Anna had her first eye muscle surgery in September of 2013 when she was almost 9 months old. Her eyes looked great after the surgery, but started crossing again after about six months. In July of 2014, she started wearing glasses, and we were also patching one of the lenses every day for 4-5 hours. After doing that for about 9 months, her eyes were not showing any signs of improvement, and we decided to go ahead with another surgery. I didn't feel near as nervous going into it as I did the first time around. It helped knowing what to expect. This surgery was similar to the first one, except this time, they strengthened the outer muscles where last time they weakened the inner ones.
Day before surgery
All ready to go
Anna was completely calm going into surgery. She is pretty used to doctors and nurses by now so getting her vitals taken and everything didn't even phase her. After they took her back to surgery, we had to wait about an hour before her doctor came and told us everything went well. When they brought Anna back to us about a half hour later, she was still really out of it. She had a rough time waking up. She was crying and thrashing around, trying to get away from whoever was holding her. She still had her I.V. in and she got so tangled up from tossing and turning that it ended up pulling out and getting blood all over me, her, and the floor. That was a little traumatic! After about twenty minutes, Derek finally got her calmed down with a pack of fruit snacks. When he tried to feed her one, she immediately snatched it out of his hand and said, "No! I do it myself!" That's when we knew we had our Anna back. :)
After surgery
I look like I got shot, haha
So far, the surgery seems successful. For the first month after surgery, she didn't wear her glasses because they were over-correcting her eyes and actually causing them to turn outward slightly. But now she's wearing them again, and her doctor say her eyes are looking really good. But there's just no way to know if they'll stay straight. It's not uncommon for people with strabismus to need multiple eye surgeries. Sometimes a person's eyes will be good for five or ten years and then start crossing again. It's just not a perfect fix because the problem is really with the brain's control of the eye muscles and not the eye muscles themselves.
I've been doing quite a bit of research on strabismus and have read some promising research on vision therapy. We actually met with an optometrist who does vision therapy two years ago before her first surgery. He thought her eyes were so bad that the therapy wouldn't help and surgery was the only way to fix them. But he gave us some eye exercises to do at home and said they would help her eyes stay straight after surgery. We were pretty diligent about it for the first couple months after her surgery, but then we didn't keep up with it because we didn't have vision insurance to cover optometrist appointments, and because her eyes were doing so great that we we just got too relaxed about it...and also because her opthamologist told us that vision therapy doesn't actually work in most cases and basically said it was a waste of our time and money. It's apparently quite a debate in the eye-care world. Most eye surgeons (like Anna's) say the research shows that it's only successful in very limited, specific cases. But the optometrists who use vision therapy report very high success rates for kids like her. I'm not sure what to think. We really love Anna's opthamologist and think he's a great doctor and a skilled surgeon...but we can't help but wonder if she wouldn't have needed a second surgery if we had kept up with the vision therapy. Maybe it wouldn't have made any difference. But we figure that even if it doesn't work, it's worth a shot. We're willing to try anything to avoid more surgeries! So we scheduled an appointment for Anna at the end of the month. At least if we try it and it doesn't work, we'll know we explored all the options.
If I could use only one word to describe Anna at this age, it would be "independent." If she can do it by herself (or if she thinks she can do it by herself), she will NOT allow anyone to help her. She has to put on her shoes, take of her pajamas, climb into her car seat, wash her face, climb into bed---all without assistance. If you do something for her that she wanted to do herself, a giant tantrum ensues. And then she has to do it again herself. Like one night, Derek put her in bed and she immediately started bawling because she wanted to do it herself. Still crying, she then climbed OUT of bed, put both feet on the floor for one second, and then climbed right back in again. Luckily, we have figured out how to work her independent streak to our advantage. If we want her to stop dawdling (she's a queen at dawdling) and do something right away, all we have to say is, "Anna, do you want to do _______ by yourself or should mommy/daddy help you?" And then we just move like we're going to help her and she immediately says, "No! I do it myself!" and does it herself. It (almost) always works like a charm. There was one time when she took forever to get into her car seat, so I finally just put her in it, and she screamed "I want to do it myself!" the ENTIRE 20-minute car ride home. And once we got home (after sitting in time out until she calmed down) she had to go back out to the car and climb in the car seat by herself before she could move on with life. I know this is just a stage most kids go through, but it still drives me CRAZY!
Anna continues to adore books. She can "read" most of her favorites by herself these days. I'm always amazed how well she can recite the words almost verbatim, especially the ones we bring home from the library and have only read half a dozen times. She has an incredible memory. She will just be off playing and all of a sudden, I hear her quoting entire picture books to herself. Her favorite books right now are definitely the Elephant and Piggie series by Mo Willems. (If you've never read them, you need to. They're hilarious...for kids and parents alike).
Anna also still loves to sing. She sings all the time to herself, but also frequently invites you to sing with her. My favorite is when she sings the hymns in church. She doesn't know most of the words, so she just sings jibber-jabber. I'm always reminded of this clip from the Jim Carrey version of "The Grinch"...
