Finn is four!

Today was Finn's birthday. It was a pretty quiet birthday. Thanks to everyone who called to wish him happy day!

This morning we had a play date at our house which was fun for Finn (and distracted him for a few moments from asking if he could open presents!) Afterward, Burgundy took a nap and then we went to the store to grab a few things and got an ice cream cake. We picked up daddy and stopped to get Little Caeser's (Finn's birthday dinner of choice), then we opened presents and had cake. Grandma Paula called all the way from Dublin to talk to Finn and when they get home next week we will be having another party at Chuck E Cheese's. Finn is very much looking forward to that.

For his birthday he got a ton of Thomas Train stuff (a windmill, Cranky the crane, a mountain track, etc) and he also got a guitar which he is excited about! He always wants to play daddy's so now they can play together. Pretty soon we will have a family band!

Also this past weekend we went over to Jeff & Kelly's for a BBQ which was, as always, fun to hang out with friends we don't see as much as we'd like! Here's a few pictures from that as well.Thanks to Uncle Hodge for these awesome pictures!

Random Fun

We set up the tent in the living room for minutes of fun!

I have been flirting with the idea of beginning to potty-train Burgundy. Everyone says girls are so much easier. So far I disagree! Here's why: Perhaps when they get the idea girls are easier, but when Finn was a baby, from the moment of probably his first bath he loved to pee in the bath. And every time he did, Cody or I would go "pssssssssst". Every time. It was just funny to us. Well, obviously by the time he was able to stand up, he associated the sound "Psssssssst" with peeing. So, when putting him on the potty we could say, "ok, go psssssssssst" and he knew what we meant! Not so with Burgundy! I'm sure she pees in the bath too, but I can never tell if/when she does it! So she has no such association to put pee together with potty.

So anyway, watching her trying to get on the potty was quite comical. Unfortunately she got the hang of it a little more by the time I got the camera on her, if I had caught it before it would have been 5 minutes of her skootching her butt around and around the potty, missing it, falling on her butt and then trying again.

Easter

Here are a few images from Easter this year. Finn was really into it and so "egg-cited" (eh hem, sorry) for the Easter Bunny to come! So here we are coloring eggs, etc.:
Couldn't get one where they were BOTH looking at the camera and smiling!
Burgundy going all in.

And the results - wonder if she's a lefty? At least she's a green-thumb (...ok I'll stop now)

updated eyes

I just wanted to update you on my eyes. Not much to say, they are perfect. It's so cool. I went in the next morning for my post-op appointment (to which I drove myself I might add) and he had a look and said they look perfect. My vision is 20/15 in both eyes. (that means I can read at 20 feet what a normal person would have to come to 15 feet to read - if that makes sense - so it's better than 20/20). How freaking awesome is that? You may need to be a person who has to or used to have to wear glasses to completely appreciate it, but I can tell you, it is pretty damn awesome.

The day of the surgery, my vision was ever so slightly cloudy (meaning it was clearly focused, just a little haze to see through) and cleared up throughout the day. The next morning at the doctor's office I noticed a slight glowing halo around any lights I looked at, and now, day 3 post-op, I do not notice anything of that sort. I have not driven at night yet so I am not sure how that is, but my guess it is just fine. I'll let you know.

So, for a week after the surgery I have to use drops. 4 times a day an antibiotic drop and once every waking hour a steroid/anti-inflammatory drop. I also use lubricating eye drops sporadically throughout the day. The first couple days my eyes were slightly dry and those drops every so often remedied that. Now I only use those a few times a day. I can usually taste the eye drops which is gross, but I only need to be on them for about 4 more days.

I have some little red splotches on the whites of my eyes, about 2 on each eye, and they are from the suction thingy they put on my eye to make the flap (sorry Cody, he hates when I mention that). So basically I have hickies on my eyeballs. Ha. The doctor said they will go away within a couple weeks.

So that is how I am doing - I can see perfectly, and I am pretty well recovered. During the day, I do think about it and how awesome it is, but the time that is the most noticeable for me is getting out of bed and bed-time. During the day, I am probably used to being able to see through the aid of contacts. But getting out of bed I continue to reach for my glasses only to realize, hey, I can already see! And at bed-time, it's crazy. I'm not supposed to wear eye makeup for a few days so I just brush my teeth and go to bed! It's the craziest thing. Today I finally took all the saline, contacts case and glasses case out of the medicine cabinet. Now I have a whole free shelf to use!

