Ch-ch-changes

Well it's that time of year again. New Year's Resolutions! Year in Review. Auld Lang Syne. All that good stuff. We had very few expectations this year of changing much and ended up hanging just about everything. Go figure. We were jut going to chill and plan and regroup. Which is why we never make plans, because things just seem to happen to us. In case you missed all the big stuff, here is a recap of all the big changes we didn't mean to make:

• Moving, obviously. New house, new neighborhood, new ward, new school. No biggie. 
• New callings. Nursery is the sweetest gig ever, people. I really don't know why it gets such a bad rap. Food, toys, singing, and no prep? Plus we only do it every other week.
• We had Jessie's niece move in with us. That's been an eye opening experience, introducing us to the crazy and hazy world of teenagers. So now we have five kids under our roof. For a little while anyway. No one can accuse us of being sane.
• Jessie changed jobs again. Right after we moved. Because why not just make everything crazy?     Now he works for a company here at Thanksgivong point. The commute is awesome. Changing insurances again, not so awesome. But c'est la vie.

So there's the major highlights. With all the unintended upheaval we caused this year, my goal for next year is pretty much to settle and go with the flow. By which I mean we'll probably take over a small country or build a stadium or something. But hey, let's pretend to make goals. And by that I mean pretend to make goals while really just  anticipating the craziness of next year. Okay. Good plan.

So let's start with Ethan. This year we're looking forward to nursery (2 months baby!), learning how to talk, maybe getting into a toddler bed, being ridiculously adorable, in crossing his eyes, and breaking many, many things but hopefully not bones. 

Spencer is excited to improve his grammar, start some at home preschool, learn more letters and numbers, learn all the lyrics to My Little Pony songs, and potty train. Eventually. Someday. Maybe.

Kimberly is psyched to continue preschool and kindergarten prep, learn to read, make some new buddies, learn to ride a bike, grow way too tall, and design ever more elaborate and creative outfits.

Madeline will be busy busy busy, finishing first grade and moving to second, riding a two wheeler, writing and illustrating novels, being a social butterfly, learning everything, and prepping for her baptism in a year and a half. (Say what?!?)

I will pretty much lay around and do nothing, when I'm not cleaning up the never ending tide of clutter and laundry, cooking, shuttling, exercising, doing homework, shopping, reading, trying to find my sewing machine so I can learn how to use it, and remembering to breathe once in a while.

Jessie anticipates lots of changes at work, rekindling his love of puzzles, fixing rand kings around the house, starting a exercise program, becoming a male model, and cleaning all the stuff I didn't.

I'm sure the year will go exactly as I've outlined, because we never do anything rash or crazy without a lot of forethought and planning. But whatever 2015 brings, here's hoping it's as awesome as life is with now. 

Storms are brewing in your eyes

 

So I figured we should devote a post to Ethan's vision, because it gets a lot of press time in the real world. A one year old with glasses is apparently quite the crowd pleaser/shocker. So allow me to expound upon how Ethan became a loveable nerd, by answering the questions we get asked all the time. Usually I don't mind when people ask questions, because paparazzi is a noble calling. But some people say really dumb things. We'll get to that. First, the more intelligent questions:

 

 

 

Q: How did you know he needed glasses?

 

A: A few months before his birthday, he started developing a lazy eye. We didn't notice it for a while, but his eyes started moving separately and crossing at weird times. I asked his pediatrician about it at his 12 month appointment, and she said not to worry and have him join the circus. But I had my heart set on him being an Olympic curler, so we went to see a pediatric ophthalmologist.

 



 Q: How can a baby take an eye exam? They can't talk!

A: We went to special baby sign classes where they taught them the hand signals for "blurry", "clear" and "strabismus".  Or they do some tests where they dilate the pupils so they can look into the eye with special refractive lenses and measure the strength of prescriptions by the shape of the eye. Modern medicine is pretty fly, yo.

Q: So what is wrong with him?

A: Basically, he has really, really bad eyesight, like +5.5 and +6.0 for those of you with glasses. So his eyes were always turning in and focusing so hard they kind of got screwed up (that's the scientific term for it). A fun thing called esotropia, which basically means his eyes don't move and work together. You can google it if there's nothing on Netflix tonight. Which is basically lazy eye, which means besides the glasses, he also gets to wear a patch 3-4 hours a day. Hooray.

Q: How do you get a one year old to wear glasses?

A: Tell him all the cool kids are doing it. Or if he's not interested in peer pressure, you can follow him around every minute for a week putting them back on every time he takes them off until he gets tired of yelling and screaming and being tortured and resigns himself to his fate. It's a fun process, filled with laughter, joy, and candy. Which, incidentally, is a fun trick to play: put a cookie in each hand and then slip on the glasses. If you're lucky, he'll cry because he hates the glasses but be unwilling to relinquish the cookies. Ha ha ha ha. (That was an evil villain laugh.)

Q: How long did it take to get him to wear glasses?

