Today while we were at the eye doctor for Lex, I was playing Pokemon Go in the waiting room, as any good Pokemon Go player would.
Sidebar: Lex had an annual check up today, and everything is great. It's so nice to be past the eye patching days and the eye exams every few months. He just got a new prescription for a new pair of glasses. End sidebar.
That's when it happened.
I reached Level 40! I am now the highest level trainer I can be. I am the very best, like no one ever was (sing it with me).
I couldn't have planned the date any better. I started playing on July 7, 2016, and I reached level 40 on January 7, 2019. It took me exactly 2 and a half years.
He can still see! We got a slightly updated prescription for his glasses, and all is well with his eyes. He has truly graduated from the eye patch days, and he could not be more thrilled about that.
Today we took Lex back to the eye doctor to check his vision since he stopped wearing his eye patch on December 1st.
He is still 20/20! So, unless he starts noticing any changes in his vision, which are not expected, he should be good with just his glasses from now on! NO MORE EYE PATCHES EVER!! Lex is very relieved and excited about that.
We celebrated with ice cream and french fries from Freddy's on the way home from the doctor's office.
Well, he totally rocked his vision test! He did the 20/20 lines with his glasses, one eye at a time, no problem. He even read the 20/15 line with both eyes and his glasses. He even read most of the 20/10 line!
So, he doesn't have to wear his eye patch any more. No more eye patch!
NO MORE EYE PATCH!!
He has had to wear an eye patch every single day for most of his life. He's been doing it for four whole years, and he is only seven. And he really doesn't remember a time before he had to wear the eye patch. It's a whole new era around here.
He was so excited that he ran all over the doctor's office, dancing. He did the victory lap/dance combo thing again at home, too.
So, to celebrate, we had a party. Nana and Grandpa and Uncle Kevin got him a cake.
The cake has eyes.
If you want to eat a cake with eyes, you have to sneak up on it from behind. I mean, obviously.
So, we are having a great time here, not wearing eye patches anymore, and being able to see clearly with our glasses. It was a ton of hard work, and there were lots of tears, but it worked!
We celebrated Lex's good news from the eye doctor last night with a special family game night. We played Dominion and the kids had their first ever bologna sandwiches. Which was their idea, not mine.
To explain: I had said that something was malarkey the other day, and Connor asked what malarkey meant. So I told him it meant bologna, and he asked what that tasted like, because he had never had it before. I told him he could try it the next time we went to the grocery. Fast forward to our shopping trip yesterday on the way home from the eye doctor. He remembered about the bologna, so we stopped by the deli so he could get a sample. Both the boys liked it, so I bought a half-pound, and they ate it all last night.
Three cheers for only having to wear the eye patch for an hour, and for bologna!
I took Lex to the ophthalmologist today for a check up, and he is still seeing well. His glasses are the correct prescription.
And, since he is turning seven next week, we are going to cut the number of hours that he has to wear his eye patch down from four hours to JUST ONE HOUR A DAY!
We will return to get another check up in two months, and as long as there is no loss of vision, he will be done with the eye patch forever. In just two months! He seriously can't wait for that, but in the meantime, he is super excited that one hour is so much less than four hours!
Also, we caught a Charmander while we were waiting for the doctor.
Lex wants to have a huge party when the doctor says that he can stop wearing his eye patch. He is planning to invite everyone he knows, and honestly, Kevin and I are totally on board. We will throw him such a party! The biggest party ever. He has really earned it. Wearing his eye patch has never gotten easier for him, and he has been doing it every. single. day. for most of his life. He is currently wearing it for four hours a day. It's like a bad part time job that he doesn't get paid for.
But. But. But.
It's totally working.
We went to see his eye doctor today, and with his glasses on, using both eyes, he is 20/15. 20/15! That's better than 20/20!
With his glasses, in his good eye, he is 20/20.
With his glasses, in his weak eye, he passed at 20/20, even though his missed one letter. He read one letter C on the chart as an O.
Totally huge news! Totally great progress! This kid can actually see!
As to his eye patch, we have an end game officially planned. He is going to continue to wear the patch for four hours a day until he is about seven years old. He turns seven in October, and the week before his birthday, we are scheduled for a return trip to the eye doctor. As long as his vision is still good then, we will start the process of weaning him off the eye patch, with frequent visits to check his eye sight to make sure that it doesn't get worse at all during the weaning process. She doesn't think it will, though, because by the time he is seven, the neurological pathway between the eyes and brain is supposed to be totally solid.
Hopefully that means he will get his epic eye patch completion party sometime later this year, or early next year, when he is seven years old! Stay tuned. Your invitation is in the mail, as they say.
Lex and I used his 14-in-1 Solar Robotics Kit to construct a surfing robot. Think of a guy padding out on his surfboard on his way to catch the waves.
