Perhaps you’ve noticed it’s been extra quiet around here lately. Sure, it’s the holidays. But I’ve also had a lot going on that has distracted me from blogging, especially this past week between Christmas and New Years.

My oldest child, four-year old Alex, had eye surgery on both of his eyes. Perhaps you read how we figured out his eyes were starting to cross this summer and he had lost most of his vision out of one of his eyes. After three months of diligently wearing a patch on the strong eye for six hours per day, we were thrilled that he regained his vision. But the crossing remained, and needed surgery.

Here’s a picture of Alex happily playing with all the fun toys before his surgery. My nerves were going crazy and I did my best to remain calm and happy with Alex. The hardest part was going into the room with him for his anesthesia – watching him fall asleep from the medicine was strange. The anesthesiologist talked us through it, too, so we would know what to expect. But it was hard to watch and even harder to walk away.

Alex’s care team did a great job taking care of us, and I was impressed with the many ways the environment catered to making children comfortable. For example, this Etch-a-Sketch was outside of Alex’s changing room. How cool is that? I’m adding it to my new category of signage commentary: Clever Signs Make Me Smile.

The surgery went well, and when they brought us back to him in recovery, he was crying really hard. I could tell he was scared. After going through surgery a couple of times myself, I know how freaky it is to wake up, too. I’ve cried both times myself. The nurses lifted Alex into my lap and I rocked him, and when I started singing our favorite bedtime lullaby, You are my Sunshine, he immediately became calm and everything was okay again.

As we left, the nurses gave Alex a wooden toy to take home that was donated by someone who gives them each year at Christmas to give to the children. Alex chose a truck, and I was surprised to see him hang onto that truck for dear life the next two days. Although he kept his eyes closed for nearly a full 24 hours out of pain and sensitivity, he kept asking me when he could paint his new truck. I told him after he could keep his eyes open for a long time. Late the next morning, he was able to do this and really enjoyed it.

Recovery has been a bit more difficult than I expected. The first two days were rough. Today is day three and he was in much better shape. I even had to ask him to stop running and jumping, for fear of him injuring his eyes. The worst part has been the eye drops. He needs special drops three times a day and he is NOT a willing party to this at all. I could write another post all about my crazy antics to motivate him to take his drops bravely… but ultimately I’ve had to pin him down each time and it hasn’t been fun for either of us.

Oh… before I forget, check out this drawing I saw hanging on a cabinet at Children’s. How cool is that? It was cell-phone-camera worthy, for sure!

In other news, I also took Avery to the same pediatric eye specialist to see if she is showing any signs of crossing as well. I’ve had a few moments over the last couple of months where I’ve thought perhaps her eyes were not lining up just right. Apparently the tendency to cross runs in families, so the doctor encouraged me to bring her in for a full pediatric exam. We found that she has the potential to cross, even though she’s not doing it much now… that she’s quite farsighted, and needs glasses for both reasons.

The hope is that by catching this now and wearing glasses, she’ll be able to avoid the same level of severity that Alex experienced. Also, she will likely outgrow needing the glasses sometime between the ages of 8 and 12. That said, everyone else in our family wears glasses, so I wouldn’t be surprised if both of my children need to wear glasses indefinitely.

I took Avery frame shopping, and here’s what she liked the best:

Okay, really, Avery had no say in the matter. She was just happy I kept giving her crackers and she tried to keep putting the glasses up on her head like she does with her sunglasses (copying me, I presume). The frames are a deep purple, and the shape of the frames is very much like mine. When I looked at us together in the mirror, I was struck at how much we looked alike both wearing glasses. My little Avery… I hope you’ll wear them proudly and not fight them too much.