Grease It Up

This picture has absolutely nothing to do with what I am going to post about...but I thought it was cute how he was reading the cereal box.

Things have been going well with the house. Mike has been over most nights this week prepping or painting. So far the master bedroom & bath have been painted & Rooney's room is basically done. I will have to go over mid-week and add the paw prints. We are doing his room the same as it is here. We like it plus we thought it might make the transition to the new house easier. We don't think the main bathroom will be painted before we move it but...what are you going to do?

I was over at the house on Sunday. Roonster and I went to visit Mike. While we were there I noticed that the kitchen was kind of dirty. I decided I would start cleaning while Rooney was eating his lunch. Wow! I really opened a can of worms there! I cannot believe how disgusting the kitchen turned out to be. On the surface it looked OK but if you looked close you start to notice the cabinet doors were kind of scungy as were the outside of the fridge and stove. As I started getting in there with a little elbow grease it became more and more evident there must have been a jelly fight at some point. It also became evident these people never looked lower than eye level. There was splattered food and grease everywhere. I even had to clean the dishwasher! Yuck. I pulled out all the drawers from the fridge, cleaned the hood of the stove & even underneath the kitchen sink.

I decided when I got home to check out our kitchen, in case I was being too harsh. In all fairness there were a few splatters underneath the hood but I felt vindicated when I opened up our dishwasher & there was no crumbolis! A ha! They were huge slobs! I will be the 1st to admit our floors get pretty gross now with a 15mo. constantly throwing food on the floor and 2 dogs, but nothing like this.

Anyway, the house has a base clean. I think we have several more days ahead of us.

All Wet!

Last night we went to Rooney's swimming lessons. I love that Mike and Rooney can do something together where they can bond. What a trust builder...on Rooney's end at least. Rooney did really well but got a little cold near the end. Thank heavens we're over the Arctic Blast we had recently.

Mike and I went for our final Lasik pre-op appointment before the lessons yesterday. It has been a long time since I've had my eyes dilated. Being dilated so long kind of made me nauseous. Also, when I was taking pictures at the pool I couldn't really see the picture on the display after I took it. I just had to hope some of them turned out well. The good news is that Mike and I are both scheduled for our surgeries. Because of the amblyopia I have, it was not clear if I would be a good candidate, but I got the call this morning that the surgeon thought everything would work well for me. I was even told that after a year or so they may consider doing my left eye (I was previously told there is no way they would touch that eye). Our appointments are on Feb. 15th & the 22nd. Oooooo I'm excited and nervous already. Mike is going 1st so I can see how it goes with him.

Alot is really going on this month. We are currently getting our new house ready. We plan to move in Superbowl Saturday. Mike has been over the last couple night and started painting. We are having issue with installing baby gates but hopefully Jim & Mike can get something worked out. Sorry I haven't really taken any photos yet. I've been having to keep a hold of Rooney when I'm there. Photos coming soon I hope.

Amlyopi...what?

Yesterday we took Rooney to his first optometrist appointment. Taking a 15mo old may seem early to alot of people. It was very important to me that his eyes get checked and as you will read we had good reason.

Some of you know that I am severely nearsighted in my right eye. I was diagnosed with "lazy eye" (as I've always known it) when I was 5 years old. I wore glasses, a patch over my eye and I remember getting eye drops. My understanding was my eye was as strong as it was going to get when I was 13 and I no longer had to wear glasses full time. When I was a kid that was the extent of my knowledge of my condition. All I knew, or cared about, was that I did not have to worry about a patch or glasses again.

When I was pregnant I read somewhere that children, who have just 1 parent with "lazy eye", have a 50% chance of getting it. The earlier it is caught, the more they can do for the child and it was strongly suggested that children of parents that have this condition have their eyes checked in infancy. The good news is that Rooney inherited Mike's eyes. The MD said it would be very rare that Rooney would now develop "amblyopia". If you click on the link you can read about the condition and read that, even though the treatment is the same from when I was a kid, they feel that prolonged use of those techniques could have positive results. Rooney not having this condition was such a relief to me but I have to admit I was made a little sick to my stomach to think there was possibly more that could have been done for me. Mike and I are planning on having Lasik surgery soon. Mike should be able to come out it with 20/20 vision but for me they will only do surgery on my "bad eye" (my right eye) for fear if my good eye was traumatized in some fashion I would basically be blind. Also, after surgery my vision will only be somewhat better but it should push off the need for reading glasses to a bit later in life. Any better vision is better vision as I see it though. So look for updates about that surgery!

Anyway, Rooney could still develop other eye problems such as nearsightedness but not amblyopia. The MD suggested we bring Rooney back when he is 4 years old so that he could actually measure his sight.

Below are two pictures I found that show how a person with amblyopia sees things if they were to look through each eye independently.

Our Best Friend

Today we did it! We finally signed the papers to our new house! There were many obstacles and I was dubious at many points if we were actually going to do it, but it's done. So where's the keys?

Ok onto a completely different subject...for a long time now I have been hunting for a new blanky for Rooney. His current blanky is in desperate need of a vacation. The nose is being sucked off! I have bought two other security blankets, so his favorite could be washed once in awhile, but he doesn't pay them any attention.

Part of the problem in finding this exact, "My Best Friend" blanket, is that Carter's has discontinued making it. What were they thinking? I thought I would scour the Internet and see if I could find one floating around. I found several on Ebay. They were NWT and I was pretty jazzed until I saw the prices. The lowest priced one was $24.99! Yikes I think this was $7.99 when it was in the stores. I'm afraid to ask why they are so expensive now. Is there some weird group of people that collect baby security blankets? I think there might be...and that scares me.

