Eye Exam For a 2 Year Old

Every year the Lions Club comes to the daycare to do a vision screening for all the kiddos there.  I've usually never thought twice about this annual eye exam.  I sign the dotted line which allows my kids to be evaluated and glance quickly at the results when I get them weeks later.  Until this year...

Alena and Lauren passed their evaluation with flying colors, but Caleb didn't.  Instead he came home with a list of local optometrists and ophthalmologists and a "strong" recommendation that we schedule for him to see one.

Huh?!  I hadn't noticed any abnormality in his eyes and from what I can see he doesn't seem to have any difficulty with vision.  There was concern for anisocoria, (one pupil smaller than the other), which immediately threw up lots of alarms in my head.  (It is sometimes a HUGE disadvantage to work in the medical field).

I thought, how could I have missed unequal pupils in my 2 year old?  How could my pediatrician not have picked up on this? He was seen by the Lion's Club last year and his evaluation was normal!  Of course, I felt guilty that something serious may have been overlooked.

I quickly scheduled him with a pediatric ophthalmologist in Des Moines (there is only one clinic in central Iowa!), so his appointment was a few weeks ago.  Great, 3 weeks to worry about this...and 3 weeks to carefully examine my child's eyes, looking for other significant symptoms which could indicate something serious.  I know I could have scheduled him with an optometrist the following day but I really wanted a pediatric ophthalmologist to see him, especially after finding out my insurance would cover the visit.

Appointment Day:

I decided to take him to his appointment myself, knowing that he is normally such an easy going guy.  Plus, he was REALLY excited to go to the "eye doctor" so I was crossing my fingers that this 2 hour appointment would not be a disaster.

We were the first appointment of the morning, which was a plus.  The waiting room was full of fun toys, and Caleb especially loved playing with the large tractor and trailer.  Soon after arriving we were taken back to the exam room.  He quickly jumped into the exam chair by himself and was such a trooper during the initial part of the exam.

Here is where I was glad I chose a pediatric ophthalmologist: I was very impressed with all the "tools" she used to keep him looking in the direction she wanted him to.  I'm sure it's challenging to do an eye exam on a 2 year old, but all her tricks worked like a charm for him.  An entire wall was full of entertainment she had control of with a switch:  A dancing rainbow pig, 3 plastic penguins who went around and around, a small TV with images that kept changing, a tiger that roared...  She was so good with him.  After that part of the exam, we went into the room where the eye drops would be placed.  He laid on top of a dinosaur table while the tech placed 3 different drops in each eye.  He did great and was rewarded with a sticker and more time playing in the waiting room while we waited for his eyes to dilate.

Each box had something different to keep his attention during the exam

The final part of the exam was quick and we were finally given a diagnosis:  A normal variance of anisocoria!  This is a normal finding in 20% of the population, and my little one just has to be in the minority.  Whew, all those big, bad and ugly diagnoses that went through my head when I first learned of this abnormality were erased. We did find out that he is far-sighted (which is common at this age), and hopefully something he will outgrow.  He will follow up in 1 year for another evaluation.

When God created him he must not have paid as much attention to the left side of his body, (it probably didn't help that another human was being created at the same time).  Both abnormalities he has had have been on the left side.  Let's hope we don't discover any more issues!

Potty Training Twins is...

...Manageable!

I feel like we are nearing the finish line of this potty training experience. There were many things that frightened the daylights out of me when I was told we were having twins. Among changing twice the diapers, two teething kids, and the expense of raising two more children, I DREADED potty training two children at once!

So, I just didn't.

I'm always scared to say this for fear all mothers will hate me, but we had the easiest time potty training Alena.  She was trained in two days and I can remember just a handful of accidents we had after that moment.  All the fears I had and nightmarish stories mothers told me about just didn't happen.

Because she was so easy, I knew the next two would be much more difficult!  (I couldn't be THAT lucky).

Lauren started to show interest soon after turning 2 and moving into the next classroom at daycare. Many of her friends in that room were older and using the potty so she went along with it. Unfortunately, I was not at all prepared to jump into this, (we were busy packing the house up and figuring out where we were going to live as we would be homeless in less than 3 weeks!).  So I let this moment pass and pretty soon she reverted back to not wanting to use the potty at all.  I really regret not running with it when she was interested but you have to be ALL IN with potty training. No dipping in your toes or wading up to your knees.  Nope, you must be fully submerged for a successful experience.

It took all of us a month or so to adjust to our new living situation and soon after the new year, Lauren seemed interested again. I wasn't going to miss this opportunity a second time so we went for it.  At school she was sat on the potty every 2 hours so we mimicked this at home.  She also got to enjoy juice, a treat in our house, to force her to drink and potty more.  After a few days we felt adventurous enough to run a couple errands, sans diaper.

Although we had lots and lots of success stories, so was scared to poop on the potty.  I. Tried. Everything.  We had many, many, many accidents-some at home, some away from home and there were numerous times I was ready to jump out of the pool and throw in the towel.  But, I knew we needed to push forwards.  I threw away a lot of Minne Mouse, My Little Pony and Hello Kitty underwear.  I've never been one to carry a diaper bag with me when we are out and about. I found I never utilized it and it was too cumbersome.  Unfortunately this came back to bite me a few times.   She shopped commando with me a couple times!

Now 5 months later, I can say we haven't had an accident in quite a while.  She's got this potty thing down!

One down, one to go.

I waited, and waited, and waited to start potty training Caleb, watching for all the telltale signs.  They were never there.  About 6 weeks ago, we noticed he was going potty pretty frequently at daycare so we started working on it at home too. He protested every time we wanted to take him to the potty.  As the days went by, he was having more and more success at school (and some success at home).  Soon he was waking up dry from naps and his teacher told me to take home his diapers.  What!?  I never thought this day would come.

I can honestly say that neither Justin or I, nor Papa or Grandma potty trained that boy.  The credit goes to his two daycare providers. I may gasp at the amount of money we pay for daycare every month but it has been worth every dime, (for numerous reasons)!

He still has some accidents and has needed a little bribing to work on #2, (a tractor ride on Papa's mow mow works well), but I think I can say I have two potty trained 2.5 year olds!

We are on the go people so they've had to adjust to using bathrooms EVERYWHERE.  They are pros at using public potties, porta potties, peeing in a bucket on the boat and pottying in nature.  C especially likes to pee on trees (it's a good thing we won't have trees in our new neighborhood!).

He will hate me for this some day

We still have nighttime training to work but that will come with time.  I can manage using 2 diapers a day, compared to up to 20 diapers a day when they were first born.  I am so glad to be past this stage but it's another sign that these two are growing way too fast!

Impromptu Photo Shoot-Jason's Family

When my brother and family visited over Memorial Day Weekend my sister-in-law wanted me to take some family photos. So an impromptu photo shot was completed.

Honestly, I think there are some great pictures here and I love the setting-my parent's backyard. None of these are edited as my editing software is not on the current computer I am using, (the joys of moving!).  We also shot at probably the worst time of day ever, but it was still pretty successful.

He was a trooper!