I am so very very close to getting caught up on my sketchbook. That’s because there are big gaps of days where I did not draw at all.

And don’t worry. Isabelle has gotten used to the patch now. She does her three hours and when time’s up she will take off the patch all by herself. No big deal.

And some pictures from those sketchbook days. Because I’m sure Alan would like to see them while he’s at work.

I bought Isabelle some felt flower kit thingy. I thought it would keep her occupied while patching but she keeps herself occupied fine.

Nathan grabbed the straw from my iced coffee off the table. My coffee that had whipped cream on it. He really liked the whipped cream. Mischievous monkey.

Acting all innocent.

Who me?

Mischievous monkey making a mess and then crawling away.

And then Isabelle making a bigger mess with the diapers.

And I’m ending with this random picture. Isabelle used to put stickers everywhere. This one is on our bedroom closet mirror.

But now she puts them in her sticker book. One of those take a piece of paper and cut and fold it into a book deals. Every sticker from the doctor to the ballet teacher goes in there. It’s sort of nice.

I’m so behind. It’s been one of those weeks. A week ago I wrote that we’ve been sick, it’s just colds. But we’ve been dealing with that plus more this past week.

At the beginning of the week, Isabelle was coughing at night. Not extreme coughing. Just regular little coughs. And only at night. But she’d cough and then throw up. We don’t have that kind of sick, the throw up kind. But just the coughing made her throw up because…I don’t know why.

Well, that happened a couple of nights. So, it got to the point where I’d wake at every single cough, frantic that she was going to throw up. It was like a snowball effect. On the first night I was low on sleep, then the next night I was low on sleep again but it was worse because it was the second day. Then it got progressively worse with each day. Finally Alan raised her bed to an angle and we rubbed some vapo rub on her. The vapo rub seemed to do the trick. On the nights when I forgot she would still cough. But as soon as I put the rub on her, no coughing.

I don’t know why we didn’t do it the first couple of nights. Maybe that was because it was just a little bit of coughing. Nothing major. But that nothing major sure wreaked havoc with my sleeping.

But that wasn’t all. It was a very stressful and busy week indeed. See:

Alan noticed a little bump, well the technical term is an abscess. It was on Isabelle’s gum right above her front teeth where she had a cavity last year. It was an infection. On Monday, they took an x-ray and most of the root was gone. So we made an appointment for Wednesday to have it pulled.

Isabelle did so well. She just cried a little. And when it was gone she was so excited. The dentist put her little tooth in a treasure chest and she kept looking into the mirror looking at the missing tooth.

It’s funny, my sister told me her son was growing his adult teeth in behind his baby teeth. So, I said oh yeah, and I emailed her a picture of Isabelle missing a tooth. My sister called me “a tard” saying that wasn’t real. Maybe she thinks I photoshopped it. So, I was going to reply with this post…um 3 days ago but yeah…one of those weeks.

I was going to show her this video. Video, I can’t photoshop that.

Boobah video on Flickr

So, was that the only thing this week? No!

Nathan has this redness on his face. Well, it’s actually been there for a while. Just a little redness that would sort of come and fade a little. You can see it in his rolling pictures. The doctor noticed it at his last well check visit last month but it never really went away. Just this little rashy area on his face and no where else. Well Tuesday night he was rubbing at it like crazy in his sleep. Rubbing it raw. It’s the worst we’d seen it. So, that meant a trip to the doctor’s. We left with two different prescriptions for creams for his face. It’s much improved today.

Is that the end? Nope. Oh gawd, when will this post end?! I’m tired just writing it. Is anyone still reading? Ok. Real short and fast. Isabelle saw a pediatric ophthalmologist at the beginning of this month. Isabelle needed new lenses with a new prescription for her glasses. Alan’s work screwed up our insurance. F-ers. We dealt with that this week too, new glasses. So lots of doctor visits this week. High stress. Sick. Me coughing like crazy now. The end.

I was going to post Saturday night but I was too tired. So instead I threw up the shirt post which I meant to post Friday night but didn’t because I was too tired. I thought I’d write Sunday night but again I was too tired. So finally, here I am writing on Monday.

Why was this weekend so rough? Well on Saturday we woke up early, well, early for us, and went to the dentist. Isabelle has a cavity. They filled it. It was so traumatic. Maybe not for Isabelle. More for us I think. She did fine with the x-ray. She did great with the shot, just a little whimper. And she even did ok with the drilling.

But she’s only three and having a three year old sit still for any length of time with their mouth pried open is just asking too much. After 10 minutes Isabelle was done. She started crying and and…it was basically just AWFUL. I could have stood there bawling because it was so hard not being able to do anything but listen to her cry. But that wouldn’t have helped the situation so I stood there with my ears covered while they worked on her.

When it was done, Isabelle got two balloons and she was pretty much fine. Me, on the other hand, never wants to experience that again. But waaaaah!!! The dentist saw ANOTHER cavity while they were putting in her filling.

But did our rough weekend end there? Nooo. We went out to visit my sister in San Francisco and to bring out some clothes for the baby.

Isabelle had a great time playing with her cousin Ebow. But she slipped, fell, broke her glasses and cut her face a little. Then that night I didn’t want to give her milk to sleep because of her cavities. Poor Isabelle. What a bad day. I’ve since changed my mind after doing some online reading or as Alan calls it, “looking for any excuse to keep nursing her to sleep.”

