#2

Tonight was Jack's very first regular season tournament game. They are seeded #1. Jack had a great game. He had a great scoop up at Short Stop and threw it to First Base. It wasn't the best (most accurate) throw but he got it there and close. But, Brian was VERY happy with him and how fast he got it out of his mitt. He also played First and got a ball, fumbled it, recovered and beat the kid to First. Then, to top off the night, he hit his second over-centerfield home run. It was AWESOME!! He and we were sooooo excited!!

A couple things...

There's so much to write about since I'm so far behind but wanted to note a couple things...

Abby lost her paci at Mom's while we were in Fayetteville for Jeff's Grandma's funeral. She hasn't had one since! 4/7/09

Girls are playing T-ball at Holy Rosary...cute!

Jack hit his first home run Saturday! We had just gotten back from Cape San Blas, FL and it was his 3 time batting. First pitch and WHAM! It soared over the centerfield fence. There was one other boy on base. He was SOOOOOOO excited...as were we!! 5/30/09

Jack was chosen to play on an All Star team. He had his first 2 hr practice yesterday (5/31/09). Jeff said it was definitely more intense. Hopefully Jack will do ok with the pressure!!

Jack got his glasses today

Well, our son had a major milestone in his life today. He got glasses. I have so many emotions about it and I don't want to write everything down in here, but it was a very emotional day for me (and probably Missy too). It's kind'of a long story, but I'll try to recount it here.

It all started when Jack failed an eye test in kindergarten. He came home with a sheet of paper that said he couldn't see as well in his left eye and that we needed to have it checked out. So we called our eye doctor (Dr. Hayden) and got him an appointment with Dr. Stearns (Dr. Hayden doesn't see kids). Well, Jack was his last patient that day and he seemed like he was in a hurry to go and seemed to rush things. Jack couldn't see the letters very well, but they have small exam rooms and have a mirror on the front wall that you look through to see the letters on the back wall and I think that mirror blurs things a bit and makes it harder to see. The only kind of eye test they had were letters and Jack doesn't know his letter that well, so I wasn't sure if he had trouble seeing them or remembering what they were. He also only dilated his eyes for about 10-15 min (he was in a hurry). He said that Jack has a fair amount of astigmatism and needed to get some glasses right away. I was shocked! I had no idea what astigmatism meant so I asked him about it and asked him why he needed glasses since he had never complained of not being able to see things. He kind'of snapped back and said that Jack could suffer permanent damage to the vision center in his brain because his brain was still developing and cannot see a clear image because of the astigmatism. So needless to say, I was pretty upset and started doing all kids of research on astigmatism.

I found out that Dr. Stearns was right about astigmatism in children. Kids' vision center is still developing until they are about 9 years old and if astigmatism is left untreated, it can result in amblyopia or "lazy eye". But I also did a lot of reading that said myopia has been diagnosed more and more in the past 50 years and there are some doctors that think it is caused by lots of "close work" or focusing the eyes on close objects. Myopia is much more prevalent in Asian cultures and about 80% of children have myopia in Singapore, so there has been some research that has suggested that things like reading, using a computer, watching TV, etc. can cause myopia because the ciliary muscles contract when focusing on close objects which causes the eye to strain and not see distant objects very well. They say that children need to do more things outside, in the sun, which lets the eye relax by focusing on distant objects and forces the pupils to constrict in the bright light. Some doctors say that kids need to use +3 reading glasses when doing close work because it lets the eyes relax. I also read that a Pediatric Ophthalmologist really needs to diagnose astigmatism in children because they are better at testing them, etc. so we made an appointment with Dr. Judith Englert for a second opinion.

Jack's appointment with Dr. Englert was MUCH better. They did not have a mirror. They had pictures of things like a car, a birthday cake, and a crab. The nurse was very patient and made Jack comfortable and encouraged him to do his best on the test. They also let his eyes dilate for about an hour before doing the exam. He clearly had trouble seeing the pictures when they got pretty small. Dr. Englert also diagnosed him with astigmatism, so we were upset and relieved at the same time. I had tons of questions written down that I was going to ask her about myopia and the need for glasses, but I knew as soon as she said he had astigmatism, all my questions were unnecessary.

Well, we got him and started planning on when we were going to take him to get fitted for some glasses, and I happened to compare the prescriptions from Dr. Stearns and Dr. Englert and they were totally different!!! What was going on? They weren't even close. I wondered how this could be and if he needed to see ANOTHER doctor. We were very upset and confused, but we finally decided to send Dr. Hayden an email and ask him what to do, so I took pictures of each prescription and sent them to Dr. Hayden. He wrote back a couple days later and said that the prescriptions were actually very, very close! Dr. Stearns writes his in the "minus" format and Dr. Englert writes hers in the "plus" format. The optometrist translates the "plus" format to the "minus" format to make the glasses, so Dr. Stearns does that translation for them to reduced errors. Man, were we relieved and thankful to learn that!!!

