  On purpose! When your momma gut was saying "wait! maybe she will keep getting better the longer she is in glasses and therapy!"
And have you ever held a baby as she came out of anesthesia?  Your protective claws would come out too!! So. Not. Nice.  I internally scold  myself for ever agreeing to this.  Why didn't I press the therapy longer!!?
Jeff and I try to catch glimpses into her eyes, but she is so swollen it is painful to look at her.  Her eyes look so bloody, bloodshot, swollen, literally tears of blood that it physically makes me cringe and think I might vomit. Instead, I hold back tears and try to love on her and keep her calm without actually looking into her eyes. We were warned the whites of her eyes could be bloodshot for up to a month post surgery, but somehow, I feel completely unprepared for this.

After her time in recovery, we get to bring Em home. Jeff gives her a pint of blueberries and she finishes off the entire thing and says "More! More!" We give her a little bowl of goldfish crackers, and she does the same routine.  She has some food trust issues with us at this point. The anesthesia is still wearing off, and she can hardly stay awake. She takes a few handfuls of food, and falls into what seems to be a deep sleep. If I put the food to the side, she wakes up minutes later saying, "More! More!!"  We enjoy the unusual cuddle time and catch up on some HGTV. Her facial swelling seems like it is going down. She still only opens one eye at this point, and keeps the other loosely shut.

Because in an awful twist of fate, our town has experienced an unusual water main break, we have zero running water coming out of the faucet for most of the day. I bring Em to my parents house to give her a bath in clean water and clean the "hospital" off of her.

Fortunately, we regain water before things get too nasty. (Think, no flushing toilets!!). For this, we are soo thankful. We are lucky, many people in the community are still without. The hassle of boiling doesn't even seem bad. I'm just thankful for the dirty water we have! 

January 31 morning: Em had a pretty decent night of sleep. (Thank you, God!!) This morning, I continue to try and get glimpses into  her eyes to see the alignment of her eyeballs. It is easier, because she isn't so swollen, but she still is fairly "squinty" and when I am able to see in, the redness in the whites of her eyes is jarring.
After being awake for just an hour or so, I put her down for a nap. She seems so cranky, and I wonder if she is getting a headache from her "new vision" while her brain attempts to adjust. She sleeps 2.5 hours. I try to put her down again in the afternoon when she seems sleepy again, but go in when I watch her attempt to throw her leg over the edge of the crib. She normally wouldn't jump out, but I don't trust her today!  She's off balance and walks a little bit like she's been drinking. She walked straight into a drawer this morning that was open, and smacked her forehead pretty decent.

January 31 evening: Em is opening her eyes even more, and overall looking much better.  However, I've gone into nearly full panic mode feeling like her eyes aren't lined up straightly. See this picture above?  The eye on the left appears to be looking off to the side, while the eye on the right is looking straight ahead.  PRAYING this is "normal" part of recovery.

Tonight, I held up a water bottle. She reached for it, but totally missed. She went waayy too far to the right of the actual bottle. She looked surprised, and I was crushed for her. It's hard to watch your kid seem to "regress".

We meet with the Dr tomorrow for our followup appointment.  I NEED him to tell me that this is totally typical recovery.  Because I am going INSANE. And I don't think I can make her go through this all over again to correct that eye.  But oh, it's ECKH looking!  I'm heartbroken for Em.

Please PRAY that this is normal, and she will recover with perfect binocular vision and excellent depth perception! 

Week In Pics

It's been a bit of a crazy week around here.
Juls and Ry celebrated "100 days of school" and Jul
came home with this designer looking hat that she demands
I never throw away.

Em's days have been filled with more eye Dr. visits, and daily patching sessions.
She's learned that this time means she gets almost anything she wants!

Ry's basketball team takes a break at practice to hold a little devotional. 

I had a $20 off any purchase coupon from Tiny Prints, so I thought I'd order Jul's birthday invites from there.
I have officially entered a new level of "cheap" apparently, because I found myself staring in disbelief at the computer screen at my $28 savings (I found another coupon code for 20% off)...WHO in their right mind would have ordered them for nearly $70!?! Really??! At $40, I still felt a little like I was falling for their marketing ploy of savings...which really didn't equate to savings!

Look at that little face! She's so proud of herself...
how could I possibly be mad at this little Picasso?

I still haven't cleaned off the wall yet.
I suppose this is the difference between child #3 and child #1.
Somehow, this is sweet to me...I wonder if I'll ever get sentimental feelings
the mess below her high chair!!?

And this little chick came home sick from school one day.
The school custodian said he'd never seen so much vomit come out of a little girl.
Somehow, I felt a weird pride over that comment.
As soon as she came home, she told me she was starving and ate a LARGE lunch,
watched Cinderella, then played Just Dance for about an hour.
The next morning she told me she still felt like her tummy hurt.
So I kept her home. Just in case. She was TOTALLY faking.
I ended up bringing her to school for the afternoon.
But I do think she might have a future in the Drama Club.

Patching

Em's eye doc ordered a little vision therapy.
So, we are patching one eye for one hour a day.
She was NOT happy about this.
As in screaming flailing angry.
I thought it was going to be a VERY long hour.
Fortunately, we discovered how fun playing with light switches is.
And we did some dancing.
And she got to explore coveted Julia's room.
And she finally calmed down.

