A whole new world

Chloe got her new glasses on Friday. For about the last 6-12 months (my memory is not so good on it, but it's been a while), Chloe had been going cross-eyed. At first it was sort of funny and cute. Then it got to be to the point where she was doing it all the time, and then it wasn't really so funny anymore. Does she have a lazy eye? Will she have to wear a patch? Sure it's funny now, but it won't be so funny if she's in high school/college and can't make direct eye contact with anyone. Anyway, long story short, she got an appointment with an eye doctor and he confirmed that yes, her eyes do cross (thank you doctor) and that she would either need surgery or glasses. He dialated her eyes first- she was a trooper with the eye drops. She didn't like them, but she didn't scream like I was afraid she was going to. The doctor looked at her eyes for a while and then determined that she was extremely far sighted (how he can know that from looking at a girl who couldn't even tell that the picture she was looking at was a birthday cake, I don't know, but I guess that's why he's the doctor...) and that your brain, as a reflex, will make your eyes cross when you are far-sighted when you try to focus your eyes. So he gave me a perscription and set up another appointment for a few months from now and then she'll need to see a doctor again about the time she gets into Kindergarten to see how the glasses are working.
Anyway, we picked out some frames and just got them in on Friday! The eye-glasses case that they gave her was a pink little purse that said "princess" on it- we call it her glasses' "bed", where they sleep at night. Since then, a whole new world has opened up to Chloe and it's been funny watching her discover things all over again:

• When we walked out of the doctor's office into the foyer and to the door right after putting her glasses on, she stopped in front of the door and looked taken aback, then said "Whoa...look at that....". "Look at what?" I asked, and after a pause and more staring "...nuffing...".
• When we got in the car and I was putting her in her car seat, she kept looking at me and touching my face like I got a complete makeover. "What?" I finally asked her, laughing a little- she quickly retracted her hands and apologized, then two seconds later did it again like she couldn't help it. It was a little flattering, actually...
• While staring at her hands at the dinner table yesterday: "Mom, I got something on my hands". Showing me clean hands, I replied, "I don't see anything, hun, just keep eating your dinner." "No, Mom, there's something on my hands!" I pulled her hands closer to get a better look. "Chloe, there's nothing on your hands, I don't see anything." "NO! These!" she insisted, pointing to the crease in one of the lines on her hands. "You mean the lines on your hand?" "Yes!!" "Honey, everyone has those," I said, showing her the lines on my hands. She looked at the lines on my hands and on Daddy's hands, then confusedly accepted that there wasn't anything wrong with her hands.
  
• "Big head, little head, big head, little head, big head..." Chloe says while sitting at the table. I look up to see her staring at me, flipping her glasses up and down off her nose by pushing on the back of her frames behind her ears up and down with her fingers. Nice.
  

She looks about 20 years older with her glasses on. We have to keep reminding her to be careful with them and she seems quite pleased to keep them away from her brother, because it's something she has that he doesn't (which suits us just fine, anything in Linus's hands could mean imminent destruction if not supervised carefully). But generally she seems to like them and seems to be getting used to them just fine.
In other news, I'm back at work, this will be my second full week tomorrow. Once I'm at school, I'm fine, but it's the few minutes while I'm getting the kids ready to go to Grandma's house that my heart starts to sink a bit, especially when Chloe wraps her arms around my neck and clings to me like her life depends on it some days, pleading with me not to go. As a mother, you have to be just a little bit inhuman not to let that affect you. I've been doing pretty good, for the most part though. The other day, though, Linus was sick in the morning- he woke up and threw up all over his bed. After we cleaned everything up, he seemed to be doing okay, but I just gave him a couple of canned pears, a little applejuice and a couple of crackers to eat to play it safe. He didn't have any problems and seemed to be acting normally- they were supposed to go to a friend's house for a little while before I left for workbecause Grandma was in Denver until lunch time, but Dave, my father in law, came home to work from home so that I wouldn't have to take a sick kid to a friend's house. I got the kids ready and walked across the lawn. I was just in the process of explaining to Dave that Linus seemed to be doing better when he walked through the door and puked all over the floor. We brought him quickly into the kitchen, while he puked the whole way into the kitchen and all over the kitchen floor. Dave turned me around and told me to go to work and that he would take care of it, and I couldn't help but burst into tears as I helplessly tried to verbally console my crying, sick two year old boy and explain to him that I had to leave him while he was feeling icky, while at the same time blubbering out apology after apology to Dave as I walked out the door. That's been the only time I've cried over it, though, so I think that extenuating circumstance can be excused for mommy-back-to-work tears in that case. :-)
Linus is still a little sick and I'm wondering if I should take him in. I think he may have eaten something that was not supposed to be edible because after three days, he keeps most of his food down, but he doesn't eat a whole lot, has had horribley messy watery diapers, and only ate a few bites of dinner tonight and threw it up again. He doesn't have a fever at all, he runs around the house like nothing is wrong, he's not really lethargic, but oh my two-year-old tantrums, he has been cranky, and he's constantly asking for drinks- I've been giving him a lot of gatorade in hopes that will help him a little, and he just drinks and drinks and drinks. Yesterday morning while watching General Conference, he cried and screamed over everything the entire time and didn't stop until we got a few bites of lunch down him and put him down for a nap. He cried because he wanted things done a certain way, then cried when we did them the way he wanted them done, he cried when we looked at him wrong, he cried when he was just sitting there, he was just a complete mess. I keep asking him if his tummy hurts or if his teeth hurt or what is wrong, but he doesn't seem to really know anything conclusively. We'll see how he does tomorrow. I'm tempted to have my mother in law check his blood sugar levels tomorrow just to see (with so many diabetics in the family, I will forever be paranoid that my kids will have it, and that's just the way it will be with our kids, I can't help it). He hasn't had horribley wet diapers in the morning, so that's a good sign I guess, but I just want to make sure he's not too dihidrated after all his stomach issues.
Odell is doing well too- she is growing just fine, but isn't nearly as big as my other kids were at the same age. I was looking at a picture of Chloe when she was about a month old, and Odell is still not fitting into the outfit that Chloe was in in that picture and she'll be two months old on Wednesday. Chloe and Linus were unusually large for their age, though, so I'm not worried that Odell is too small- her cheecks are filling out and her thighs are getting chunkier- it's cute. She's smiled a few times and has cooed a grand total of once the other night. She's awake for a lot longer during the day and has been sleeping through the night for a couple of weeks now (totally a blessing, we need that sleep...). She's been just the sweetest little baby in the world. In fact, I'm going to sign off here and go goggle at my husband while he dances her to sleep in his arms. One of my favorite parts of the day. :-)