Then, we took it to our pool to test it out. Connor thought it would be safer to test it in our bathtub, and that might have been a good idea, except for the whole solar-powered thing. There are exactly zero windows in our two bathrooms.
It worked, but the waves in the pool were a little too large for our little bot, and it kept capsizing.
This past Sunday was the Super Bowl. Connor was very excited about the game, and he had an hourly countdown going on for about 100 hours before kickoff.
Waiting is so hard.
In order to help him pass the time, one of his best friends came over to play before the game, and to watch the game with him, once it finally(!) started.
This playdate is technologically sound.
So, we didn't have a big party, but we did have Super Bowl Sundaes, with homemade cookies and brownies.
Always with the cookies, I know.
Lex created a brownie-mint-chocolate-chip sundae with chocolate syrup.
Once the game started, Lex went and put on his "jersey." I noticed a little while later that it was a Minions shirt, and it matched the Minions shirt that his friend was wearing.
Happy Football!
Superbowl 50!
P.S. Before the game, Connor said that he wanted the Broncos to win, but that he was pretty sure that Carolina was going to take home the trophy, based on their performance in the playoffs.
Wednesday, January 27, 2016
A long, long time ago, in a city far, far away, Lex received an ant farm for his birthday. He loved the ant farm. And then the ants all died, and we meant to replace them, we really did, but an empty ant farm just isn't as interesting as an ant farm full of ants, and so it was forgotten about...
Until now. I finally got around to ordering some more ants and space gel for them to live in. Because Lex saw an ant farm in a store and wanted me to buy it for him, but we already had it at home.
And then there was a blizzard and the ant shipments were put on hold due to freezing temperatures.
But, finally, the ants arrived! Along with the power mix to make a new gel habitat. But the gel had to be mixed and microwaved with DISTILLED water. With all the bottled water we have around here, none of it was distilled. So, I ran to the store late at night and bought the best gallon of distilled water that 88 cents can buy in this town.
24 hours later, we were in the ant farm business. Lex poked a few holes in the gel, and then we put the ants in and sealed it up.
Lex loves his ants. He watches them all the time. He can sit and watch them pretty much all day.
This is what their home looked like when we first put them in. Those are the holes that Lex poked in the gel.
This is the first tunnel they started to dig.
This video is a cute little interview with Lex about his ants, right after we set up the ant farm.
So, the remote that operates our Blu-Ray player disappeared and this was bad news.
Naturally, I started cleaning to find it.
I cleaned the entire living room. I vacuumed the entire couch. I moved all the furniture around and cleaned under everything and then put it all back. I disassembled the entire entertainment unit. It wasn't in the living room. So then I cleaned the kitchen, checked in the refrigerator and in the laundry. I cleaned both bathrooms and went through all the closets. I cleaned and checked my whole room. I looked around both of the boys' rooms.
That remote was no where to be found.
Until Lex found it. INSIDE THE PRINTER. Heaven only knows how or why.
So, Lex gets credit for finding the missing remote. It was gone for almost a week, which was definitely long enough to make us all crazy.
Okay, y'all. We live in Amarillo which, you may or may not realize, doesn't offer a whole lot of shopping options. So I order a ton of things online. Which is great. Thank God for the internet.
One of the things that I usually order online are the kids' vitamins. It's really hard to find vitamins around here that aren't full of sugar or aspartame. I don't know why. Vitamins are supposed to be healthy, right? So, I ordered their vitamins last week as per usual, but when they arrived, the entire bottle of vitamins had melted together into one big bottle-shaped lump, instead of being 90 separate organic gummy bear shaped vitamins. It wasn't like the box was sitting outside for a long time either. I signed for it, and brought it right inside, but the vitamins were already melted. I'm not too upset. It is 100 degrees outside. And I got a refund, no questions asked.
But I figured that any additional vitamin orders would probably melt, too. So, we decided to try to find some other vitamins here in town, at least until the weather cools a bit.
Yesterday we bought some new gummy vitamins for the boys. I'm not entirely happy with them, but I figured that they are better than nothing. They are natural fruit gummies, with no sugar added, and they have like half of the nutrients that I wish they had. But better than nothing.
Until they had to eat them this morning. Lex ate both of his (serving size is two here, folks), but he complained that they were too spicy. They smelled like strawberry fruit snacks to me, so I don't know what he is talking about.
Connor, however. Well, somehow I have raised quite a picky eater in Connor. He didn't want anything to do with these new vitamins. He even asked for the old vitamins, which he didn't like, but did eat, with only a little gentle prodding every day.
So, I explained that he didn't have to eat the vitamins at all if he would go ahead and have a serving of berries and broccoli with his breakfast. No, he doesn't eat broccoli or berries on the regular.
