New Glasses . . . and Other Things

Please ignore the hair and no makeup look, but notice my new glasses! I am so happy I got new glasses today with non-glare lenses and they are stylish enough that when I am too tired to fit my contacts in my eyes, I can wear these out and feel like I made the "choice" to wear them, rather than out of necessity. In fact, I might just choose to wear them to work tomorrow! The glasses were the highlight of my day . . . the rest of my day was not so much of a good highlight. In fact I think I was angrier at Ethan and Caleb than I've ever been before. I had to take them for their eye glasses follow-up appointment for the first time since they got their glasses. Most of the time, I try to either take one child at a time to appointments, or have my mom or someone else go with me to an appointment with both boys. But today, I had to take them both by myself. Everything was actually going great through both of their check ups, but then as the doctor was trying to talk to me about what to do next, Ethan and Caleb got in a fight over having the same toys they had brought into the office. I tried to negotiate the toys for a quick trade, but neither one was willing to budge, so I had to take all the toys away and put them in my bag. At that time Ethan and Caleb proceeded to throw the loudest screaming and crying tantrums times two in a small, echoing doctor's office. I sat both of the boys in separate chairs and told them they needed to be quiet, but they kept on and on and on . . . for almost 10 minutes straight, which seemed like an eternity. The opthamologist proceeded to try to explain to me the course of action, but it was almost impossible for her to talk or me to hear, with how loudly both of the boys were crying. The only thing I think I could've done differently, after looking back on the situation now, is maybe ask the doctor if we could have a moment for me to finish disciplining the boys without having her talking to me and me trying to listen to her and give them time to calm down from their in office "time outs," but I was so overwhelmed at how badly they were behaving, that I wasn't thinking 100% clearly. After we got home, Caleb went straight to his room for his nap and I put Ethan in our room (since the boys share a room and Ethan doesn't normally nap in the same room with Ethan), and I MADE Ethan stay an hour in the room away from me. I needed the time more than him to cool down. As the afternoon went on, we had an in depth talk about behavior etc. etc. . . . I hope something sunk in. Most of the time, the boys do really well behaving in public, but boy did they make me angry today! I guess we all just do the best we can. I did the best I could in the situation I was in. We have another appointment at the end of the week for some well visits, but my mom will be able to go with me to this one, thank goodness!

Short update on the eye doctor visit, without the tantrum episode included, . . . . basically still neither Ethan or Caleb are using their right eyes, even with the glasses. So, the next steps are either dilation drops in their left eyes to blur the vision in that eye, to make their brain have to use their right eyes hopefully to see. OR to use patches over their left eyes to accomplish the same goal. Although the patches would be hardest to enforce, Scott and I both feel we would like to try the patch option first. The dilation drops would have to be given once a day for four weeks, and can have side effects such as flushing, fevers, constipation, and irritability . . . which we don't really want to subject their bodies to those, if possible. So, we're going to try the natural route first with the patches. I have to call tomorrow to find out how that all works for getting the patches.

So, that is an update from today! Thanks for reading my long post all of my blog readers, at least 2 out there! :-)