In the meantime, while these weirdos are collecting their little obsessions they are jacking up the price on our sanity!

Hee Haw

I'm not sure if you've heard but Seattle was hit with another snow storm. Wednesday night was awful. Mike left work at 4:30pm and was then stuck in traffic for the next 5-1/2hrs! I couldn't possibly imagine. Everytime I spoke with Mike on the phone he was so calm and cool. While I'm talking to him, and he is telling me it took him 1/2hr to go 1 mile, I was picturing myself in the car, banging my head against the steering wheel. The only thing Mike asked for was to be home before his birthday.

His wish was granted and the next day (his birthday) we all stayed home. So what are we going to do with this whole day? Mike decided to give Rooney a haircut (haircut #2). This haircut didn't seem to go as smooth as the 1st one. After alot of tears, and a Pringle, Mike got the job done and Rooney was back to looking like my little man. Earlier in the day we had all tried to go out and build a snowman. The snow was too powdery though and we just ended up with wet mittens. Rooney seemed to like the snow until he fell into it barehanded and then Mom insisted he wear gloves. Didn't like the gloves, didn't want them on and wanted nothing to do with them again. We all went in shortly afterwards.

Rooney is trying to communicate so much now. Most of the time his attempts end in frustration and his whole meal on the floor but tonight he was very clear. As we were eating dinner Rooney started saying "ass, ass". After several attempts of saying "ass, ass" and alot of finger pointing we figured out he wanted our juice glasses from dinner. Oh! It clicked and the "'ass, 'ass" made sense, right? So I let him hold the glass and he gets very excited. Once I give him the glass, he started to "possess" the glass, and love the glass. And then he's got so excited he started to shake the glass, and swing the glass.

So...now "ass, ass" started to make even more sense. He knew what I was going to feel like after I gave him the glass.

Baywatch...The Next Generation

Tonight Mike took Rooney to Renton Pool and started swimming lessons. It's quite chilly tonight and it really didn't seem very appropriate to be going, but that class was full. And yes, if you are wondering if that is Dana and Felix in the picture, you would be right.

Oh man did it look like Rooney was enjoying himself (Felix too). It was very loud in there, alot of kids and parents and the possibility of an overstimulation meltdown seemed just about imminent. It wasn't, thankfully. I think all the bouncing, splashing and short exercises really helped keep him entertained. Plus he got to spend time with Dad and they both got to show off their guns to Mom.

I have not posted about Rooney's 15 month MD appointment. Roonster's growth has slowed a little bit. This means Mike may have to revise his rendering of Rooney at 17 (So Big, Oct. 5, 2006). Instead of his usual 2" growth every 3 months he only grew 1" this time. The Big Guy is now 34 3/4" tall (still off the chart) and 26lbs 5oz. He's not really that heavy for his height but he's quite heavy to be lifting. This kid is already breaking my back and I realized that with more kids I will probably have a sore back the rest of my life! And then grandkids! Yikes!

Your parents warn you...but you never really think it's going to happen to you.

S P L A T!

Yuck! What are they doing? Here's Mike and I ringing in the New Year! We spent New Year's Eve with Annie, Jim, Dana, Renae and Brandi. We went to Dana & Renae's traditional spot, Salty's, and waited for the countdown. Rooney was safely being watched by Natalie and Megan. Turns out he rang in the new year himself. Wide awake at midnight he got to watch the countdown with his cousins. To see the rest of the New Year's Photos click here.

New Year's Eve was a nice distraction from everything going on. Our house is still set to close on Jan. 18th. Mike and I have been running around providing all the additional documents they always need and signing papers. It's amazing how you can forget how to sign your name mid-way through a signing session. We are still in the process of removing our fallen tree and Rooney and I are just starting to get back into our groove w/our mom groups. My car is still not fully restored but I did get a new window installed and Sirius sent me a new receiver (free of charge). I'm still waiting for Car Toys to get the console replacement piece so my new stereo can be installed. It's a very quiet ride in my car now and I hate it. I've been driving Mike's car alot lately.

But there cannot always be good news...yesterday a terrifying thing happened. Mike, Rooney and I went to Target to reestablish supplies. Rooney was getting a little fussy and wanted out of the cart. I figured we were almost done, so if he held my hand, he can walk around with us. Of course that ended up not being good enough (you give these kids an inch) and Rooney wanted to start running all over so I had Mike put him on his shoulders. Rooney really seems to like this and everything was going smooth...until Rooney was able to grab a wine bottle off an upper shelf. Of course the wine bottle was too heavy for him so he dropped it. I'm watching this whole thing unfold and I gasp, but then Mike catches it and for a second I'm relieved and Mike is really proud that he caught the bottle but then...

my eyes grow really wide and I remember hearing myself say "Oh my god!"...

when I see Rooney fall off Mike's shoulders...

and SPLAT right on the ground!

I think that second, that Rooney was laying on the ground, must have been the most terrorizing second of my life...so far (I know there will be more). He cried when we swooped him up, but thankfully, he was wearing his hat and his jacket, and I think when he fell the jacket hood helped cushion his head and he just got the wind knocked out of him. He did a low cry for a little while but finally settled down and seemed fine by the time we got to the store. We've been keeping an eye on him and we haven't observed any odd behavior.

Poor Mike. He feels so awful. He feels like he's a bad dad because Rooney slipped off his shoulders. The whole incident happened so fast and natural reaction was to catch the bottle. I tried to reassure him but he still feels awful. I think they'll both be OK though.

One day, in the far off future, we'll be able to laugh about this and talk about when Rooney was dropped on his head, but for now, with everyone, I think it's a pretty sensitive subject (literally).