We got back from Disneyland yesterday. And I have a whole bunch of pictures to get through. I also have things to share, like our visit to Build a Bear and hanging out with Secret Agent Josephine. But that will have to wait for another day since I’m trying to make this pretty quick. We’re leaving for the pumpkin patch in a bit. So for today I’ll just talk a bit about Wednesday.

Some of you were confused about our trip. Didn’t we just go to Disneyland last month? Yes, for Isabelle’s birthday. But this was for my birthday! I turned 35 on Wednesday. So that’s why we were in Disneyland again.

And then we’ll be back again for Christmas, then we’ll go again in March for Alan’s birthday, and then again in April for our anniversary…

No, just kidding. I originally wanted to go on a cruise to Alaska but there weren’t any available. And doing things last minute as usual I couldn’t decide on where else to go. I looked up San Diego but was overwhelmed with all the choices of hotels. Then we thought Hawaii but didn’t know which island. And on and on it went. There were just too many choices on such short notice. So instead I said Disneyland again. And plus, I really wanted to see Disneyland done up for Halloween.

And I had a great birthday! Alan surprised me with a birthday bucket right after midnight. It came with a little cake.

And then he sort of surprised me later on that day. I say sort of because I inadvertently ruined the surprise. We got back from a morning in Disneyland and the phone was blinking with a message. So I called down. The front desk didn’t have a name, just that there was a package so I was convinced it was a mistake. And it was located somewhere the public couldn’t access so a bellhop had to be sent. The bellhop called asking about the size of the package and I told him it had to be a mistake. And that’s when Alan had to tell me he got me something.

Flowers and chocolate. What a sweetie.

Ok let me go. I’ve got to get out of my pajamas, at yes 2:11 p.m. in the afternoon, to get ready for pumpkins!! Well not like the pumpkins care but I’m sure people there would appreciate a fully clothed, not crazy haired woman.

Actually…who cares if I have crazy hair? And the preverts probably don’t mind if I’m not fully clothed. Ok rambling. Bye.

I’ve been drawing a part of our visit with Secret Agent Josephine so I thought, today, I’d talk about that part of our trip. If you read SAJ you probably already saw her post about our visit.

So yes, we met up with SAJ. And since Alan has already outed my amazing dorkiness to SAJ herself, I might as well admit it here as well. When I found out we were going to meet them I did a little dance in our hotel room, ran around a little, and jumped up and down in excitement. Yes, yes I did. I am a goober. But really that’s how happy I was.

And we had so much fun! I wonder if that came across? Because at the time I was feeling tongue tied, like I had stage fright, and my brain felt so slow. I guess that’s a good thing or I would have probably talked her ear off. I would have probably happily sat next to her in her office box asking to see her illustrations. And I could have asked her a ton more questions about freelancing…ok let me just stop before I sound even more crazy.

So yeah, me, that day, slow. That probably explains why I didn’t think of taking a picture WITH SAJ. Boo, bad blogger. Such a bad blogger, I didn’t even take pictures using my own camera. Alan reminded me how I broke my lens before at the beach with all the sand. So all the beach pictures were using SAJ’s camera, which by the way was pretty awesome. It’s freaking waterproof!

So yeah, we had fun. We hung out at the beach digging holes and building castles. Bug and Isabelle were so cute together. It was adorable watching the two of them following Alan down to the water’s edge and sharing food.

Yes, sharing food. See, that’s what I illustrated:

Did you get that? Here let me show you a close up of the relevant pane.

Yes, bug shared candy corn with Isabelle. From her mouth.

Alan says I’m mental. Or something to that effect, I can’t remember his exact words. He’s asleep right now so I can’t ask him. But you get the idea. I’m sick. I need help. Why?

This is why:

And these for myself:

What am I talking about you ask. Well it has to do with the fact that I publicly proclaimed Isabelle has too many toys. And then I go out and buy some more!! Sick I tell you!!

But Woody and Jessie don’t count, I say to myself. I bought them for me, ME!! It’s not my fault Isabelle takes them and considers them hers.

And her rabbit isn’t just any old rabbit. It’s a Build A Bear rabbit! We got him down in Anaheim. You get to choose it and choose a noise for it. (Isabelle chose the monkey noise)

And help blow stuffing into it.