All in all it is just the most amazing thing. To have new eyes, as Laci put it. It's just astonishing. So the next thing I guess is some sort of plastic surgery! Now that I can see I better get a tummy tuck or my boobs done I guess. ha ha ha.

Oh by the way, if you are at all interested, they sent me a cool informational web video to watch. If you are considering Lasik or just want to see what I went through, go to this link. It's an animated thing, not an actual procedure. Enter my birthday which is July 11, 1977 and watch the program - it will ask you if you are me or my friend so just put that you are my friend! Because you are!

the eyes have it

well! Here I am on the other side of Lasik! Hooray! It's been a long time coming. Here's kind of how it went:

I woke up at 530 - far too early - and then went with Paula to the doctor's office (we did it that way so that Cody could stay home and we wouldn't have to wake the kids up at 6). There was another girl that was there checking in when we got there at 710. A nurse came out and had me sign some papers and when the 1st patient was done I went in to the office. They explained all my after-care, etc, had me pay, gave me a funny hair net and booties and told me to put my valium under my tongue so it would dissolve directly into the bloodstream. (I don't think I really felt it though until after the procedure was over - one downfall of it going so quickly!) They also gave me a hoodie sweatshirt with their logo - which is a pretty nice sweatshirt, it's just funny they said here's our gift to you! When really they could probably just knock 35 bucks off the price of the procedure, but oh well it's a nice sweatshirt - and a nice thought.

So I went back to sit with Paula and she was helping me do some energy stuff to help me stay calm and in my "happy place". They called the first girl into the exam room and then took her into the procedure room (PR) and then called me into the exam room. Which is good because then they turned on the tv in the waiting area so you can see the eyeballs of the person being worked on - so I'm glad that didn't go on until I was in the other room!

So they gave me numbing drops, and the doc had one final look and explained what was going to happen. Then they took me into the PR and had me lay on the table. I brought Jonah, Burgundy's new stuffed whale, to squeeze the heck out of and I'm glad I did! So now I'll tell you how it worked so if you're squeamish (Cody) skip the next couple paragraphs.

So they put a suction cup deal on the right eye and tell me ok we're going to make the flap now (and I really wish they would have just done the stuff without telling me), so that was not horrible, I didn't feel anything except the pressure of the suction thing on my eye. But pressure on your eyeball isn't that much fun anyway. So then they took the suction thing off and did the other eye. Then they went back to the right eye, and taped my eyelashes out of the way and put in the clockwork orange clamp thing to keep my eye open. Then the doctor said ok I'm going to lift the flap now (again... TOO MUCH INFORMATION) and I was trying really hard to go to my happy place, but I will tell you it is hard to close your eyes and picture yourself on the beach or something if you have one eye propped open and you can see the instruments coming at you!

So he uses what looked exactly like a dentist's poker thing to lift the flap then it kind of goes dark and they position the laser over you and there is a faint red light. They told me to focus on it and try not to move my eye. But I swear the damn light was moving! (the laser has a tracking device so if your eye moves it follows it so I'm sure that is what was happening but I could not keep the damn thing still because all I wanted to do was close my eye), so he says ok I'm going to give you another light to focus on and then there was a white halo light around the red one and I think I did a little better there.

Then they said ok we're starting the laser and telling me ok just 10 more seconds, and then that was it. Then he comes in with the poker again and puts the flap back and like Ryan said it's just like walking through a waterfall when they irrigate your eye then and you can kind of tell at that point things are clearer. Then they use this little white spatula looking thing to kind of iron down the flap and make sure it is in the right place. And just when you think you can't take it anymore, they are done - but then they say ok now we'll do the other eye! And that's like the worst part cuz you have the mindset of being done but also of having to do the whole thing again. But then that one was done and that was that. Probably 8-10 minutes tops. So they have you get up and the doc looks at your eyes one more time in the put-your-chin-here thing to make sure it all looks ok and that is rough because I could not open my eyes more than a slit for the life of me. But he said they looked perfect and everything was fine. Then they put a couple more drops in, and put a clear disk thing over each eye so you don't accidentally bump it or rub it and tape it on and you're done. They tried to tell me all this stuff about drops and frequency, etc but I asked the nurse to tell Paula because I was Valiumed up, couldn't open my eyes and could not concentrate on what she was saying at all!

OK, GRUESOME PART'S OVER, READERS.

