Sophie's surgery

Early this morning we left Lydia in the care of Grandma Frazier while the rest of our family drove to Davis Surgical Center for Sophie's procedure.  About two months ago Sophie woke up with an incredible amount of discharge crusted around her eyes making her lashes stick together and resembling the dreaded pink eye that I became so familiar with while teaching. We sent a picture of her eyes to Dr. Bowman, our ophthalmologist neighbor and with his permission, started her on drops right away.

On closer inspection in person he let us know that pink eye was not the issue, but rather that she appeared to have plugged tear ducts.  That would explain the frequent stream of tears often escaping her eyes. Anyway, we met with him twice before scheduling the surgery and found out that this procedure is ideally done on babies ages 9 to 12 months of age.  If taken care of in that window the success rate is considerably higher than if performed any time after that, so there is the possibility of this recurring in Sophie, but we're hopeful that that won't be the case.  With any luck she'll no longer have to deal with tears pooling in the corners of her eyes and leaking down her cheeks.  We just thought Soph had weepy eyes; it never occurred to us that we should be talking to someone about a possible problem....

Last night we tried loading Sophie up with liquid, knowing that she couldn't eat or drink anything after midnight, but apparently we weren't completely successful.  She woke up at 12:30 and wanted a drink.  She often wakes up in the middle of the night and a drink does wonders in getting her to settle down again.  With a little more effort last night I got her back to sleep, but she was up again at 2:00 and Jon rocked her for a while and then brought her into bed with us.  She didn't fall asleep again until almost 5:00.  Poor girl.  Despite that, she was in a great mood for all the nurses, the anesthesiologist, and Dr. Bowman.  I'll admit that it was not my favorite watching the nurse take Sophie away, wondering how she'd respond to the anesthetic and how the surgery would go, but it went by much more quickly than I'd anticipated.  Jon and I were in the lobby trying to watch Lizzie on Good Morning America when Dr. Bowman approached us to say that Sophie had done great!  Her right tear duct had been narrow, but the left was completely blocked off... until now... and they shouldn't cause her any problems any longer.  We hope!  The nurses would come get us as soon as Sophie woke up.

When we went back to see her she was crying quite a bit, but settled down pretty quickly.  She gulped her apple juice and held on to her panda bear, a gift from the surgical center, and took it all like a champ. In fact, she's been her usual cheerful self all day long.  She did get a lengthy and much needed nap this afternoon, but after that she ran around with Lydia, begged to go play on the swing set and bravely went down the slide at the Elementary School all by herself, which was not the plan and ended poorly.  Despite landing on her stomach and getting the wind knocked out of her, she bounced right back and handled her fall incredibly well.  For all our little fighter has been through today, she truly is a champion!

"Camping"

When we got married Jon's company gave us this fantastic tent that we set up once while living in the Dawson house and had high hopes of taking with us on many an adventure.  Adventures that never came to pass.  Never, that is, until last Friday.  Last Friday seemed to be a great day to camp!  A great day to test out how the girls would handle sleeping in the outdoors.  And a great day to use our portable fire pit which has been beckoning to us since May.  Which was about the same time that I purchased all the goods required for s'mores, and they too were calling to us from the pantry.  A great day for memories!

 

 And those memories started rolling as soon as Jon came home from work.  He mowed the lawn immediately and then went right to work on setting up the tent.  The girls were fascinated.  Lydia discovered that it was too hot inside.  We assured her that it would be quite comfortable by the time we went to sleep, but the heat wasn't a real cause for concern.  It didn't keep the girls from playing inside.  Sophie loved running around and getting on the sleeping bags and air mattress.  Neither girl appreciated the sound of the mattress filling with air.  In fact, the very sight of the pump terrified them.  Once everything was set up we picnicked on our picnic table and then settled in to our camping chairs around our cozy fire.

The s'mores were a hit.  Mostly.  The chocolate was definitely the preferred ingredient, but who doesn't love chocolate, marshmallows, and graham crackers?  Jon captured some awesome shots of marshmallow goo stretching great distances between face and fingers.  Did the girls enjoy themselves?  I daresay that they did!  Once the sticky mess was removed from their happy faces it was jammy time and the four of us settled in and snuggled up to watch Toy Story 3 on the iPad.  In the tent.