And choose clothes for it.

(Isabelle chose two outfits, a pirate and a Woody outfit. She even brought up shoes when I wasn’t paying attention!!)

And, and, and you get to name it (she named him Bunny) and get a birth certificate!!

Sick, I tell you.

I just spent 3 hours reorganizing my Flickr sets. OBSESSIVELY. I think that’s because I was avoiding writing this post. It’s been stewing in my head for…over 12 hours now. Originally it was going to be a request for opinions, a call for help from my nice readers. But we’ve, or I should say I’ve, made up my mind mostly about what to do. So, I think I’ll just share what happened.

For at least a year now we’ve noticed that Isabelle’s left eye doesn’t always align with her right eye. Alan says it’s more noticeable when she’s tired. We brought it up to our optometrist about a year ago. He checked her eyes and said one day she would be nearsighted. But he didn’t mention a problem. I’m sure we mentioned it to our pediatrician too. Maybe at 2 it’s normal, or kids grow out of it, or I don’t know what. Because nothing was done.

At Isabelle’s 3 year check up with her pediatrician, we brought it up again. She referred us to an ophthalmologist. Well today was Isabelle’s appointment.

They put a patch over her left eye and had her point out things on a little card. She did fine. They put the patch on her right eye and she tried and then started saying, “I can’t see daddy, I can’t see”. It was so sad. That’s the short, non-squirmy, trying to get a toddler to concentrate version.

We were in with the ophthalmologist for 2 hours and came out with a prescription for glasses, talk about wearing an eye patch, and follow ups. I don’t know what it means exactly but this is what her prescription says:

Because of how our insurance works we have to get the glasses from our optometrist. We drove over and when the receptionist saw the prescription she said, “WOW!” and said she knew the doctor would want to see Isabelle first, to recheck her eyes. Then she told us about her daughter who had the same problem. She said it was Amblyopia and they tried to treat it with an eye patch. Just so we’re clear though, neither doctor mentioned Amblyopia.

After the optometrist checked Isabelle’s eyes, he recommended contacts. Just one in her left eye.

I can’t imagine putting a contact in a toddler’s eye, in Isabelle’s eye. But the optometrist said that was basically our only option, because of the huge difference between the two eyes. He said that if she wore glasses her left eye would not focus because it would be too hard to try to reconcile the difference of the images in her brain.

We will do what Isabelle needs but I guess I was just irked with that being our only option, according to the optometrist. He didn’t even want to try glasses because he’s that convinced that they won’t help her. I’m of the mindset that sticking something in her eye on a regular basis is drastic and we should try a different course first.

In talking to him he said most babies are born farsighted and get better with age. So a year ago when we had her checked why didn’t he mention a problem? Wouldn’t that have meant it was even worse before? I don’t know, I guess I’m just a little mad/confused right now.

Alan says and I quote, “You always think people have an agenda.” I don’t think that’s true. I don’t think people have an agenda. But I am skeptical when someone says that this is the only way.

So, I emailed the ophthalmologist, the one we saw first, to ask her opinion. She said to do glasses first, that young children adjust to changes better and easier. I’m going to talk it over with Alan some more but I’m pretty sure that’s what we’re going to do.

So, has anyone had experience with this?

I left out the worry and tears in this post. And you can’t see it in the pictures where we were trying to keep Isabelle entertained at the hospital. But I think you can see it on Alan’s face here. Well not the tears because he’s not a big baby like me, but you can see the worry and sadness.

Thank you everyone for your words of comfort. We are not feeling so lost anymore. A lot of talking and reading on the internet has calmed us, sort of. We’re still worried but not at the level we were.

Alan contacted a cousin in Florida who is an optometrist. She said that if she were in our place she would do glasses. She recommended that we see a pediatric optometrist and she is going to contact a colleague who is a pediatric/developmental optometrist for more information. She’ll get back to us this weekend. I am feeling a little frantic to get something done NOW but I just remind myself that we just found out on Wednesday and I don’t need to go rushing into any decisions.

And thank you especially to Bingsy, who forwarded my post to her sister, an optometrist. It just about made me cry thinking about all the people out there who care about us.