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When Christian is on vacation, the days feel like a long procession of Saturdays. I drive through town, turn the radio on, and find myself disoriented because I was expecting one thing, and instead I get weekday programming. It’s not a problem when we travel, but on weeks like this, when we’re just hanging around at home, I have trouble keeping my head on straight!
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Julianna had surgery this week to correct her lazy eye. Isn’t it weird how you can feel physical pain in sympathy just by looking at someone else’s injury? I had to force myself not to make faces when I look at her, and Alex had to move to the other side of the table at dinner–normally he sits opposite her–because “looking at her makes my eyes water.” We took a picture, but Christian thinks it’s not to be posted.
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They said her eyes would be swollen and red. Somehow I envisioned the skin being swollen and red, which it isn’t. They actually meant the eyeballs would be swollen and red. She looks like demon child; the whites of her eyes are a red the likes of which you’ve never seen.
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Here’s an article about the trend toward banning children in higher-end travel. I can’t approve, but I don’t know that it’s particularly relevant, either. This trend only affects those who travel first class and equivalent, and how many people who have small children can afford to travel first class, anyway? I think some would like to paint this as a part of the anti-child, anti-life culture, but I can’t help thinking that this is probably a reprise of first class vs. third class on the steamships of 100 years ago. I doubt they let babies in the first class dining room. I think it’s just the way things have always been.
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Julianna is something else. The night after surgery, I decided to clip her nails (which desperately needed it), to make sure she didn’t inadvertently scratch her sore eyes and make it all much worse. That girl screamed so long and so loud that Christian came upstairs ready to bite the head off whichever brother was tormenting her. You’d’ve thought I was subjecting her to a more offensive surgical procedure than she’d had in the morning!
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There’s a column in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that Christian has to read to me nearly every week. “Life Sherpa” is very funny. This week, he tackled the political gridlock over the debt ceiling (what a completely inadequate word to describe what’s been going on lately!). Have a read. It’s hilarious because it’s so true…of both sides, although he nails the left in this particular instance.
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We are reading Harry Potter & the Sorcerer’s Stone to Alex. We debated for a few weeks, wanting to think it through in our minds and make sure it wasn’t too dark for a six-year-old, and decided that the first one’s okay. I’ve never had so much fun reading a book to him, and I love to see his eyes light up as he gets excited about something I love so much, too. But how in the world will we be able to resist jumping into #2?
Kathleen M. Basi 
William (one of my normally developing children) is the SAME way about getting his nails clipped, might be why they are clipped so infrequently. I have the opposite problem of the reversing weekends and weekdays with Jeff since he is gone during the week during the school year. So this summer has seemed a succession of weekends!
Funnily enough we are reading the first Harry Potter to our 6 year old girl – just finished it and have said she can have the next one in a year’s time, when Harry goes into the next year at school. We already do stuff like have one of the Little House books every Autumn, so hopefully we can stick to it?!
Poor baby! My youngest brother had this surgery two years ago. He was excited about his pirate eye patch, although it was a little less exciting when all was said and done!
Will keep her in my prayers. 😦
Poor Julianna! 😦 I hope that she recovers soon.
None of my kids like nail clippings either.
I look for you first on the link up and today you went as Kathleen Basi and almost made me sad because I missed ya. Is that weird?
Also poor Julianna!
I have a lazy eye too but it doesn’t wander around. I just can’t see at all out of my left eye.
Also, I have I childhood memory of a babysitter cutting my nails with SCISSORS. I howled.
I was worrying about that, Linda! I read a blog post this week in which she was scolding writers for using something OTHER than their full name, because it is our “brand” and we need to promote it. It made a lot of sense, but I can’t tell you how much I wanted to link up with “Kathleen BasiAKAKathleen@somuchtosay”…..ah, well, you found me! 🙂
And scissors? Yikes!
I got through HP #1 and 2 with my 6yo, but now am definitely wanting to wait a bit for #3 and beyond. It’s SO hard to postpone them, though! Enjoy your story time!
I am reading HP #1 with our seven-year-old; we’ll probably do #2, but I may wait a little beyond that.
Sorry about your daughter’s eye … yikes, sounds frightening! My husband once got hit in the eye w/ (of all things) a golf ball, and who knew the eye socket could swell so much … gollum personified:)
I remember flying to Chicago with Daniel and being just outside the first class section of the cabin. He howled the entire four hours there and I actually felt some glee at the first class passengers having their flight ruined by a screaming baby because it was so hellish for me and my husband.
As for HP#2, I’d say that he gets one HP book a year. This way, he doesn’t tackle #4 until he’s 10 and can deal with it. Once he can read, he can discern for himself what he can and can’t handle.
Thank you, everyone, for your sympathy for Julianna. She doesn’t care in the least now, except for the ointment we have to put in her eyes, but it is still hard to look at. They wanted us to get it done b/c with one eye turning in, the brain turns it off, which means no binocular vision, which means no depth perception. And eventually the brain loses the capacity to learn to process depth perception.
Thanks for the link to “Life Sherpa”. It was very funny.
I hope Julianna’s surgery is healing well. Did you know that some people actually can feel what others are feeling? It’s why I couldn’t go into anything involving medicine. I would faint my life away. It looks like you might be in the same boat.
We’re also reading Harry Potter books to my 6 year old daughter. I’m reading them first to make sure we don’t get into anything too horrible. The first 3 are fine. Book 4 starts to get a little rough, though, especially at the end. I’m reading 5 now and she’ll have to wait on that one.
Reading one a year seems to work with the growing ages, but the stories are so much fun, its hard not to jump into the next one.
Hope Juliana’s eyes heal quickly !
It *is* tough to wait the year!