My Bountiful Blessings

We had another routine check up with Gaga's pediatric opthamologist yesterday and after his examination I finally heard what we had been waiting for. That Gaga's eyesight is getting BETTER! THANK YOU GOD and ST. LUCY!!! He told me that he can now say with certainty that we are on the progressive track with her eyesight instead of the regressive. It took him until now to determine that because he needed to see over time if her sight was improving or not. He said that her astigmatism in her right eye (the one with the cyst) has improved since her last check ups. That was a huge relief for me! I held my tears of joy until we got to the car and then left Daddy a message to call us back!

Although everything is looking much better we will still follow up with the doctor every 4-6 months until she is about 7 years old. The doctor says that eyesight is like wet concrete, it can change and be molded many times until it is set at the age of 7. We will continue to check the astigmatism and make sure she is not starting to favor her left eye since it is stronger than the right. He said that right now she is still using both eyes equally but since she can see more clearly out of her left, over time it could become stronger and cause her right one to become lazy. Which is why he recommended that we try and patch her left (good) eye to get her to predominately use her right one. He would like us to do it for 3 hours a week and if she doesn't like it and continues to try and take the patch off, then not to worry about it (he doesn't think she will leave it on at her age). So I'm not! I'm just looking at it as every minute we have it on will make her right eye that much stronger! I'm also thinking...we will see your 3 hours a week and raise you 3 more! I know she can do it if she is as competitive as me!

They sent us home with a few patches to start with and as soon as she woke up from her afternoon nap (I knew she would do better if she was happy), we stuck that patch on! Sure she tried to take it off, wouldn't you? But after a few minutes of distracting with toys, pulling her hands away and playing horsey, she completely forgot she had it on. At that point I thought, 3 hours? We will get all 3 done in one day. She lasted an hour, not 3! What a trooper! That was much longer than I had originally thought when I first put it on. I was so proud of her! I can easily see us doing that three times a week!

St. Lucy, continue to pray for us!

Of course I took pictures...

Forgot to mention in a previous post with all the Valentine's Day activities, Daddy did well this year complete with breakfast in bed and flowers for both his girls! Thanks Daddy, we love you!

Among a few other things, we took up saying a family rosary together every night this Lent. Junior has really started listening to all the words of the prayers which has brought up many questions as to what some of the prayers are talking about. My favorite so far was last night when we said,

"O my Jesus forgive us our sins and save us from the fires of hell..." to which Junior questioned, "FIRES OF HELL? What?" To which we explained that there are fires down in hell and we don't want to go to hell, we want to go to heaven to be with God.

Then Junior replied, "Maybe the fireman can go down there and fix it."

Wow! That's about all I can say. It has been a whirlwind around here. Mostly because a couple of weeks ago we went through 5 weeks of sickness from one person to the next.

The first week was Gaga, complete with fever, congestion and a green snotty nose. A few days of at home remedies, I made a call to the pediatricians office to make sure I was giving the right dosage of tylenol (had a lapse of memory and thought I was overdosing) for her fevers. Come to find out that doctor did not like me keeping her home with continued high fevers so we went in the next day to get the once over. Oops! Guess, this nurse mommy didn't know best! Just as I had suspected though, Gaga had a nasty cold and 8 teeth coming through (both contributing to the high fevers). But what I didn't suspect was the green drainage had settled and started a small ear infection in her left ear. Good thing we went in to get checked out! Poor baby! Many prescriptions later, we had a little girl on the mend.

One day passed and everyone was healthy! Then week two started and Junior had a horrible sounding cough and a fever. Kept him home from school and towards the end of the week he was back to normal. In the midst of all that, Gaga decided she was missing all the attention she received last week when she was sick and started throwing up Wednesday night. That lasted about 6 hours and then she slowly started eating the next day.

Same as before we had one or two days of everyone healthy and then Gaga got sick again with a horrible cough and fever. Just to make sure her ear infection was gone and to not get in trouble with the pediatrician again, I made her an appointment. Ears were fine, just another cold and now just 4 teeth coming in. (The other 4 had worked their way through that past couple of weeks.) Finally by the end of the week, we were done...or at least I thought.

A week went by and then I started feeling nauseous, feverish and had some stomach issues that put me out of commission for Super Bowl Sunday :( and barely able to hold my own the next day. A couple more days of feeling weak, it was time to get things back in order around here. The house was a disaster!

A few bright sides to all of this...
1. I never had to miss work (which isn't hard to do only working a couple days a week)
2. Daddy never got sick! How did he manage that?
3. When anyone was sick, I wasn't working and therefore left Daddy not having to stay up with kids hours on end in the middle of the night and then have to work the next day.

So now on to all that we've been doing while we haven't been sick...