And that was just Saturday. On Sunday we had to wake up early again. We had a vet appointment. Waldo was getting his sutures removed and Nestle was getting her leg looked at. They removed Waldo’s sutures. His incision healed fine however he has an infection and he’ll be taking antibiotics.

Nestle was visiting the doctor because her swollen leg was weeping. As soon as she walked into the vet’s office she had a seizure. They gave her a shot to calm her down and she was fine. Next time, we’re going to bring her in the back way to see if that helps with the seizures. They looked at her leg and we don’t really have any new information but she’s on antibiotics too.

It would have been nice to spend the rest of the day at home after that but we wanted to get our Christmas ornament and Isabelle’s glasses fixed. Our optometrist’s office wasn’t open so we ended up going to a lens place at the mall. Aaaaahhh no!! It was so crowded. It was a nightmare.

My hopes of getting in and out quickly didn’t materialize. The lens place couldn’t fix her glasses but a fix it place upstairs could. It took an hour though and Isabelle was hungry so we walked all the way to the other end of the mall to eat. I wouldn’t have minded if it wasn’t so jam packed full of people.

And then for some reason we decided to get some new shoes for Isabelle. Well I know the reason. Her feet are getting big. She needs new shoes. And we WERE at the mall. But the shoe store was hell. Too many people in my personal space bumping into me.

So today I’m tired. I don’t have any energy to make soap with Isabelle. Because yes we bought glycerine. A LOT of glycerin, the last and only glycerine left on the shelves, ten pounds of glycerine! Yikes! But we couldn’t find any toys small enough. So I have a whole bunch of glycerine and no toys. We’ll try to make Christmas shaped soap instead. So I guess I’ll be one of those crazy weird aunts who constantly makes soap for people. I mean, I DO have to get through ten ponds of glycerine.

Ok off for a nap. Maybe with some more sleep, I’ll have energy to wrestle with glycerine.

At Isabelle’s appointment today, she got another contact, a +6.0. It went right in on the second try. It happened so quickly, I couldn’t believe it. She could see 20/30 with it. And she’s still wearing it right now, it made it past nap time. Whoo hoo!

We also tried on glasses for when she won’t be wearing contacts.

She looks just like mama.

And now that she can see better, she’s playing more. Well that’s what the doctor asked and Alan said, “yes, she is playing more.” I didn’t really notice yesterday but I did today. But maybe that’s because, today, we got a new printer and we have a left over box. Plus all the innards that came with it.

Isabelle has already rowed around the world, put all her dolls down for a nap in their own little styrofoam beds, eaten at her own little table, and taken a bath, actually multiple baths.

Link to bath video in case you can’t see it above.

Boxes are the most amazing, fun toy for kids ever. Oh and eye drops. Isabelle is asking for those over and over. She needs to wet the “bubble” in her eye. Whoo, what a day!

Remember that? 3-2-1 Contact? It has nothing to do with this post. It just popped into my head when I was looking at the original title of my post, Contact. Ok, on to what I meant to talk about when I got distracted by the word contact. I am easily distracted, no?

Isabelle had another appointment at the pediatric optometrist’s today. And today we tried a contact!

If you’ve been reading along you know that I’ve been really against contacts. But we thought we’d give it a try because, honestly, we had no idea how Isabelle would react. Well, Isabelle did great. She didn’t cry at all and the doctor was able to put the contact in. And this was after multiple tries.

The doctor first tried a +8.0 prescription contact lens. She tried and tried and tried. It was so hard sitting there watching Isabelle squirm. I almost said, “stop! It’s obviously not working!!” But before I actually burst out with that, we took a break. The doctor then tried a different brand that was a smaller diameter, a +4.5 prescription. And that worked. She got it in.

Once the contact was in, Isabelle was fine. She didn’t even seem to notice it. And she was able to see the pictures on the chart. The doctor was happily surprised that Isabelle could see so well. She said Isabelle was seeing at something like 20/40.

We then had the doctor clarify what Isabelle has since the other doctors didn’t give us much information. She said Isabelle has Strabismus, Astigmatism, and Hyperopia. She’s not sure about the Amblyopia. We’ve been reading on the internet trying to understand the terms, reading sites like Prevent Blindness America.

It’s confusing, but I think I understand it now. Strabismus is the eye turn we’ve been seeing with Isabelle. Left untreated it develops into Amblyopia. Amblyopia is reduced vision that is not correctable by glasses or lenses. That’s treated with patching. Astigmatism has to do with the shape of her cornea. I have Astigmatism as well. And Hyperopia is farsightedness.

I think I’ve got it but don’t ask me to pronounce any of those words. I drive Alan crazy when we’re talking about it. I say the words multiple times, multiple ways. And then I stop and ask him if I’m pronouncing it correctly. I should just pronounce them any old way and say them once. We’d get through conversations faster.

So anyhoo back to what I was saying. We were sent home with the contact in Isabelle’s eye and we’re going back tomorrow to check in. The contact can be worn a week but you know what? It’s gone. The contact. I have no idea where it is. It was in Isabelle’s eye before her nap. Then after her nap…I don’t know where it went. I suspect it’s in bed somewhere. She probably rubbed her eye when she woke up. I’ve tried looking for it but no luck.

Ok I just found it. I stopped typing and went searching again. It was under the blankets in the bed and it’s ripped in two. Guess that’s not going to work.

3-2-1 NO contact! We’ll see what the doctor says tomorrow.