Here's what happened:
Yes, I paid Lex a dollor in pocket change for eating that piece of broccoli. Don't judge. No, I didn't force Connor to eat either his tiny piece of broccoli or his second vitamin. But I did make them clear their plates and load them into the dishwasher. That counts for something good, right?
We visited the eye doctor again yesterday. You know, the pediatric ophthalmologist (easy for you to say, right?), and Lex's vision is perfect again!
Three cheers for his new glasses!
Three cheers for his prescription swim goggles!
Three cheers for wearing the eye patch for four hours everyday...
Well, he still hates that, but we are all so pleased that it is working!
No, these cookies really don't have anything to do with this post. Except for the fact that they are summer cookies; celebratory cookies. And we are celebrating Lex's good vision, right here. Right now.
He'll have another check up in four months. We'll still be patching for four hours a day until then.
So, exactly one week after Lex got his 7th pair of new glasses, he went to the ophthalmologist again, and we found out that he needed a new prescription.
And you know what? That was okay.
The warranty that provided us with that 7th pair of glasses meant that we got them at zero cost, but they wouldn't remake them with a different prescription from the pair that were being replaced. So, no matter if we had used the warranty or not, we would have had to buy pair number 8.
Of course, Lex picked the exact same style frame again. Which is fine.
And now, pair number 7 are in the cupboard, waiting as a back-up for when he breaks pair number 8.
Sidebar: Lex tested at 20/30 at the eye doctor. Which is two lines worse than he was last time when he was 20/20. Boo. Hopefully the new prescription will help. He will keep wearing the eye patch for three to four hours a day for the time being. Also, he has been spending a lot of time in the pool without his glasses, and that might be a small factor. So I ordered him some prescription swim goggles as well.
He loves them. Apparently it is really nice being able to see while he is swimming. I don't know why it never occurred to me before that I should order him prescription swim goggles. They were pretty cheap online, to boot.
Y'all. I can say that now, because I live next to a bunch of cows.
No, I didn't move. And there has always been a big, open field next to us. With a windmill.
But someone has been littering that wide open space with cows. About a truckload at a time.
You know the trucks that they haul cattle around in? I didn't, until we moved here. It's a big semi-truck trailer with lots of holes in it, and it has two floors so that they can transport twice as many cows.
Well, one day there was about a truckload of cows in the field all of the sudden.
Then the next thing I knew, there were two truckloads of cows there.
Now, there are at least a hundred cows. Maybe two.
And then while I was walking Tik tonight, I heard a noise. It took me a minute to realize that it was a cow. Mooing. People, it's like we live on a farm. Near one, at least. Mooing.
No, this photo doesn't really have anything to do with the cows. Except for the fact that I can hear them when I sit on the swing.
Approximately 10 minutes after I put Lex's eye patch on this afternoon, he fell asleep.
This is not an approved eye patch activity. But it is an approved cuddle activity.
Then Tik decided to come and join in the napping. Dinner was late tonight, mostly because I was piled under a bunch of sleeping cuddle bugs. Like The Napping House. That's one of our favorite books. Only, Lex never woke back up tonight, and I ended up moving him from the couch to his bed after dinner.
Connor wrote his letter all by himself. He asked for a 3DS, Legos, video games and an X Box 360. He also specified that he didn't want any coal. "No coel."
Lex was a little worried that Santa wouldn't be able to read his handwriting, so he asked me to translate a few things on his letter for him.
Also, look at the festive eye patches that Lex has for the holidays! It's the perfect accessory for writing letters to Santa, right?
Today Lex had another ophthalmologist appointment to see how well he could see.
He read a line further down on the eye chart than he did last time!
Last time he was 20/30, and the doctor recommended that we increase the number of hours that he wears his eye patch to four hours per day, in order to try to get to 20/20 vision before his neuro-optical pathway had fully formed.
And it worked!
We are going to keep patching for four hours a day until his next appointment in April, when he is five and a half years old. Then I hope that he will be old enough for us to try to wean him off the patch and still maintain 20/20 vision with his glasses. I don't know if that is what the doctor is hoping, though. She said that he is still clearly favoring his stronger eye when she did some other tests today.
Sidebar: Connor loves to scribble. He will scribble and scribble until he wears a hole in the paper. I bought a travel Spirograph for him, and he loves it, and it makes prettier scribbles. I loved my Spirograph when I was a kid, and this travel one has been living in my purse and used often lately. It uses a post-it note for the paper, and it was the best $7 I've spent recently.
Report: The doctor is very pleased with Lex's new glasses, but he is still only seeing about 20/30 out of them, so we are going to increase the amount of time that he wears his eye patch to four hours every day, in hopes that he can achieve and maintain 20/20 vision between now and when the pathways between his eyes and brain are set for life, which should happen sometime between 7 and 9 years of age. He is still only four years old, so things are still good.
