toddler

How vision therapy is saving Stella’s toes, and then some.

Posted on by amberhj

The hardest working toes in the business (of running around)

The hardest working toes in the business (of running around)

Stella is a toe-walker.

She’s been tiptoeing around for as long as I can remember. Prancing, really. Her gait has been so bouncy and adorable, so evocative of a little ballerina, that her physical effervescence has charmed even sour onlookers. I’ve been kindling a small flame of worry about her overworked and constantly clenched toes, despite an inner voice that told me to stop looking for trouble where there was none.

Early last year, I met up with Stella’s occupational therapist–the OT who helped Stella overcome her feeding aversion–to check in and discuss ideas for an article about our feeding experiences. I couldn’t help but ask for her expert opinion on Stella’s toe-walking. And just as I’d hoped, she reassured me. She rightly noted that Stella could stand on flat feet, bend her legs and pick something up with ease. Stella walked flat-footed here and there, and when she stood still, it was often on flat feet. Clearly, Stella was not incapable of walking flat-footed. Besides, she was less than 18 months old at that time, and toe-walking is relatively common in such little ones. In my heart and soul, I agreed with this assessment. I mean, really, do we have to make every little kid quirk into a problem to be fixed? It made me angry to think that something so seemingly age-appropriate and  harmless about Stella could be pathologized. Enough with the medicalization of childhood already! As my dad used to bellow, in Braveheart fashion complete with a raised fist before leaving to pick up our Friday night pizza, “Who is with me?!” So I stopped worrying about it. For a while.

Fast forward a few dizzying toddler months. Sail past the great eye-crossing incident of 2010 and whiz by the diagnoses of strabismus/accommodative esotropia, hyeropia, anisometropia and amblyopia. Jump to Stella’s first appointment with her developmental optometrist, Dr. Torgerson (“Dr. T”) of Alderwood Vision Therapy Center. (‘Bout time I named her–we’re very lucky.) Upon meeting Stella, having taken her hand in the waiting room and led her to the exam room, Dr. T noticed that Stella walks on her toes. (Note: Stella’s ophthalmologist never noticed, or at the very least never mentioned, this.) During that consultation, Dr. T placed yoked prism goggles over Stella’s regular specs. Stella’s toe-walking was completely eliminated. She walked flat, instantly. No. Joke. Stella seemed to be looking at everything with new eyes. Dr. T seemed interested but unsurprised and made a note that this was worth exploring. I was still a bit defensive, a bit reluctant. I tried to reason around it. As in, “Well, she was just walking very slowly and cautiously due to the weird distortion of the prisms and that’s probably why she wasn’t as bouncy or tiptoe-y.” Of course, while my focus at that time was beginning a course of vision therapy to address the aforementioned diagnoses, I did at least make a mental note about the prisms’ elimination of her toe-walking. In truth, I pushed it aside, not wanting to create another problem. Not wanting to accept that in addition to her feeding and vision challenges, Stella’s toe-walking was “an issue.”

Turns out that the toe-walking wasn’t so much a seperate issue as an unexpected (to me) extension of her visual one(s). Since that fateful day, Stella has worn the prism goggles many times during vision therapy sessions. After the first time Stella wore them under the guidance of our vision therapist, Bethanie, I was sold on their effect. There was no denying it! I was struck not only by how her gait instantly changed, but also her demeanor. With the yoked prism goggles (the stronger the prism, the more pronounced the effect), she not only walks “flat” but also seems more calm and able to focus. The stronger ones are pretty overwhelming, however, so we’ve scaled back to some less powerful ones with plans to work in the original stronger pair soon. It’s a mind-blowing work in progress, if you will.

Stella's first run with the uber nerd glasses--I mean, yoked prism goggles

Stella's first run with the uber nerd glasses--I mean, yoked prism goggles

In essence, yoked prism goggles help re-wire the brain, forcing it to re-map spatial relations. Every time she wears them, they help her gauge the world more accurately. The repercussions are stunning. This isn’t just addressing Stella’s vision. Changes are happening in her brain, in how she perceives the world and her place in it. And that dramatically affects how she feels and behaves.

When Stella leaves those vision therapy sessions (wherein she wears the prism goggle, of any strength, really), she is more outgoing. She is open. Allow me to explain why that fact is so incredibly huge. I don’t label Stella as shy. I don’t want to presume, at age two, that “shy” is who she is and I don’t want to convince her that it is. But I will say that she is often quite tentative. We do see flashes of wonderful social interaction and friendliness–she’s very attached to her best friend, Cooper–so I know her social self is in there. But most often, she shrinks back under even the friendliest gaze from a stranger, or is daunted by mere proximity to people.

On the playground, Stella’s crowd avoidance is overt. She rarely uses structures if anyone else is there already. If someone playful soul is on or near the slide, instead of waiting for a turn or walking up with the understanding that they’ll be down soon, she avoids it completely. If people step aside and watch her, with a smile and friendly encouragement or quiet patience, she refuses to go down. She’s protective of herself. At music class, when the basket of instruments is placed in the center of the room, every other child in the room just flat-out goes for it. They make a beeline for the basket, and grab what they want, carefree! Stella immediately takes a step or two forward, only to halt as everyone rushes by. She waits for a big opening instead of squeezing in willy-nilly like the rest. Part of me has long wanted to push her into the fray. To tell her that she’s just as entitled and doesn’t have to wait for everyone else to take first pick. I just chime in with lighthearted encouragement, and a hand on her back.

