Eyes, Ears, and... spaghetti?

Phew... that was quite a week! I'd be using this week to recover if I wasn't so sick.

Clara had her appointment with the opthalmologist on Wednesday. Clara definitely needs glasses. The good news in all this is that her vision at this point in time CAN be corrected with glasses. The bad news is that she is high risk for amblyopia, which can NOT be corrected with glasses. With the vision in her left eye so much worse than the vision in her right, anisometropia, the brain tends to block out the eye with the poorer vision. "Amblyopia is a neurologically active process, where the inhibition process can result in a permanent decrease in the vision in that eye that can not be corrected with glasses, lenses, or lasik surgery. However, improvements are possible at any age, but early detection and treatment offer the best outcome." (About Amblyopia). Needless to say, the opthalmologist wants to see her again in a year. Unfortunately, Jason's vision insurance doesn't go into effect until he's been with the new company for 30 days... so we'll just have to wait. Going into the opthalmologist's office, Clara was adamant about not wanting glasses, but after spending time in the waiting room trying on frame after frame, she has come to the conclusion that she'll still look pretty in glasses.

On Thursday evening we discovered a flat tire on our ONLY car in the JC Penney parking lot (it must have been low before we left the house, as Jason was commenting on the handling of the car on the drive there). We put the donut on the car in the JCP parking lot to get home... only to discover upon getting home that the donut was low, too! When Jason took the cap off the valve to check the pressure, air just kept escaping... there was obviously something wrong with the donut valve. It was a horrendously stressful night, trying to figure out what to do in the morning. How was he going to get the tire fixed with a flat tire and a flat donut? The next morning, he tried my idea of pumping up the donut with the bicycle pump and that actually worked!! He was able to take the car in without any problems. In fact, we ended up with two new tires and they fixed our donut!! Hopefully, we won't need that donut for many many years!

After the car was fixed, I had to hurry to Eli's 18-month checkup. He is in great shape and great health. His vitals: weight - 26 lbs 2 oz (55 %ile) and height - 32 1/4 in (57 %ile). The doctor checked his ears and eyes after the last infections and all is well. He got three shots (DTaP, polio, and HepA) and took them like a champ. Now I just need to take him in for his 18-month portrait.

Friday night was a spaghetti dinner at Clara's school (it was a fundraiser and the 6th graders were the servers). It was really fun. The thing that I especially loved was seeing Clara in that environment. She is very well liked. Lots of these little girls (some kindergarteners and some 1st graders and some that I didn't know at all) were coming up to her to say hi, give hugs, or just be silly. It was wonderful seeing her being social and interacting with all these "friends". I also enjoyed meeting some of the parents of the girls I hear about so often.

I was able to go to a Mom's Night Out right after the school dinner. That was a nice treat. I was able to see many women that I haven't seen in a long while. We (me and the boys) haven't been attending playgroup much in the past few months. It's been hard to fit it into our schedule, but it was really nice catching up.

And then Saturday night was Rock Band, woo-hoo!! We had so much fun... it's almost sad to think it will be a whole month before Sovereign Awesomeness reunites.