Thursday, May 26, 2011

just had to post this...

In the time between Mya's eye referral and her actual appointment I had been scouring the internet for information about strabismus and stumbled upon the blog http://www.littlefoureyes.com/. Now that we know Mya's eyesight is fine and my anxieties have eased I don't visit it much anymore. Today I did and the post that I am copying below just cut right through me. It is very much how I felt when I was facing the prospect of glasses for Mya - and frankly why I'm relieved about her prognosis even though she will likely have surgery sometime this summer. So here it is in the words of someone more eloquent than me (get the tissues ready).


By, Rebecca of Mommy, Ever After


Last week, we found out that our sweet girl needs glasses.


She is quite farsighted, in fact.


She was having trouble reading her T.S. Eliot Poems at bedtime, so I decided to have her eyes checked.


Oh. You know I'm kidding. She can read Preludes just fine. It's her daddy's car magazines that she's having trouble wading through. I don't blame her, actually.


In any case, we started to notice her eye turning in,


which happens to be exactly what happened to my mom at 3 years old


and my sister at 2 years old,


so we took her to a wonderful eye doctor and low and behold my baby needs glasses.


This news rocked me.


The rational, sensible, adult part of me accepted it with a smile,


while every other part of me was screaming "No! I don't want them!"


They're just glasses. Many people (including many people I love) have them.


But, to me, they're a (n albeit small) challenge for her. They will, as my best friend said, make life only 1% more difficult for her, but that's 1% more than I'm comfortable with.


And so, I'm looking inward, mustering up all of my strength, and trying to cope with this situation with a sound mind


and clear eyes.


All four of them.


There's my one eye,


my scared eye,


that worries for her. Will this make life hard for her? Will she be sad that she can't just jump in the pool without worrying about being able to see in the water? Will her eyes get worse? Will she feel bad about being the only kid in preschool with glasses on her face? Will she resent her glasses? Will they make her cry? Worse, will other kids make her cry?


And then there's my shallow eye.


My eye that sees my daughter, my beautiful, precious little girl, with the most perfect angel face, and the most soulful "Atlantic Ocean eyes" and think, long black lashes, that will now be cover in a pair of little wire frames. Will the lenses distort her eyes? When people look at her, will they see only glasses? Will she only be known as the girl with the glasses? Will she be "cute, despite" them? Why do I care? Why can't I get past this?


And then there's my ashamed eye.


I'm the one who celebrates differences. I am the one who stands up for equality and tolerance. I am the one who preaches about acceptance and beauty that comes from the inside out. And yet, I am the one who is worried about the way my daughter will feel and look and think. I'm the one, who when I am really, deeply candid, cares about what other people think. I am ashamed to say this, but it is the truth.


And then there's my grateful eye.The eye that sees, so vividly, how lucky we are. We have a problem that has a solution (as my dear colleague reminded me yesterday). So what. They're glasses. They will help her to see. We have a great doctor, and wonderful friends, and the resources to buy her whatever glasses she chooses. She has a tiny problem. Her problem has a cure. For that, I feel so very blessed.


Four eyes, all in conflict inside of me, sitting together like a lead weight in my gut as I state at my little girl, and want only the easiest, most perfect, happy life for her. When I ask my sister, who has been wearing glasses for over 20 years, if she ever felf bad about herself because of her glasses she laughs, and reminds me of how cute she was.


She was known as the girl with the big, red Mickey Mouse glasses,


but also the girl who woke up whistling because she was so happy,


and who always was surrounded by friends


and boyfriends


and was showered with more love than she knew what to do with.


And so, I'm going to try my very best to quiet my worries,


to assuage my anxieties,


and to keep on showering my baby with all of the love that I can muster.


I am going to look into her eyes,


now magnified by her tiny lenses,


and tell her how beautiful she is,


how smart she is,


how everyone who meets her loves her,


and how she makes my heart sing.


How proud of her I am.


How I cherish every part of her,


including all four of her cute, little eyes.


And, I am going to continue to give her a many bites of my Key Lime Pie gelato as she likes.


Yes, from here on out it's eyes bright, heart light, and glass(es) half full.



more pictures













In the picture with the girls looking out the window the other little girl belongs to one of the graduate students where I work. Isabel is two months older than Mya, this picture was taken in one of the few moments that they weren't fighting.


In the picture of Mya in her high chair she is gnawing on a rib - so her father's child!

last post before vacation!































I feel like I have a lot to post on this one...











First and foremost Mya pooped on the toilet for the first time last night!




Secondly I uploaded all of the pictures from my camera and realized that there was a lot more on it than I thought so I'm just going to post a lot of pictures now since I'm sure we'll have many many more when we get back from Arkansas.

Wednesday, May 25, 2011

Tuesday, May 24, 2011

fishing in the sink



Mya loves to play in the water!

Friday, May 20, 2011

one week left!













I can't believe we leave for Arkansas a week from today. Here are some of the sights I look forward to seeing.

Wednesday, May 18, 2011

do you ever...



...find yourself hanging out on a Saturday morning with a cup of coffee and your favorite chair and then all of a sudden you have a toddler on your head? No, well let's just say you're missing out.

Tuesday, May 17, 2011

10 days and counting













We leave for Arkansas in 10 days!!! Let the countdown begin with come shots of our trip last June.

Wednesday, May 11, 2011

Tuesday, May 10, 2011

potty update



Mya has now actually gone pee three times in the toilet, other than that no real news there. I think it's more of a game to her and this point and it's unclear if she understands the difference between sitting on the potty and actually going potty. Oh well you've got to start somewhere. Admittedly Traven and I aren't really pushing the issue, we ask her if she has to potty and we go from there.






We had yucky weather this weekend but I am attaching a picture from our last sunny weekend... Enjoy!

Thursday, May 5, 2011

potty training

I have to admit potty training hasn't really been on my radar yet... To me it was going to be one of those things like weaning - I would start to think about it, read up on it, think about it some more, talk to the grandmas, consult the farmer's almanac for the right moon sign and hope for the best.

Well Mya had other plans - last night she kept saying 'potty' and Traven thought that she wanted her diaper changed but in fact she actually wanted to use the potty. Traven put her on the toilet sideways, kept his hands on her torso so she wouldn't slip and eureka we heard the little tinkling sounds of our daughter peeing in the toilet for the first time.

There are some kids in her toddler class that are being potty trained so I guess she got the idea that it was the cool thing to do and goodness knows that girl hates having her diaper changed so I guess we're starting this new frontier whether I was prepared for it or not.

Tuesday, May 3, 2011

can you believe it?!



a little ponytail... let the chorus of 'awws' begin