The internet is an amazing place, AMAZING. When I wrote that first post about Isabelle’s eyes, one of my readers, Bingsy, forwarded it to her sister, Dr. Cathy Wittman. Cathy contacted us and from there followed many many emails between us where she gave us information, her opinions, and most importantly hope. It was something we really needed. And when I say information I mean a lot of needed information. I would not be exaggerating when I say we got more from Cathy, in a single email, than we got from the doctors who actually saw Isabelle. So, if you are reading this Cathy, thank you. I cannot write that down enough times. Thank you, thank you, thank you!

I would sit there reading her emails out loud to Alan, choking back the tears. And even now as I’m typing this, tears are coming to my eyes. Knowing that there are people out there in the world who don’t even know us but who care, who will sit down and write to us, who lift us up when we’re feeling down; it is heartwarming and incredible. I’ll say it again, the internet is an amazing place.

I’d like to share with you some of the information she gave us and what we’ve been learning through the internet. But that will be in some future posts. Right now, I wanted to catch everyone up with our appointment on Wednesday.

I’ll sum it up in Alan’s words to his sister: the pediatric optometrist said basically the same thing as the last optometrist. She recommended contacts. But on top of that she said Isabelle might be developmentally behind. Way to kick you in your balls when you’re down.

I know, I know, I’ll elaborate. You don’t want me ending the post with that. So, yes, she did recommend contacts. But unlike our other optometrist, she talked about patching and vision therapy. So that was a vast improvement. And the reasoning for her saying Isabelle might be developmentally behind, Isabelle wasn’t talking much with the optometrist. She was being shy.

Isabelle wouldn’t answer the doctor’s questions, like pointing out the pictures on the chart. She does know what the pictures are, and can name them, but she wouldn’t for the doctor. She did it for us alone at the ophthalmologist’s. And Isabelle doesn’t know her alphabet so couldn’t do the vision tests with the letters. The doctor said we might want to go to our school district and get her tested just in case.

Writing that out, for a moment, I got all self defensive, feeling a little inadequate for not teaching her the alphabet. I got distracted for half an hour Googling “learning the ABCs” and calling my sister to see if my nephew knew the alphabet. But I got my sanity back. I understand all kids are different. And this post is rapidly descending into an area that I wasn’t even planning to talk about. I wanted to just talk about her eyes so I’ll stop the post here with Isabelle: ooohh aaaah oooh aahhh.

We had a wonderful Halloween. Alan asked for the day off so it was the first Halloween we got to spend together. I wish he had Thursday off too because we went to my my friend Veronica’s house for a pumpkin carving party. We had fun!

I let Isabelle draw on her pumpkin and then carved it based on her scribbles.

I couldn’t get her to pull the guts out though. She thought it was gross and sticky and left the dirty work to me.

And it was hard work. I obviously haven’t carved a pumpkin in a while because I made the top hole Isabelle size. I didn’t think anything of it until I had to struggle to get the insides out through the tiny hole.

But I managed. And Isabelle is so proud of “her” pumpkin. The next morning she yanked it off the counter, ran across the living room to show Alan saying, “I made it!” Can you see her pumpkin? Hint: it’s the one with all the scribbles on it.

More pictures from the pumpkin carving party here.

And then Halloween plans fell in place sort of last minute, right down to Isabelle’s costume and where to go trick or treating.

Her costume was last minute because I wanted to make Isabelle a costume but never got around to it. My friend Olinda had given her a witch costume months and months ago but I couldn’t find it. I had hidden it from Isabelle in a “safe place”. But I wasn’t sure where that “safe place” was. We thought she could wear her old bumble bee costume. It still fits sort of. But luckily Alan found the “safe place”. It was on top of the dresser. Ok. Guess it wasn’t so hidden after all.

And then for trick or treating we decided to join Isabelle’s cousins. I was supposed to call the night before but completely forgot because we were at the pumpkin carving party. So we called probably around 4 in the afternoon. Talk about last minute!

Isabelle loved, LOVED Halloween. We went trick or treating in a great neighborhood with lots of decorated houses. And they were close together so the kids could easily race from one house to the next. But that’s where Isabelle fell behind. She’d be slowly maneuvering her way down the stairs in the dark and her cousins would be on to the next house.

We would rush to catch up but it was only a matter of time before that wore her out. She ended up on Alan’s shoulders a lot.

Isabelle loved it all. Driving away she sleepily said, “I like trick or treat.”

More Halloween pictures here.

I wanted to make cookies and cupcakes for Halloween. I decided to start early so I wouldn’t run out of time. And I thought I was being smart when I gave the left over flour to distract Isabelle while I whipped up the cookie dough.

Well the distraction part worked but what a mess! Isabelle thought it was fun though. She pretended the flour was snow.

But wouldn’t you know it, on Halloween I ran out of time and didn’t make any cookies or cupcakes. So what did we do this weekend? Bake, bake, and bake.

We made cookies and I tried icing a few of them, my first time ever. And wow, that’s hard work, what with Isabelle wanting to eat them all before I can even get to them. Maybe that explains why I don’t have any pictures of finished cookies. They’re all in our belly.

And we made dark chocolate cupcakes! Those I do have a picture of. It took a lot of, “wait Isabelle! Don’t touch yet! Wait, wait, wait!!”

As you can see, I went Halloween crazy. I bought Halloween cupcake liners (with pumpkins, ghosts, and cats on them, which you can’t even tell damn it) and Halloween cupcake candy topper thingermabobbers.

I’m proud to say it was my first time successfully frosting a cupcake with a pastry bag. Well sort of. I couldn’t figure out how to make the pastry bag work with the tip thing. So, I gave up and used a sandwich bag with the tip thing. But you know, sandwich bags aren’t very big. They don’t hold a lot.

Maybe that explains why I had frosting coming out on top and bottom.