Hoping all this effort pays off!!

WHO?

I think JULIA is having a bit of an identity crisis..either that, or she's
doing her best job ALREADY to make me crazy.
She's started signing all her school papers JULIE.
When I ask her why, she just gets this coy little smile
and tells me she likes it.

Shop Til You Drop!

Snow in a Can

Since we haven't seen much "natural" snow, the kids were elated to find
Snow In A Can in their stockings this year.

Per the instructions, add a little water, and voila!

Daddy points out this is nonsticking sorta snow, and his smarts gross us out.
He actually KNOWS what the ingredients on the back of the can mean.
Think baby diaper in a swimming pool...how it grows,
and grows and grows. And then if you bust it open,
you'll have your own snow too! :/.

So what do you make with nonsticking snow?
A school of fish, of course!! =)

Chicago 2012/13

Ryan has been begging to go to the Lego store in Chicago, and when my sister Amy mentioned maybe going over New Year's, we jumped on the idea.  Thanks to Gram and Papa and Uncle Patrick and Aunt Crystal, we left little Emmie home and hit the big city without baby!  We usually cab it around Chicago, but this time we bought bus passes, and the kids thought it was pretty cool to ride the city buses.  It always amazes me what they are impressed by!

Fortunately, Aunt Amy is WAY more familiar with Chicago public transit than we are, since she spent considerable time in the city working on her CPA continuing education classes.  Glad she's here, because I am for SURE not smarter than my smartphone, and never did figure out the app that shows which bus takes you where our entire trip!

Julia thinks making her own pizza at a little brewery across the street from our hotel is pretty awesome.
Next we head to American Girl for Juls!
Note to self: put her to work for dinnertime at home more often! =)

We spent New Year's Eve wandering around the 
Museum of Science and Industry...possibly my favorite museum EVER!
Of course, we couldn't come to Chicago and NOT have Giordanos Pizza, so we
headed here after the museum closed.

It was SO COLD, so we didn't actually ring in the new year at Millenium Park,
but we did  have a little pre-midnight fun here!

As with any trip, one of the kids highlights is always the hotel pool.  This Hilton's murky water was a little nasty, but they didn't seem to mind one bit. (Ewww!).  They loved playing with their friends who made the treck with us: Andrew and Jake McKey, and Cooper and Jackson Scharff!

HAPPY 2013!

Ry's (almost) 8!

We're bringing Ry to Chicago for his birthday, so having a party here wasn't even on my "to organize" list,
but he mentioned very last minute to me that he wanted to have some friends over to celebrate with him.
So, we whipped up a very quick invite and delivered it to a few of his friends from school. 

Happy Birthday, Ry guy!

When I thought the house might fall down. When things started to get a little wild,
we put on a 3D movie for the kids and fired up Julia's new cotton candy machine for our party goers.

Post Christmas Happenings

Ry has assembled Legos for about the last 48 hours straight, stopping only to eat.
His friend even came by the other day, and after a brief bit of hang-time, he said "Daddy, Andrew better get going, huh, because mom is going to be home with dinner soon."  Normally, those boys could play together 12 hours straight. Jeff said Ry just wanted more time to get back to his building.  He's for sure our Lego master builder here!!!

Julia has been putting makeup on herself, drawing fashion girls, and being a stylist.  Here is one of her "clients" Allie, whom she got dressed for a jewelry party in NY.  Exciting stuff! =)

Em had an appointment with her eye specialist at Children's in the morning.  They are recommending surgery. In both eyes. I went ahead and scheduled it, but I'm trying to stomach the thought of having her endure another surgery, and looking into other therapy options.  Her surgeon (of course!) thinks surgery is her only option and that therapy won't be beneficial.  I've read too many things on the internet about this in the last 12 hours to think straight.

Later in the day, I brought her to Dr. Stahl's office because she started running a fever the night of Christmas.  She's positive for strep throat again. Poor sweet baby!!

Christmas Day 2012

Knowing me so well, and that I'd be rushing around at the last minute to get things prepared for our Christmas Day celebration, my parents came a little early to help out.  This meant the kids got to open a few presents before the chaos and fun of a large family arrived! Ry was excited that Glammie somehow remembered a shirt he had pointed out at Target a month or so ago to her.  

And Julia was happy to see a doll she had clipped for her Christmas list was in her pile! 

Krista and Brian arrive, and Ry is so excited to see them he abandons his pile of presents to go play with the boys.  

Let the fun of opening begin!

Dad and Diane and Larry Busch smartly stick it out in the kitchen while the craziness takes place in the living room!

Lucas is super excited about his spiderman pullout couch. He tells me he is just going to spend the night at my house. He's so darn cute, I nearly offer to take him in. =)

Somehow, this is the only pic we have of the living room during opening time. Let me just say, there wasn't a bare spot on the floor.  Talk about a kids dream!! 

We tried to get a family pic on the stairs.  Julia was having a hard time keeping her eyes open, and Emmy doll thought it was more exciting to look at her sister than the camera.

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We played a game where Jeff put sentences or phrases Ry had written (think 2nd grade writing/spelling..it is a bit of a mystery!) and everyone had to try and guess what it said.  

Poor babycakes was a bit overwhelmed by all the action!