Stubborn Monkey

Blake is testing me with his stubbornness.  When I give him his yogurt he has to split it into 3 different bowls and eats it with 3 different spoons.   He spilt some on the table, so I went to clean it up.  He got upset because he didn't want it cleaned up, so he took the paper towel with the yogurt on it and put the yogurt  back on the table.

He has been stubborn about just hanging out with the fridge door open.  He just likes to open it up and gets mad if I try and close it.  I found him sitting in the fridge watching TV.  I don't know how long he had been there but his skin felt cold.

He has recently gotten into dressing up.  Brayden is a great dressing up buddy because he gets into the role.  Blake especially likes to carry swords, light sabers, and put on the green Skippy John Jones cape.

Blake has been really bad about taking naps lately.  I have tried laying down with him and reading a few  stories.  On this day Blake decided that a couple of books was not enough.  He kept bringing more and more books until all the board books were off the shelf.

Celebrating July 4th

The 4th of July fell on a Sunday this year and Matt got the Friday before and Monday after off.  We enjoyed the long weekend as a family.   Saturday was overcast and a little drizzly so we went to Sea World and did the dry stuff like shows and roller coasters.  Sunday the kids stayed up to watch the Sea World fireworks.  The kids had more fun playing in the backyard waiting around for the fireworks than watching them.  The fireworks on July 4th were not as good as the fireworks Matt and I saw the night before in our backyard from Sea World.  The sun came out Monday and we went back for the water park.  Blake didn't exactly love it.  He wanted me or Matt to hold him most of the day.  Despite loving swimming at the pool and taking baths he seemed afraid of the water.

Here are our pictures hanging out for the fireworks.  To watch them Brayden laid down on the trampoline, Julia sat on the deck banister, and Kylee sat with Matt.  Blake was missing from the festivities because he went to sleep.

glasses no more

I don't have a need for these anymore.  I know... I am surprised too.

Even though Matt had a good experience with his eye surgery 3 years ago, I have always told him that I couldn't get surgery on my eyes because of an endless list of excuses.  It made me nervous.  The idea of having one of those clamp things hold my eye open was not appealing.  The thought of being awake and alert while someone does surgery on my eyes didn't sound to fun either.  It seemed like a pain to continually put eye drops in my eyes several times an hour for months following surgery.  Maybe my best excuse was the roughly $5000 cost of surgery during a time that we were trying to save money.

It all started when Matt called home one day from work to ask if I knew of anyone that wanted to get PRK surgery done.  The Wilford Hall Refractory Surgery Center was doing a research study with the pain medication Lyrica and were including dependents.  Normally refractive surgery is only available to active duty military, but sometimes it is opened up to dependents when there is a research study.  After thinking about it and talking with some of my family members, I decided that I should go for it.  My really big excuse of cost was gone.  It happened very quickly.  Matt got me in to be evaluated the next day.  I passed that part, my eyes looked pretty good.  The following day was a 4 hour briefing about the surgery and filling out paperwork.  Then, I had the weekend to worry about everything and wonder about what had I gotten myself into.  I had been pretty happy wearing glasses.  Was I going to regret this?

Fortunately, the week of surgery turned out to be a good week for Matt to take a few days off to help me out.  Monday morning May 17th I went in for surgery.  Matt came in to the laser suite during the surgery.  The actual surgery went quickly and wasn't as bad as I expected.  The recovery, on the other hand, was significantly worse than I expected.

I had to rest my eyes for the week,  no watching TV or getting on the computer and try to do lots of sleeping.  I had to go in every day for the next week for follow up appointments.
Results:
Monday - surgery day
Tuesday - very painful
Wednesday - could barely open my eyes, very sensitive to light, I had to have Matt help me put drops in.
Thursday - starting to feel a little better, very blurry vision
Friday - check-up, very blurry, no more pain, cleared to drive 20/25 and 20/40 don't feel very comfortable driving

The next weeks I felt like my vision was blurry and wasn't getting better.  It was hard to see in places with a lot of detail like grocery stores.  It was hard to search for certain products on the shelf.  It was hard to look at the computer.  I couldn't look at it very long.  I was getting headaches because I felt like I was straining my eyes.  I was thinking that I would end up getting glasses again.

1 month post-op  my vision fluctuates,  I will be clear and then blurry, I feel like I am still not seeing clearly,  still hard to see details, still hard to look at the computer for more than 5 minutes
I was reassured by the optometrist that is normal and I would clear up after I stop taking the steroid eye drops.  It would be about 3 months out of the surgery when my vision should be completely clear.

2 months I feel like I am normal and can see pretty clearly.  I am thinking that maybe I am happy I did this because I don't think I will have to go and get a new prescription after all.

The actual procedure didn't turn out to be as bad as I thought it would be.  All the things that worried me weren't that big of a deal.  The recovery was a lot more painful than I expected.  It took longer to see clearly than I thought it would.  It was an overall good experience and I am happy I did it.

Blake update

Here are some funny little things that Blake is doing right now:

*Blake is very good about saying "thank you", but he thinks that "your welcome" is part of the phrase.  So, he says "thank you Mommy your welcome."

*To show that he is upset about something he pulls off his shorts.

*He loves to play sword fight, but not with normal sized swords.  He likes the little swords from the Fisher Price castle and Lego sets.  He will find two swords, brings one to me, and then holds his out toward me and says,  "Mommy, Hiyah."  That is the way he tells me that he wants to sword fight with the mini swords.

*He has been stubborn lately with his eating utensils and likes to chose his own.  He likes to be independent and does not appreciate when I hand him a spoon to eat his cereal.  He ends up going to any of the kitchen drawers and picking out something more exciting to eat with, most recently an ice cream scoop and wire whisk.

*He recently learned how to jump out of his crib.  This has led him to not want to take naps.  He protests and resists his naps until he eventually falls over and crashes wherever he finally runs out of energy, which includes floors,  couches, stairs,  laundry baskets, and occasionally beds.