Well, a couple days later, we went to Eye Mart and picked out some very cute frames for Jack. He was very, very excited. I'm not sure why, but I'm very glad he was. I think maybe it's because I wear my glasses from time-to-time and he thinks it's cool, but I sure hope he stays that way. It literally broke my heart the first time he tried on those frames. They totally changed the way he looks. I remember so clearly all the struggles I went through with glasses and how much I hated them and I don't want Jack to go through those things too. They totally changed my personality. They totally changed the way people interacted with me and how they looked at him. They made me more timid in sports because I was always afraid I was going to break my glasses. I could go on and on because there are so many emotions I have about Jack getting glasses today, but I know he's going to read this someday and I don't want to negatively influence him based of my own experience with glasses. I didn't get mine until I was 9 so my personality was much more developed that his is at 6. I hope with all my heart that his experience is better than mine.

Today was the day we picked them up and he put them on for the first time. I was hoping and praying that he would be able to see everything so much better as soon as he put them on, but even that didn't happen. We tried to test him informally by asking him to read various signs around the office at Eye Mart and it was pretty clear that he couldn't see any better (or worse) with the glasses on. The lady that was helping me even called another lady over to get her opinion. She took them to the lab and tested them to make sure they were the right prescription and she came back and said they were perfect. We tried several more things and he just couldn't see that much better with the glasses on. She told me that the astigmatism adjustment might take some getting used to and to let him wear them for a couple of days and keep testing him to see if he sees better and if not, go back to Dr. Englert. He did really well with them today and I threw him some baseballs and he seemed to not have any problem hitting them. He might have even done a little better with the glasses on (definitely not worse). He also did fine with catching, so I really don't think they are making things worse for him. I guess we'll just have to see how he does in a few more days.

Awesome email from Carolyn Gilliam

Just got this email from Carolyn Gilliam this morning:

I know this may sound very sappy, but these days I am heavily medicated with MS drugs.

You and Missy are doing such a fine job of raising your family. The kids may be very challenging these days, and you may not see results right now, but believe me they will be in your future.

Have a great week,
CG


Needless to say, that is one of the nicest (and most appreciated) things anyone has ever told me. I'm not really sure why she said this but I sure hope she's right. Missy and I try very hard to do things as a family and we work very hard to keep things running smoothly at home because and nothing is more important to us. But as parents, you never know if you're doing the right thing or not. You hear so many conflicting opinions: don't pamper them, don't protect them too much, don't spoil them, quantity vs. quality is more important with time, etc. etc. etc... It's all so confusing and difficult when you want more than anything in the world to raise good, loving, hard working kids. The thing I always seem to fall back on is that children learn what they live and if you give them lots of love and time, they will turn out OK.

Miss Ally and her vocabulary

Mom was supposed to pick up the girls from school today but Dad went instead. He said he was the first person there and went in and the girls got really excited and Ally was saying "That's my Papaw!". Mrs. Hayes said to Ally "were you not expecting your Papaw?" and then Ally said "No I was expecting my Grandma and my Papaw just magically appeared!" Mrs. Hayes said "Magically appeared?" and Ally said "YES, magically appeared!" She cracks me up!!!!!

Jack’s First Ski Trip!

