Big plans

In a move sure to send shockwaves down the spine of the Ottawa social scene, Tom and I are electing to stay in this New Year's Eve.

I'm going to cook a nice dinner, though.

New template

Got tired of the dots.

Home (not so) Sweet Home

We're back from our travels. After a week immersed in the warm weather and buzz of the Bay Area, I'm finding Ottawa pretty bleak. The snow on the ground is old, so it's all dirty and hardened into crusty piles. We had freezing rain last night and our car looks like something you'd pull out of the back of your freezer. Good thing I don't have to go out today. All the travel and toddler wrangling has made me pretty tired. Henry was quite a handful on the flight back, refusing to sit in his own chair for more than three minutes at a time. After all, why would you want to sit in a dumb car seat when you can climb over Mommy and Daddy like they're your own personal jungle gym for hours and hours? Between that, lugging our stuff through the airport and the fact that I threw out my back the day before while running through the hills of Belmont, the plane trip ended up being quite taxing on my body.

Oh well--it was worth the effort. Our stay in California was a lot of fun. It's a great feeling to get on a plane wearing a big coat and gloves and land a few hours later in a place where you don't even need a sweater (although the weather wasn't perfect--we had a lot of rain and clouds). Henry loved being able to play outside without suiting up in 15 layers of snow gear, and he clearly enjoyed spending time with his grandparents and Uncle Jon. Tom and I enjoyed traipsing around the peninsula in search of good food and wine. Some highlights:

• A splurge-tastic dinner at Berkeley's famous Chez Panisse (the cafe, not the dining room)
• Delicious sushi lunch (twice) in San Mateo
• Shopping for wine at a small store in San Mateo where the owner first ignored us (we were the only people in the place), then suddenly came over and started raving like a total kook about his product line, the difficulties of wine retailing, and his experiences in Napa. We couldn't resist buying the cabernet sauvignon he recommended.
  
• Eating lots and lots of Point Reyes blue cheese
• Beer. Oh,the yummy beer (more on this topic later)

We also did the usual Christmas-type activities, including taking Henry to meet Santa at the local mall. That did not go over so well with Henry, who refused to sit in Santa's lap. So Tom got some quality time with the big guy in the suit.

Merry Christmas!

We're off to Grandma Peggy and Grandpa Mike's in California tomorrow, so I probably won't be blogging for awhile. Have a great holiday, everyone!

Bob The Briber

The patching regime is falling apart. Henry is tearing off patch after patch. We've resorted to using TV as a reward/ bribe for wearing the eye patch. If Henry has it on, he can watch the "Bob The Builder" DVD we bought him recently. When he tears it off, the TV goes off. I'm not sure he's far enough along developmentally to understand the relationship, but we have to do something.

Neither Tom or I are really happy about encouraging him to watch TV like this. But, priorities--the eye therapy and making it work is more important than our reservations about TV watching for little kids.

Henry now wanders around the house saying "Bob. Bob. Bob. Bob." Mildly disturbing. I can't say I really like the show myself. But who am I? Maybe Thomas the Tank Engine is better. I bet I'll be finding out soon.

Eye update and weather ramblings

We returned to the eye doctor yesterday for a checkup. He saw some improvement in Henry's amblyopic eye, so he wants us to patch for another month and see where that gets us before he prescribes glasses. The patching is still going pretty well, although we do have the occasional day (like today) where Henry keeps pulling it off. I think we're on patch #5 today. But most days it's no trouble at all. Most mornings he points to his eye and says "patch!" soon after he wakes up, as if to remind us to put it on.

Today we've been hit with a massive snowstorm. I think there's about 20 cm of snow on the ground, which is, um, LOTS of inches (never could do those metric-to-Imperial conversions). The city hasn't shut down, but things are definitely moving at a much slower pace, and the roads look dicey. But it doesn't matter to us because our five winters in Richmond trained me to run to the grocery store whenever snow is forecast, so we're well stocked with provisions. It's a day to lay low and start packing for our Christmas trip to California. . .

More drama

Just as we were adjusting to the eye patch routine (which is going surprisingly well), Henry had an accident that required a trip to the emergency room. He took a header off the living room chair and smacked his forehead on the coffee table. Basically the skin on his forehead split open. leaving a gash about an inch or so long. I saw the whole thing happen and it was very scary. The good news is that he didn't need stitches. The doctor was able to glue the wound back together and finish it off with some steri strips. Henry was acting normal within an hour and doesn't seem to be suffering any ill effects. The wound is healing nicely. However, I must admit that between the patch and the wound, Henry's looking kinda roughed up these days. What do you think?

Eye update

We took Henry to the ophthalmologist yesterday. Originally we were told that it would be a very long time (i.e. April) before we would get in to see a pediatric ophthalmologist, but it turns out that was only true for the other guy. Good thing we asked around about other options. Anyway, Dr. Bonn confirmed what we pretty much already knew: Henry has strabismus and has also developed significant amblyopia in his left eye. The doctor prescribed a course of treatment that first involves a couple weeks of patching Henry's right eye for about 6 hours a day to force the left one to do the work of seeing again. This is supposed to help strengthen his vision and correct the amblyopia. We go back in about three weeks to see if there's been any improvement. Depending on how things are going, the next step would be to get him glasses. The glasses are supposed to prevent him from crossing his eyes by helping him focus. If his eyes don't straighten out with glasses, the next step is surgery to adjust the muscles that control the movement of his eyeball. If we're going that route, the surgery would be done by next summer.

So, that's where we're at. Now, about that eye patch. Eye patching and toddlers? Not a classic combination. I mean, right now Henry's prone to throwing a fit when we try to do something so banal as put his pants on in the morning. So you can imagine that he was not too psyched about wearing an eye patch. Our first attempt to put it on was a total failure. Tom held Henry's arms while I struggled to affix the patch while holding his head still (they work like a bandage). I got the thing on, but Henry immediately tore it off. We tried again, with the same result. Tom and I started wondering how in the hell we could make this treatment plan work. But after some Internet research on getting toddlers to go along with the patch, we tried again. First, Tom and I put eye patches on ourselves ("See, Mommy and Daddy wear patches--it must be totally cool!"). Then we put socks over Henry's hands, complete with masking tape around the wrists so he couldn't tear them off. Then we put the patch back on. Presto! He can't tear the patch off. And luckily he's into wearing mitts right now, so he didn't even mind the sock gloves too much. Our goal was to have him wear the patch for an hour. He ended up wearing it until bath time--the full 6-hour time period. I guess once he gets used to having it on, it doesn't bother him. We even took the gloves off after a few hours.

So we're off to a good start with it. We even took Henry out to the store today wearing his patch. Luckily he's way too young to be self-conscious about it. But for Tom and me it was a little tough to see the double-takes. We're used to people staring at Henry because he's so cute! Anyway, there are worse things, and as long as we can keep Henry wearing the damn thing, we're game. I just hope it does enough that we can avoid adding glasses (how we'll get him to wear those without completely trashing them, I do not know) and surgery to the mix.