Here's a cute video of Anna singing Twinkle Twinkle. She recorded it herself on my phone haha.
She also still loves to dance. We have to skip all the slow songs that come up on Pandora until we get to what she calls a "dancing song." :) Her favorite song to dance to is Uptown Funk haha. I know we've posted about a million videos of her dancing in front of the T.V., but this one might be my all-time favorite. It's a little long, but SO hilarious!
We think the rolling on the floor must be her new interpretive dance moves. No clue where she picked that up!
A big event for Anna was her second eye muscle surgery at the end of May. Click here to read my entry about that.
Anna still doesn't sleep well consistently. I'm not kidding when I say Paul is a better sleeper than his sister! She often doesn't go to sleep until 10:30 and wakes up before 6:30. She also doesn't like to take naps anymore. Sometimes, she refuses to take a nap and then does this at dinner...
Anna is the best big sister. Whenever Paul wakes up from a nap, she is the first one to hear him, and if I don't respond quickly enough, she is at his door calling, "Just a minute Paul! Mommy's coming! It's ok, Paul!" Then when I open the door to his room, she immediately climbs up his crib and looks over the rail to say hi to him. :) She always does silly things to make him laugh, brings him toys to play with, puts his binkie in his mouth when he's crying, and fetches his burp cloth when he spits up. She also loves to help change his diaper. Weird, I know. If I don't let her have a turn wiping his bum (after he's already clean of course), she will cry. I tell her that one day, she's going to laugh at herself for crying over NOT getting to change a diaper haha.
"Anna, will you get Paul a toy?" (or ten?)
Making Paul laugh
Anna has never acted resentful or jealous of Paul, but lately, she's started crying if we're doing something fun with Paul and not her. One time, I was finishing giving her a bath and she could hear Derek singing a song with Paul, and she started bawling. I assumed she was jealous that Paul was getting attention instead of her. But then yesterday, I was playing pat-a-cake with Paul in the living room while she was eating graham crackers at the kitchen table. She started crying and said, "I want to see my Paul!" So apparently she isn't sad because Paul's getting attention instead of her but because she wants to see him laugh too. Funny girl.
Anna loves to make-believe play. She loves making food in her kitchen and comes up some pretty unique sandwich combinations (pickle, pancake, pineapple sandwich anyone??). She also likes playing "doctor office" with her doctor kit and listening to all of our heartbeats. Oh, and she's really into pretending to be a puppy. She crawls around on all fours and asks for a bowl of water on the floor almost every day.
Even doctors need naps haha
Anna has a few favorite toys. At the moment, her blanket, her dolls, Sally and Rosie, and their two blankets, and her two monkeys, Monkey and Mr. Monkey, have to go with her everywhere. She sleeps with them at night, then in the morning, she brings all of them downstairs to play. Then at nap time, they all have to come back up the stairs to her bed before she'll go to sleep.
She wanted to take a picture with her monkeys
Monkey
Mr. Monkey
I think Anna's verbal skills are pretty advanced for her age. She uses (mostly) full sentences and can say almost all the sounds, although she still struggles a bit with the hard c and "th" at the beginning of words. But she does still say some words and phrases wrong, and it's super cute. She pronounces "ketchup" as "chepit." "Kitchen" is "chicken." "Slippery" is "slipperly." Some of my favorite phrases she says are "That's so tasty!" "It's my favorite, favorite!" "I'm so excited!" "Oh my goodness!"and "I fink so." Also, when she's doing something silly and you ask her what she's doing she stops, gives a sheepish grin, and replies, "I dunno."
She has also started saying the things we say to her back to us, which gets pretty hilarious. For example, I'll be getting dressed or putting my shoes on, and she will cheer, "Good job, Mom! You did it all by yourself!" Haha. She also frequently gives compliments like, "I like your shirt, Dad!" or "Love your hair, Mom!" :)
Anna has really loved summertime because she loves being outside. She helps me water the garden and pick vegetables every morning. She goes out to jump on our neighbors' trampoline almost every day. And she LOVES swimming. We've had a lot of fun going to the splash pad and swimming pool this summer.
If you're still reading this (and not Anna's grandparents), I'm impressed! Sorry, I can go on forever about my kids haha.
Even though she drives us bonkers sometimes with her little quirks and strong will, we adore our sweet, spunky Anna-girl and wouldn't change her for the world!
Paul is already 3 1/2 months old, and I can hardly believe it. He is such a good baby, I don't know how we got so lucky. He started sleeping 7-8 hours straight at night at about 2 months old, and sometimes he will sleep as long as 10 hours straight. What?!? After Anna (who STILL wakes up in the middle of the night), I don't know what to do with a baby that loves to sleep. But I will definitely take it!
