Dance Recital

Yesterday I had the pleasure of seeing the costume for Brendan's next dance recital (June 2012).  Yes, I just paid $80 for a hot pink sequined vest, bow tie and crazy black pants (the price jumped $20 from last year).  Shhh, don't tell my husband.  Brendan thinks I love the costume.  I am reminding myself that dance is good for his social skills, coordination and self confidence.  Plus he likes dance class.  And he likes bouncing around in those noisy tap shoes.  I just never pictured myself buying my son an $80 pink sequined vest.  (For the record, I am not the mom who thinks boys can't wear pink or like dolls.  They just can't like $80 pink things.)

Okay, I'm over it.  Now, I'm still sorting through the 1000 photos that Aidan and I took over Thanksgiving and trying to delete the blurry ones.  I'm also trying to decorate for Christmas and fight off this massive cold I am getting.  Wish me luck!!  Happy December!

Phone Dump

I am finally processing all the photos from my cell phone that I have taken since August and it has been amusing to go through these.  I use the camera to entertain Aidan at the bus stop or to take photos when I don't have my camera with me.  My phone has quite possibly the worst camera ever, but sometimes I would rather have a bad picture than no picture at all.

Aidan's art project hanging at school

Brendan's dream car.  We saw it in the parking lot at the library and he kept telling me that it was "so cool."  I snapped a photo after laughing.  He liked the rust and dents, too.

Here are some more random photos.  I'm thinking you can figure out which ones Aidan was responsible for. There are a ton of photos of Aidan because he poses all the time and asks me to take his picture.

I have a lot of photos to catch up on from our Thanksgiving trip.  More to come!

And so it begins...

 We did one hour yesterday and two hours today.  He is taking it rather well and he gets to "play" with my camera and take pictures with it if he cooperates and leaves the patch on.  He is not thrilled but not ripping it off either.

Vision Therapy ~ Ophthalmology Update

I mentioned awhile ago that Aidan was going to start with vision therapy.  We went into it feeling good but were soon disappointed on several fronts.  First, it is not covered by our insurance and costs a whopping $79 for a 30 min session.  Then, about 3 mins into Aidan's first session I realized that we were basically going to do OT with an eye patch on.  There is nothing wrong with that except the price.  We have had an amazing OT since Aidan was a baby and I would love to pay her $79 for 30 mins.  I have also learned a lot about OT in the last 6 years and I could probably pay myself the cash and do the OT at home.  With a 75 cent eye patch.  With a little consulting from our adored OT, Miss Betsy.  Then, we had a few problems with the place Aidan was getting the therapy, such as appointment changes without notice and other irritating things that are not the end of the world but are annoying enough to make you want to avoid them.  Also, we have such a crazy schedule at the moment that it has been hard for us to follow through with the vision therapy every day at home.  We have quite a bit of homework every night and I feel guilty patching his eye and making him work on things that are hard for him.  I also feel guilty patching his eye during his few moments of free time since his schedule is so packed.  Follow through has just been difficult and no changes are going to happen from only 30 mins per week.


So, long story short, it was Aidan's optometrist who recommended the vision therapy.  She also refers us to an ophthalmologist once a year and given our unhappiness with the situation we wanted a second opinion on the situation from the doc. (For those who have no need to worry about vision, an ophthalmologist is a medical doctor completing the typical med school and residency while an optometrist is a Doctor of Optometry - I like to think of them as kinda like a Ph.D.  Our optometrist is good, but she ain't no medical doctor. :) )

Aidan had his ophthalmology appointment last week and we had several things to discuss with her.  First up was vision therapy.   If Aidan needs vision therapy then I will not complain and I will just pay the money and find the time to squeeze it in every day.  But since it has been making us miserable on several fronts, if he doesn't need it then I am ready to throw in the towel.  So, the doc had good and bad news about this.  She thinks vision therapy is a waste of money.  That was the good news.  The bad news is that she thinks he needs his eye patched for 6 hours per day for the next 3 months.  (He has amblyopia caused by anisometropia.)  We are going to try to do all the patching at home and not have to worry about it at school.  I am trying to think long-term and not feel guilty for torturing him during homework or fun during the short-term.

We also talked to the doc about Aidan's frequent occurrences of pink eye.  He had it 8 times last winter and has had it twice so far since school started.  She thinks this is a result of his narrow tear ducts.  When he gets inflammation in his nasal passages then his tear ducts do not drain properly and there is a back flow into the eyes.  Probably the best thing that came from this appointment is that I now have eye drops on hand and do not have to run to the pediatrician every time he gets an eye infection.

So, the patches should be arriving in the mail shortly and the fun will begin.  We have discontinued vision therapy.  We will be seeing the doc again in February.  Every ophthalmology appointment we have ever been to for Aidan has lasted for 3-4 hours, so I will admit that I am not looking forward to going 4 times per year.  Our last appointment was pretty miserable at times (a few days after the time change, during nap time with a crazy 2 year old).

We have also decided that with all of Aidan's vision complications we are switching to the ophthalmologist for all appointments.  We switched to the optometrist back in the day when we were frustrated with these never-ending ophthalmology appointments.  They seriously go on for hours.  But, there is no point in doing both.  We are happy to be back with Dr. Cassady, who was Aidan's original eye doc from back when he was 6 months old.

Wish us luck!!  A new adventure is about to begin!

Dougherty Cabin Weekend

Dougherty Family ~ 2011

We spent Halloween weekend with my mom's side of the family to enjoy our 2nd annual Dougherty Family Cabin Weekend.  We were brave and spent the night this year.  Liam doesn't wake as early as he used to, but with all of us sleeping in the same room you can bet your britches that when he wakes up the rest of us are soon to follow.  I sure hope that we were able to keep quiet enough at 6am that we didn't wake up everyone else at the cabin.

We had a fabulous time yet again.  The biggest challenge was knowing where all three of my children were at the same time.  Since we were together over Halloween weekend we had a lot of activities for the kids.  Planning activities is not my talent, so many thanks to my cousins and sister for their creative ideas.

The kids loved the weekend!!    There was so much excitement.  Besides getting to run around with the other kids, play games, go trick-or-treat-ing and eat too much candy, the boys got to sit on a horse.  The lady who has the farm next to the property was lovely and let the kids pet her animals and feed them before she went and got one of her horses for the kids to sit on.  They were in heaven!!  At least in our world, it's not every day you get to sit on a horse.

Aidan

Brendan

Glenn 

Liam

Jacob

We look forward to next year and hope that our kids Liam will learn to sleep a little later.

I love my family and it was so nice to see everyone :)

Happy Halloween!!

The kids were so excited for Halloween this year.  We had a great time.  It was a strange day with a lot of weird storms including pelting hail followed by gorgeous rainbows.  I wasn't sure if the weather would hold out for trick-or-treat.  While it was very damp, the rain stayed away while the kids were out.

My Clifford and two Dinosaurs

The photos of Liam above are the only two I have of him from trick-or-treat.  He had a string of 3 days where he didn't get a nap and let's just say that he had a lot of "two year old" moments during our outing.  We all enjoyed ourselves, but he made it hard work at times.  :)  Things are getting back to normal this week and he hasn't missed a nap since Monday.

the boys in front of a "spooky" house

Brendan running through the fog

Some houses in our neighborhood were really fun with lots of very creepy decorations and fog.  The boys love that kind of thing right now.  Thanks to Nana for the special bags the boys used to collect their treats.

Happy Halloween everyone!!