We were having such a great time until Sophie made it painfully apparent that she wanted nothing more than to sleep, but refused to do so.  I rocked her in the tent and finally realized that I was not going to be successful unless I walked with her and since the tent was only so big she and I went outside and enjoyed the stars and the breeze and dealt with the mosquitoes until she was almost asleep.  I was sure she was out!  But it took just a little bit more than that.  And Toy Story was over and Jon was telling Lyds that it was time to sleep and that we were all going to be together sleeping in the tent and she was not cool with that.  In fact, she wasn't willing to listen to any reassurances.  Period.  She beelined it to the door and got the tent unzipped faster than I would have thought possible.  Point taken.  Jon took her in and got her to sleep after only a few books and sleeping Sophie and I enjoyed the tent until Jon returned.  It would have been nice to sleep in the tent after all the preparation, but the whole evening made it all worth it.

Happy Birthday Jon!!

I really enjoy running with Jon.  Pushing our girls in the stroller together is definitely a good time, and that's how we started his big day- with a family run over to the Junior High and around the field a few times.  He was really good to me and let me push Sophie along in the stroller while Lydia ran (at her request) or walked, depending on how she was feeling, by Jon's side.  When we finished circling our half mile over and over and over again, we headed home and I struggled to keep up with Jon as he sped back to our house, hoping to get the garbage out before the garbage man arrived.  Something that completely caught us by surprise.  Yes, it was Thursday, but it was also a holiday.  And yes, garbage is still collected on Pioneer Day.

In the afternoon we headed to the Living Planet Aquarium.  Apparently everyone in Utah decided to beat the heat and spend the day there as well, but despite that we had a really good time.  It was so fun to see Sophie get so giddy excited at the sight of every fish, especially when they swam close to where she stood watching.  More than once both little ladies started as huge fish swam up and caught them by surprise.  Lydia was determined to find the sharks.  She tolerated the jelly fish, put up with the penguins, barely noticed the octopus, and through it all kept asking to see the sharks.  And when we finally got there I think she was expecting to see much larger sharks, but she seemed pretty happy anyway.  We sat, ate goldfish crackers and enjoyed the ocean life.  Jon got to see a turtle that didn't stick around for long, and perhaps had it known that it was his birthday and that he wanted him to swim back, the turtle might have accommodated him, but he didn't know and he didn't return.  At least not while we were there.  At the very end we went to the South American section.  I loved watching the girls gawk at the ducks.  They'd eat, jump in the water for a quick swim, wand go back to eating and Sophie especially was fascinated!  I can't get enough of that girl!  I love the squeals as she takes in her world.

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We raced home, picked up Jon's carrot cake and headed up to Mom and Dad Fraziers where we enjoyed a BBQ and watched the kids play in the kiddie pool.  Our girls love the water!  Aunt Stacey even stepped inside and held Soph's hands to keep her safe.  Lydia swam and swam and didn't want to get out.  And then it was time for cake.  Sophie found some fantastic Happy Birthday candles and Jon lit them up.  After we sang to him, he cut his cake too.  He said he didn't mind, but I wish I'd stepped in and done those things for him.....after all, who should have to do that on their birthday?!

And once we'd filled up on cake we walked three houses over and joined the Pynes for fireworks.  It started with Snakes, something I don't remember doing as a kid, but which quickly became very exciting for the cousins.  It was so much fun watching those things expand all over the gravel.  Jon became Mr. Fireworks and lit up the sky.  The kids loved picking which firework would come next and Jon would do his magic.  Lydia fell in love with sparklers, and returned to Uncle Lance again and again and again and each time was rewarded with another one.  She was so  mesmerized with the lights that with every new one she'd bring it closer and closer to her face and I started to wonder if she wasn't going to light her hair on fire.  She dropped one or two in the grass a few times and we rushed to pick it before something unfortunate happened.  My favorite part was hearing her tell Uncle Lance thank you.  He seriously must have lit 20 sparklers for her.  And she enjoyed every one!  At the same time Lydia was lost in her sparklers, Sophie kept running to Jon every chance she got.  She'd escape me and run to him expecting to be picked up.  She did this over and over and crazily enough she wore herself out just as Jon lit up some pretty loud fireworks.  She decided she was tired and fell asleep without much of a fight.  I couldn't believe the explosions she was sleeping through!  She slept in Grandma Frazier's arms while Jon lit a few more fireworks and I packed up our chairs.  She kept sleeping when we got her into the car to head home, and she even slept through the transfer from car seat to crib.  What's more than that is that she made it peacefully though the night.  It must have been a fun and exhausting day.  Jon slept pretty well through the night too.  I have it on good authority that it was a good day for him too!