So, since I couldn't open my eyes, Paula led me out to the car and drove me home. So right after the surgery, my right eye hurt more than my left. Not sharp pain, just kind of a dull ache. Then soon after it felt like I had just cut about 30 strong onions in a very tight closed space. Just watering and burning and the whooshing in your ears that happens with that. So at home, I got in bed, and with the help of getting up at some unGodly hour and Valium, I went right to sleep. I woke up about an hour and a half later, and the burning was gone. As the day progressed, it felt like my eyes were dry and like they had dirt in them. For contact wearers - it felt like I had accidentally slept all night in my contacts. (which is not fun - you wake up and they are cemented to your eyeballs and the world is all cloudy and all you want to do is get to the bathroom to peel the suckers off your eyes). But it has gotten better as the day goes by. Things are still slightly cloudy (as they said is to be expected for the first day or two), but it has gotten better and by the afternoon I was able to keep my eyes open for mostly normal amounts of time with the help of drops.

And here's the best part: I CAN SEE!!!! Yeah, we went in the car to pick up dinner and it is so amazing. I think my glasses were from one prescription ago so it is much better than that and even my contacts weren't as great anymore with the astigmatism I have developed. But now - my vision is perfect! Amazing. So incredibly amazing. I feel like I have bionic eyes! ha ha. So for 10 minutes of fear and an hour or so of discomfort - already I feel like oh yeah - SO WORTH IT!

So once the dryness and need for constant drops of every sort passes, it will be even more amazing. They are starting to get dry now that I have been on the computer a while so I will leave it at that - but thank you everyone who helped and sent good thoughts! Thank you especially to Paula for going with me and helping me to stay calm and for taking the time when you didn't have any time to take! And thank you to Cody who did such an amazing job at the impossible task of letting me have a day in bed! I felt like I had my own little hotel room and was undisturbed for most of the day. Even if Finn came in to see me he just peeked at me and said night night, Mommy, and left. Thank you so very much. My recovery was so much better thanks to you! And thanks to everyone who had it done who told me about it and how much I would love it and to everyone who said a prayer or sent good thoughts!

Collections

I don't remember how old I was. It might have been my 8th or 9th or 10th birthday, somewhere around there, my grandma brought me my present. I remember sitting in the living room as I unwrapped the first box. It was a picture frame box. And in typical 8 or 9 or 10 year old fashion I tried to sound grateful as I said, "oh great, thanks." She smiled and told me to open the box. So I did and pulled out a curious thing. It was a little house-shaped box that hung on the wall with many small compartments. I was confused. So I opened the next smaller box and in it was a thimble. And the next and the next. My grandma had started me a thimble collection.

She had given me a cool little black iron thimble that looked very old and would barely fit on my pinkie, a porcelain one with pretty flowers painted on it, and a plain silver one that she said had been hers among others that I unfortunately don't remember anymore.

I really liked my thimble collection. I thought it was cool that I already had a head start. My mom and I used to go to antique stores sometimes and I would find neat thimbles there to add to my collection. If we went on family trips I would always look for a thimble to commemorate the trip. If my dad or sister traveled, they would bring one back for me as well. The little house-shaped holder hung on my bedroom wall, full. And next to it another one to accommodate my expanding assemblage.

When I was 13, we moved, and the thimbles got packed away with everything else. I do not remember it hanging in the next house, or the next. I'm sure it is still packed away in some box in my parents' basement. Long since forgotten.

I guess when I started sewing aprons I thought about that collection again. Who knew it would be the perfect choice? I guess my grandma did. But it makes me sad. I had since traveled to locations I may never see again (although I hope to). I have been to France, Wales and England and I wish I had thimbles for each country as well as for each tourist destination I saw in each place. I live in a different state and I wish I had a thimble from Chicago, and from Indiana. I wish I had thought about that collection as I traveled before having kids. I wish I knew where it was today. And I wish I could once again hang it on my wall.

This is why I now ask people, "Hey, when you go somewhere, please get me a thimble..." I should also ask everyone I know who lives in a different state to pick one up if they see one. Because whether it's from a place I have been or from a person I care about, it means a lot to me.

I suppose I will have to buy a case for the ones I have begged or bought since I remembered my grandma's gift. I have hesitated because I feel like I can't quite put them up until I have my originals once again proudly displayed. But I guess I have to pick up and start fresh, and hope that someday, my original childhood collection will be unearthed and once again enjoyed. And who knows, maybe I will pass it on to my daughter, or maybe even my grand-daughter someday...