Mickey Mouse! And then some......

Ty and Mickey were ready for nap time. Ty went into his room and emerged with the paci, "lovey" and Mickey when he was ready to nap today.

Ty's latest fascination is Mickey Mouse. He loves that mouse! It started with the Disney channel's show, Mickey Mouse Clubhouse that happens to be on when I need a few minutes to literally start moving each morning. I am not being medicated for my arthritis so am I not complaining but it just takes a little time to loosen up and prepare for a day full of keeping one very busy 19 month old boy from hurting himself! Anyway, Ty loves the show and is always excited to see "Mickey". He stole Kate's stuffed animal and insists on wearing his Mickey pajamas as often as he finds them in the drawer, which is often because I do laundry EVERY DAY! He takes Mickey to bed with him and we just found these figures of the clubhouse characters while running errands tonight. He pulled his tractor toy out and was giving all of them rides this evening. It's fun to watch his imagination growing.

I have no segway for this so here it is....Makenna has been sick....AGAIN. This is her fourth bug since November. Not fun. After eleven days of drainage and the start of a fever on days nine and ten, I ran her into the doctor on Monday. She has a sinus infection. She aches all over and is pretty miserable. We worked with the nurse practitioner, Melissa who was thorough and helpful. She's referred us to an allergist for testing next week. The assumption at this point is that Makenna has indoor allergies that keep her run down and therefor more susceptible to illnesses. We've suspected allergies in her for years but they've always been tolerable. Until this year, we'd not noticed any repercussions so we've left well enough alone. Her appointment is scheduled to last about two and a half hours next Wednesday.  I'm a little nervous they are going to determine she is allergic to Brutus. I am personally not attached to him, but he's Lauren's best friend and Greg's buddy. That news will not go over well and I don't want to see that kind of damage done to Lauren and Makenna's relationship. So, I'm sending up some pleas for God to make it a dust allergy so I'll have an excuse to eliminate the space taking stuffed animals in the house.....except for Mickey of course! It would also be great if we can avoid allergy shots. I've not yet mentioned that possibility to Makenna.

Erin had her annual eye exam last Thursday. Erin has more focusing issues, more headaches and cannot read street signs, especially the green ones with white writing. The white boards at school were growing into more of an issue and scan-tron tests were really difficult to read. It turns out that the focusing issue she was diagnosed with last year is more severe and she is now farsighted as well. The official diagnosis is "Hyperopia-Latent Accomodative Insufficiency" and it is expensive. Last year's glasses were almost $400 and were supposed to help her outgrow the focusing issue. They were no longer meeting her needs. We recycled her old frames and still spent $513 on progressive lenses. I was literally feeling ill leaving that appointment. Her teachers have been great about letting her sit up front in each of her classes as she works without any glasses this week. Dr. Amstutz told us to anticipate a two week adjustment period for her to learn how to use her new glasses when we get them. He feels confident she will still outgrow the focusing issue. I pray she does. When he started mentioning the progressive lenses, I asked if he was talking about bifocals and he said "essentially, yes". Erin panicked and screeched, "like Grandma wears"! He assured her the line is not visible and she will still look cute in her glasses. Adding that she will not be able to start driving without them sweetened the deal a bit too. It is just so odd to have her in progressive lenses before her 16th birthday when neither Greg nor I have vision issues.

Well, other than the beautiful spring weather emerging locally, there isn't much more to report. I cleaned some of my windows this afternoon. It felt so good to see such bright sunlight filtering into each room, until I noted how dirty the glass was! Spring cleaning can start now, can't it? I secretly hope it speeds up the process of bringing warm weather here to stay!