A: About 3-4 weeks before I could do the dishes without worrying he was doing drugs in the bathroom while I wasn't looking....I mean 3-4 weeks before he was a good little nerd.

Q: How do you get a baby to wear a patch?

A: I will pay good money for the answer to this question. Otherwise, see above. It's basically the same process.

Q: How long until he was used to the patch?

A: Never.

Q: He is so darn cute in glasses. Aren't you so glad he gets to wear them?

A: Well, if it was up to us, we would prefer he was able to see stuff, and as you can see above, getting them to stay on was a piece of cake. But since he must be vision impaired, yes, it helps that he looks like a baby model. What, you want a picture? Okay.

 

Q: I always wanted a kid with glasses.

A: That is not a question, and also a stupid thing to say, because everyone wants their kid to have a vision impediment. Thanks for playing, weirdo.

Q: My kid also got glasses at a very young age. Do you want to hear our life story?

A: Yes, of course, because we are in the cool kid club now and we must exchange secret handshakes and commiserate.

Q: His glasses don't stay on very well. You should put on one of those strings on the back.

A: For some reason this is never a question, but a command. Thank you random person at the grocery store, we had not thought of such an elegant solution. Except we did, and we tried it, and it made him behave like a rabid dog trying to pull the glasses of his head and scratch  his face and mangle his glasses, so it was a rousing success. But it was so awesome we like to save it for special occasions like dinner parties.

Q: How do you keep him from breaking or losing them?

A; This is the only advice I shall give if you ever have a small child with glasses. Get the warranty. We are frequent fliers at the Walmart vision center and in almost three months have been in about half a dozen times to have them repaired and just got one of them totally replaced, absolutely free! Because Walmart loves nerds! As far as losing them goes, it is inevitable that eventually we will lose them for good. We have already had to retrieve them from the school yard, under the car in the garage, deep in the depths of our armchairs and couches, under beds, and in cupboards. But there is a small but dedicated part of my brain that seems to have specialized and does nothing but keep track of where I lost saw Ethan's glasses and make sure they are on his face. Jessie's brain does not have this special Glasses Nazi Area, so maybe someone in neurology should study that.

Well, that's probably a pretty good wrap up. If you have any other questions, feel free to hang around Walmart until we happen by, because this is where all serious medical consultations are held. He is pretty dratted cute though. He certainly looks pretty smart, though I have my doubts about his actual intelligence after watching him bang into walls repeatedly. But there's time.

Sugar and spice and everything nice

I think we're starting a new tradition called Belated Birthday Blogging! This little girl has been waiting a month for a spotlight:

I can't believe this diva is four. Finally. It seems like we always think she is older than she is because we're trying to lengthen out the time between her and Spencer. But marvelous and amazing things have befallen her since she has reached this great age. She's always saying things like, "Four year olds aren't afraid, they love dogs." And "I listen now that I'm four. I was bad when I was two." The veracity of these claims has yet to be proven, but we like the thought. Some fun facts about a four year old Kimberly:

• She loves preschool. She's always telling me Miss T said this and Miss T said that, and Miss T is the ultimate authority, She loves her friends and her letters and field trips, my oh my, make her world paradise. 
• Kimberly loves ponies, purple and pink, fashion, and all things pretty. Her favorite doll is her Rarity pony because "she's so fashion". She is very particular about what she wears. We finally convinced her to wear shirts and leggings under revealing dresses, but it was a battle. She absolutely refuses to wear anything she deems unworthy, She sometimes cries if I try to put her in something that's not "pretty". She always wants her hair like mine and her favorite styles include "messy bun", "one ponytail in back", and "that twisty braid I had at my old church". 
• Spencer is her truest friend and worst enemy. They spend most days together and they're either conspiring to flood the house, getting into the food stores, or trying to break each other's ear drums. Kimberly loves the opportunity to be the oldest when Madeline is gone at school and tries to mother and scold and boss.
• She continues to be selective in her friendships. She has two or three good little buddies who are her world and she is always begging to play with them. Fortunately she plays very well with these little friends and they are fun little girls. She seems drawn to kids older than herself, which may or may not be good when they all start school a year or two earlier than her. 
• She continues to be both super sweet and very emotional. She loves to help: help cook, help clean, help with the baby. But don't try to get her to do anything that's not her own idea, or you'll pay for it. 
• She says the funniest, most grown up things sometimes, and asks so many questions that Madeline hasn't even thought of yet. A few samples: "I prayed and now I'm closer to heaven." "When I'm grown up I want to work at Applebees. Not BYU because you don't cook and wait there." "I just forgot to watch my step." "For Christmas I want a straight stick so I can just touch and poke people." 

There's far more but I guess I can't make up for months of not posting in one night. Kimberly sure does crack us up, and I live in fear of the teenage years when the boys will be flocking and she'll be flirting and oh boy oh boy. But for now we'll enjoy her sassy and sweet attitude we couldn't get along without.