Eye of the Tiger

I thought that I should update those who don't already know. Little E's eye is better and my wife's car is back in the shop today. Little E had another adventure the night that I last posted as she went into the emergency room due to the eye that was poked swelling up quite a bit. This worried us enough to call the advice nurse who told us to get her into the ER. So a four and a half hour trip later, she came home feeling a little better with a bottle of Tylenol with Codine, but still swollen and with instructions to get an appointment for the next day, which was Friday.

So Friday she got an appointment at 10 in the a.m. and I took another day off work to take her. Her eye seemed to be getting better and while we were getting ready to leave for the doctors I got her to open it. I'd given her some of the Tylenol earlier that morning and she must have felt well enough to finally give it a shot. That was a half-hour before her appointment. We got to the doctor and now that she could see again she was pointing out all sorts of things to me in the waiting room. Like the color of the chairs (red and green) the pictures of flowers on the wall, and the really big belly on the lady just a few seats down. I think the actual quote was, "Daddy, we're sitting on red chairs, that lady is sitting on a green chair, and she has a really big belly." I don't think the really big belly lady heard her because she didn't move, of course she did have a really big belly and it may have been to much for her to swing her head around.

The doctor said that it was probably just swollen because she had been rubbing her eye. So Little E got herself an eye patch. An eye patch to keep her from rubbing her eye. It was like when they give dogs those cones around their necks so they won't scratch or bite their stitches. Same thing. She spent the rest of that day actually watching movies and resting. And the next day she was almost completely better and now she's fine.

My wife's car was fixed from it's major problem and now has a minor problem that may or may not be related to the first problem, it's in the shop right now, and I'm waiting to hear what's wrong.


In other good news, (actual good news) Big T was offered and accepted the role of reader of the Little League Pledge on opening day for the league. He read it along with a little girl from another team and did great. I didn't know how he would do with something like that. But he was fine in front of the big crowd. I was one very proud papa, I tell you what.

Ay Carumba

So Little E was just recovering from her parachuteless skydive off the jungle gym when I went and poked her in eye with an umbrella. That's what the nurse put in the computer, 'Dad hit her in the eye with an umbrella.' Before you get all bothered about abuse and such, let me set the scene for you.

Yesterday morning about 6:45 in the a.m., it was raining pretty hard. It was one of my wife's parents days to watch the kids. I've been driving my mom's car instead of my van because my wife's car is in the shop because of a blown head gasket. So anyhoo, I've got my boy in the house and have come back out to get Little E out of the car. She says that she wants me to use the umbrella so she doesn't get as wet. So I pop it open and have it resting over us using the roof of the car and the open door to hold it. I get her out of her seat and am turning her around, so she's facing away from me, when the umbrella starts to fall. My former cat-like reflexes grab for the umbrella, but because my hands are trying to hold on to my daughter, my arm goes out and hits the umbrella in the middle of the handle and flings it upward toward her head. It hits her in the eye with one of the metal prongs (which seems like a very major design flaw) and she starts crying because it hurts.

I get her into the house and look at her eye and don't see any blood or discoloration so I think that maybe it just hit her near the eye and she'll be fine in a bit. I get my hugs and hi-fives and head out the door to go to work. About 10, I get a call from my wife who is heading over to her parents because her mom is freaking out because she can't get Little E to stop crying. I get a call 20 minutes later telling me to come and get Little E because she's just sobbing non-stop. I go get her and bring her home at around 11:15 a.m. My wife gets her a doctors appointment at 2:50 that afternoon. When we get home, she says that she wants to watch Toy Story 2, but what she really wants is to listen to it because she won't open her eyes. She falls asleep a bit after the movie starts and stays down for a good hour and a half. Once she wakes up she has a snack and lays back down and sleeps for another hour or so. In between all this whenever she has to pee, I have to carry her to the bathroom because she won't open her eyes to see where she's going.

We get to the doctors and she's not thrilled to be there, but the doctor gives her an eyedrop that numbs her eye for a while so she opens it up and the doctor sees a small scratch on her cornea. She should be better hopefully tonight or tomorrow. Overall, she's not feeling well because she's had a nasty head cold for the past few days to go along with this new injury. But I'm hopeful that she'll be fine again soon.

On a lighter note, part of my job is to type up reviews that librarians write up for books that they read. I just got another doozy and thought that I'd share it with you.

I don't know how well you can see this as I've discovered that I'm not a great photographer with my phone, but the librarian has misspelled 'intelligent'.And people wonder why our kids don't get a good education.

Free Falling

Well electronical friends, it seems like these gaps are becoming more and more common, yes? And yet, things are happening. This past weekend was birthday weekend, with my little brother coming down from Petaluma to the family get together/birthday party for him. My dad made ribs and potato and macaroni salad, and it was a great food day. It's always nice to have the family get together, and my aunt and uncle came down from Lower Lake and I got my uncle the dimensions for the area of my upcoming garden and he let me know that he has two kinds of squash, zuchinni, bell peppers, beans, three types of tomatoes and onions ready to come down in a couple weeks. So that means that me and the fam will make a pilgrimage up there to get the plants and set up with the materials that I'll need for irrigation and weed control. It also means that I should probably start building that raised planter. Soon.

Sunday was spent over at a friends house, whose daughter was celebrating her 8th birthday. Our kids are pretty close in age, so they enjoy playing with each other. They also have a play structure deal, like the ones from Costco. The kids love playing on that thing, there's swings, and a slide and a couple ladders. I'm not sure exactly what happened, as I was inside talking to people, and my wife was talking to someone else outside so she didn't see it right away, either. But I poked my head out the door just in time to see my little 3 year old girl helicopter spin off the top of the ladder and fall face first onto the safety mat seven feet below. She landed in a belly-flop manner and you could definately hear the thud. It seemed to happen in slow motion, and Thank God she landed on the mat and not another foot away where the cement patio was. I picked her up and she was trying to cry, but having a hard time, as the wind was knocked out of her. Once she caught her breath back, she cried for a while, and my wife took her from me, because I guess I wasn't doing a good enough job soothing her. I found them a few minutes later in the bathroom, with my wife cleaning my daughters face off. My son was pretty freaked out about this, as he suddenly became very shy and didn't want to leave my side.

Soon after this episode it was time for the kids to decorate their cupcakes, and she did this with her big brother and all was fine. She ate her hot dog, and about 15 minutes later was asking if she could go play on the playground again. So we let her, just disallowing her up the ladder she fell off of. So either the memory was gone, or she just didn't care. My kids are pretty tough. I say that, because the only other explanation is that they don't learn. And I'm pretty sure they learn.