Yesterday Mara & Micah both had appointments with the pediatric ophthamologist. Overall the eye appts went fine. It was my 1st experience taking both children out for an appointment where we had to wait about an hour–of course, right at lunchtime.
Mara was okay at first, because I told her the dr was going to look at her eyes. She kept saying “Eye! Eye!” and pressing one eyelid shut . . . But when we got in there, and the dr was prying her eyelids open while she lay on my lap and putting 3 kinds of drops in them, she was screaming. It didn’t help that Micah was screaming from the stroller too. And when the dr turned off the lights and shone his headlamp into Micah‘s dilated eyes, Mara freaked and started yelling, “Light! Light! Light!” through her tears. The doctor said, “Say ‘bye-bye’! Say ‘bye-bye’!” which of course frustrated her, because that was exactly what she wanted.
I saw Breanna & her mom again (Breanna was Micah‘s little roommate in the NICU). Did I mention how I feel like God is allowing our paths to continue crossing for a reason?? . . . Anyway, Breanna has passed Micah in weight and length!! at 7 lbs 4 ozs and 20-1/4 inches! I was so happy!!! She has the chubbiest cheeks and she looks soooo healthy. She was 10 weeks premature, and struggled more than Micah to learn to eat, so this is encouraging. She is also not on a monitor and sleeping through most of the night! So she is doing fabulous! Connie said she lost my number, so I reached for one of the business cards on the counter to write my number down for her. . . I wasn’t prepared for the response of the receptionist, who snapped, “Did you just TAKE one of our business cards?!?!?!. . . Here! give that to me. I’ll give you a scrap piece of paper.” . . . wow. . .
I was like “I’m sorry.” Daniel said he would have laid a quarter on the desk and said, “I’m sorry, I didn’t realize you guys are so hard up for money. Here’s a quarter–it should buy you four more business cards!” :-)? . . . oh well. . .
Then there was Alex, the 2-year-old boy in the waiting room. He was climbing in Mara’s seat (in the double stroller) and standing on the chair next to me trying to pat Micah in his car seat. . . so I’m saying ‘please don’t touch the baby.’ Finally his dad/grandpa called him and he ran across the waiting room, got on a chair and started jumping. Mara (seeing this) began yelling, “Bad! Bad! Bad!” and “spanking” herself on her rear end w her hand (indicating what she thought should be happening to the errant child) . . . fortunately, her “bad” still sounds more like a bleating sheep at this point, so I’m sitting there saying enthusiastically, “Hey! Mara! Let’s read a book!” 🙂
On the bright side, Micah‘s eyes continue to develop as a normal (full-term) baby’s eyes would, and he just has one more appt in 3 weeks. The dr believes that Mara’s “strabismus” has cleared up!! which is good–basically meaning her eyes are tracking together now, no need for a patch or surgery. 🙂 However, he said that she will be near-sighted as she grows up (like me–not Daniel’s perfect vision). So he wants to see her again when she turns 3. . . . she will be my little red-headed, freckled girl with glasses. . . oh my. . .