We just got home from probably the best ski trip of my life!!! Jack and I went to Paoli for the day and we both had an absolute blast! It was a perfect day – about 40 degrees and full sun. It was pretty crowded, but not too bad – probably because of the snow and ice storm we had this week. I've been trying to get a group together for a couple of weeks… Greg and Billie wanted to go pretty badly, but her parents were staying at their house, so they really couldn't leave. Blake wanted to go, but he didn't have any money. And Abram wanted to go, but he just got back from Canada yesterday, so he wanted to stay home. But I'm actually very glad it was just Jack and me. It gave us a chance to spend lots of time together and I was able to focus on him and teach him how to do it. It started out pretty rough. They have this new area for kids on the rightmost side of the mountain and it's very flat and surrounded by a hill of snow so there is no way for a kid to accidentally go down a large hill. Jack was pretty uneasy and didn't have much balance at first, but he didn't get frustrated at all and kept trying over and over. I was really proud of him. We stayed there for a while and then he said he was ready to ride a chair lift, so we went all the way over to the leftmost green circle run and rode it all the way down. It was kind'of scary because even that run is pretty steep compared to the bunny slopes and especially to the kid's area! Jack followed behind me and held on to my waist and we went down together. Even with him holding on to me, he lost his balance and fell down a couple of times. At the end of the run there is a very steep part and he started sliding down under me and ended up going between my legs! He slid for about 20 yards on his own and started picking up some serious speed, but he remembered what I told him and he fell over to the side to stop. I think it scared him pretty good (scared me too!) and he didn't want to go on that run any more after that. But we did get to ride the chair lift for the first time and that was pretty cool. I was actually pretty nervous and was holding on to his jacket VERY tightly. I forgot how freekin high those chair lifts go and his little legs weren't long enough for him to sit all the way back in the chair. I think he enjoyed the ride though and he kept talking about how beautiful the snow was and how beautiful the scenery was. It really was a perfect day. We never got cold. The snow was absolutely perfect – like packed powder with no ice at all. After the chair lift ride, he wanted to get some lunch so we headed in and he got a hot dog, orange Powerade, and some Cheetos. I got a delicious chili and a (flat) Diet Pepsi. After lunch, he said that he wanted to try some poles and I kept telling him that they would only make it worse and I kept pointing out that none of the other kids had poles, but he insisted, so I reluctantly got him the smallest poles I could find. Then we went back to the kid's area and skied there for a while, but he quickly got bored and wanted to go back to the bunny slope with the small chair lift (we rode that one after riding the big chair lift to get to the top of the mountain). So we went back over there and I started skiing down in front of him and telling him to ski down to me. He started doing a fantastic job! He got better and better each time he tried it! After about 3 runs on that bunny slope, he was skiing all the way down by himself without falling or needing any help from me! We spent the rest of the afternoon on that bunny slope and were easily there for 3 hours! I have no idea how many runs we took but it had to be at least 40. He was doing so well and kept wanting me to follow him! There was a really, really, nice man working where you get on the chair lift and he kept asking Jack how he was doing and if he was having fun, etc. He looked like he just got out of prison, but he was the nicest, most friendly man I've seen in a long time. He was talking to every single person that rode up the lift and kept saying things like "you have a wonderful smile" and "leave some snow on the hill for the rest of us" (to the people that had obviously fallen down several times!) He made the day even better. Jack originally wanted to go tubing today too and mentioned that a couple of times during the day and I kept dreading it because I knew that would be the end of his skiing for the day and I noticed that you had to drive to it (it wasn't on the main hill) and it costs like $25/person. But I told him we could go after we were done skiing. Well, the sun started to set and I asking him if he was ready to go tubing and he said "no" - he wanted to keep skiing! I was so excited! Eventually I told him we'd have to leave when the sun disappeared from the sky and when it did, he asked me if he could go down 4 more times! Of course I couldn't say no! It was truly a great day with my son and one I'll never forget. He was so excited and did such a great job and never once got frustrated or tired. He never wanted to quit the whole time. That is exactly what I was hoping for today – a good first experience for Jack so he'd love skiing as much as I do.

Winter storm

Wow, what a crazy day today! Missy is out of town for the Woodplay dealers meeting in Raleigh, NC, so I'm home alone with the kids. We got about 2 inches of snow yesterday and I took them to Grandmas and it was a piece of cake. I woke up this morning and we had about 5-6 inches of snow so I decided to try it again... It was probably one of the most stressful mornings of my life. Ally woke up and said she was sick and needed to throw up, so she was crying about that. Jack was crying because he wanted to go outside and play. Abby was crying because she wanted to go to Grandmas. I knew that I wouldn't get any work done here at home, and I didn't want to burn a vacation day, so I decided to go ahead and go to work. Well, I got stuck backing out of the driveway and nothing I did seemed to work. I eventually was able to rock the truck back-and-forth enough to get it going forward. The only place I could get any traction was in the deep ruts in the road, but I made it out of the subdivision OK. Then I got onto Epworth and realized I had made a big mistake. There were absolutely NO other cars on the road and there were so many broken trees and fallen branches, that I literally had to swerve to miss them. One place had trees on both sides of the road and they scraped my truck as I drove past. I decided to turn about and go back home but I got stuck trying to do that so I had to keep going straight on Epworth to Covert. I literally thought I was going to have to leave my truck and carry 3 kids home. And I was dressed for work so I have no hat, gloves, nor boots. Idiot! I had to take 164 to Lloyd Expressway back to Epworth to make it home. It was snowing so hard that my windshield wipers were frozen and not working hardly at all. They were just pushing ice around on my windshield. It was pretty darn scary. At least I knew that I was close enough to home to walk if we needed to. I made it back to Tecumseh and then built up enough speed to make the turn and hill at Tippecanoe and did the same thing getting into out driveway. I was very happy to be home and really thankful I didn't have to walk. This was not a good day for Missy to be gone!