Paul is the happiest little guy, too. You don't even have to work for smiles from him. You just have to look at him or talk to him and he immediately breaks into a grin. And he started laughing a few weeks ago. His laugh is so funny, it's almost like a gasping sound. And guess who makes him laugh the most? If you guessed his sister, that would be correct. :) Our favorite game right now is to sing songs on the couch while Anna jumps up and down, spins around, and just acts goofy in general while Paul watches her every move and laughs and laughs. It makes my heart happy. :)
This is an older video of when he first started smiling at about seven weeks old.
2 months old
"I'm happy almost all the time!"
"Except when I'm hungry. Then I give the pouty lip."
Paul continues to love to eat. At three months, he has doubled his birth weight, weighing in at 14 lbs. He really isn't that fat though, just solid. And he's also short. At his 2 month check-up he was in the 78th percentile for weight and the 14th for height haha. He has outgrown almost all of his 3 month stuff and wears 3-6 month clothes and size 2 diapers. I'm also looking forward to when he can start tasting table food. When we eat dinner, his eyes just follow the food into our mouths like he's just thinking, "Mmm. That looks good!" But maybe that's just my imagination. :)
Paul loves to be held. He does ok with tummy time or sitting in his bouncer for short periods of time, but if you leave him for more than 15 minutes or so, he starts to fuss (and it's less than 5 minutes if he can't see you). He loves to be around people and to see everything that's going on. His favorite position is to be held so he's standing upright. His little legs are getting pretty strong! He still like his carrier which I still use for walks and shopping. He's starting to get pretty heavy though so I don't know how much longer I'll want to use it haha.
Tummy time! Yes, that's drool dripping off his chin. :) 3 months old.
Ready for a walk
I think Paul is getting pretty close to rolling over. He rolls from side to side on his back and is starting to push his whole chest off the floor when he's on his tummy. He used to prefer being on his tummy to lying on his back...until we got out the little play mat with all the dangling toys and little mirror. He usually can't grab on to the toys yet, but he enjoys batting them around so they rattle.
Anna likes the play mat too. I think she was trying to be like Paul here,
and even put her doll's binkie in her mouth. :)
Paul got his first hair cut a week ago. It was getting super long, but only in certain spots so it looked kinda goofy. He also had this one clump of hair above his left ear that would constantly stick straight out, no matter how many times I smoothed it down. It was pretty difficult to cut a squirmy baby's hair, but Derek did a pretty good job.
After his haircut, 3 months old.
So smiley!
Paul likes bath time more now that he gets to use the big tub with his sister. He likes to kick his feet and splash. Anna gets mad at him when he splashes her haha.
He still really like his binkie, so that's really convenient. When he's tired, you just have to snuggle him close to you and give him his binkie and he usually just goes right to sleep. Sometimes he will even falls asleep lying on the floor...he kind-of rolls to one side with his arms nestled around his head and just goes to sleep. I'm telling you, easiest baby ever!
Although he likes the binkie, he also likes sucking on his hands and lately, just two of his fingers. Anna sucked her thumb for maybe a month and then just stopped, so we'll see if Paul keeps it up or not.
Paul's nicknames include Paulo (me), Pablito (Uncle Trevor), and...Pot Roast (Uncle Kyle). I'm hoping that last one won't stick, but it's actually pretty fitting right now...he's about the size and weight of a good pot roast haha. He also gets a lot of "big guy" "little man" "baby boy" etc. Anna caught on to Paulo pretty quick and now she calls him Paulo more often than Paul haha.
We sure adore our sweet little guy with his chubby cheeks, big smile, and overall sunny personality!
May seriously flew by. I can't believe it is June already! May started off with a busy weekend. The BYU rugby team, after a completely undefeated season, played in the national championship and won (for the fourth year in a row)! It was a close game, with lots of suspenseful moments. Kyle played extremely hard and had some awesome hits. We are all so proud of him!
Paul slept through most of the game
But Anna was a good cheerleader.
Get the ball, Kyle!
(Amazing photos from the game courtesy of Derek's Aunt Jean!)
The next day (Sunday, May 3rd) was Paul's blessing day. We were grateful to have so many family members there for this special occasion. Derek blessed Paul that he would have a strong mind and body, that he would feel the Spirit and be able to apply the atonement of Jesus Christ. He also blessed him to listen to the counsel he would receive throughout his life and use it to draw closer to God.
After church, we had a family dinner at my grandparents' house. We were lucky to have two awesome photographers (my Aunt Beth and Derek's Aunt Jean) so we really got some great photos. And the view from my grandparents' backyard is beautiful, so that helped too. :)
Four generations!
Anna loves her grandma!
Cutie
"He's so heavy, Mom!"
"That's better."
Love this one!
And this one!
I love Paul's expression here.
On the horse swing
Jumping with Henry
...and Kelsey and Kailey
That was probably too many pictures for one post, but there were so many good ones that I just couldn't narrow it down any more! Thanks Beth & Jean!