Qualities like patience and shyness seem almost beside the point when I think about her vision, and the effect of the yoked prism goggles. I’m now convinced that such reserved, cautious behavior is due, at least in part, to the effect of her visual field–not just her innate personality. Crowded places (especially new ones) and chaotic situations can be so, so anxiety-producing for Stella. Thankfully, at long last, I now believe I understand why. She has trouble gauging her place in relation to a crowd. Per Dr. T and our vision therapist, Stella’s peripheral vision is likely limited, creating a type of tunnel vision that makes life more stressful. She’s always on guard because she’s learned that objects in her proverbial mirror are closer than they appear. She can’t quite trust her visual system in those situations. How startling that would be! And how draining and frustrating to be startled so often. So she takes extra precautions. Her separation anxiety, viewed through this lens of understanding, makes much more sense to me now. I’m her anchor amid the unfamiliar and unstable.

The same visual issues that cause this sort of defensiveness also give rise to her toe-walking. It’s not so much a problem as a solution Stella has come up with to better orient herself in the world as she perceives it. I get it now–the details may be hazy, but I am starting to understand a bit better how Stella sees, and how it affects her way of being.

Back to those yoked prism goggles! Despite some difficulty in getting her to wear them for extended periods, they seem to somehow relax her, and the results are stunning. After her last vision therapy session, during which the goggles are now a prominent therapeutic fixture, Stella ran out into the waiting room and strode right up to a much older child, looking him in the eye and beaming! I was elated. A few sessions ago, in the waiting area following one of her first (“full-strength”) prism goggle trials in vision therapy, Stella started chatting with another family. The mother was gently encouraging her children to put away the toys, and put on their coats, because “we’re going home.” Stella walked up to her, looked her in the eye and said, “We’re going home too! I’m going home!” She kept engaging them, over and over, as they walked out. They smiled and acknowledged her, probably regarding it as typical little kid behavior, but to me? I had to hold back emotion. On yet another such occasion, in between those two examples, Stella walked into the play area of the waiting room after goggle-clad vision therapy, waltzed up to the small play table which was closely encircled by older and taller children, and she confidently and without hesitation joined them. She nudged right in next to a 6 or 7 year old boy. She looked at him, started talking, and reached for the toys on the small table as the others played as well. She was unphased. I was awed. Deeply heartened. That was Stella, freed! That was Stella, no longer feeling caged in by her vision. Her world had opened up. She seemed lighter, less stressed, and more engaged with everyone around her. She carried an innate sense of security. I want her to feel that secure all the time (hek, I wish I did!), or at least more often. My hope is that continued use of the yoked prism goggles will get her there–in tandem with our other vision therapy efforts.

Already, Stella’s toe-walking is fading away. She isn’t so high up on her toes, and she uses her heels more often when getting around. Also! She used to flap her arms, especially when happy and excited, but we just realized that she hasn’t done that in a long, long time! Bear with me: Based on limited but fascinating reading, I’ve gathered that autistic children and others with tunnel vision (or other related visual issues in which ambient vision and/or depth perception are compromised) use arm flapping and toe-walking in part to help gauge their place in relation to their environment. Stella is not autistic, but there are clear parallels between Stella’s vision challenges, and even her behavior in specific situations, and those of autistic kids. Many of them would greatly benefit (not just visually but socially and emotionally and in all kinds of ways) from vision therapy yet never get exposure to it. Hopefully that’s changing as awareness of vision therapy grows. So much needless suffering could be eliminated or at least significantly reduced. I am the wanna-be Gandhi of vision therapy.

My view of vision therapy has greatly expanded over the months, along with Stella’s vision therapy regimen. At first, back in the dark ages, I viewed this work as the remedy for Stella’s amblyopia and probable accompanying deficit of stereoscopy. Plain and simple, just like the initial exercises: catching balloons, stringing beads onto pipe cleaners, and the like. Now, her exercises are centered around yoked prism goggles and vestibular activities. She’s using her whole body. Her brain is re-configuring the world. This isn’t an effort to “fix Stella’s eyes.” It’s a campaign addressing the myriad of ways her vision affects her physical and psychological wellbeing. And mine. Our stress reverberates between us, and can be overwhelming at times. I try to take a tip from Stella and just step back and be patient as we work through this, but sometimes I fail. It’s okay. We’re both doing the best we can. I get cupcakes for myself too often, but that’s a small and delicious price to pay.

The goal as I now see it? Stella won’t feel the need to tiptoe through life–literally or figuratively.

My own pilot study: Microwaves’ effectiveness in increasing compliance with vision training

Posted on by amberhj

The solution was there, sitting in the corner of the kitchen all along. My microwave timer has saved patching. The  obtrusive but helpful-in-a-pinch black box has also helped salvage the vision therapy we do at home. Cue an annoying series of loud, celebratory beeps!

It makes sense. The only reason women endure childbirth is because we know that it will end in a few (okay, maybe 32) hours. It’s a relatively short timetable. This is why, at the Cape Cod Bay Basketball Camp, I managed to swallow suffering and push myself to the limit of heat exhaustion and muscle failure during drills on sizzling hot blacktop that threatened to melt the soles of my black Nike hightops. It’s how I now carry my giant toddler home from the park down the street, when we’re running behind which is always, even when my arm is about to detach and my grimace nearly devours my face. The end is in sight.

Over recent weeks, Stella did her best to refuse to patch. Which meant I spent all day trying to eek out small periods of patching in order to accumulate two hours’ worth. But last week, the answer suddenly came to me. I took her hand and led her to the holy shrine of now-passe cooking technology that is the microwave, and said, “It’s patching time. So we’re going to set the timer for 90 minutes, and when the timer beeps, you can take it off yourself!” I said it the way you would say, oh, “We’re going to Disney World right now. When this timer goes off, you can eat ice cream while riding the tea cups with Mickey Mouse!” As if Tinkerbell had cast a magic spell, Stella quietly allowed me put the patch on the glasses and place them on her face without any fight or resistance or complaint whatsoever. It has been working ever since. Trust me this is just as miraculous as, say, seeing Jesus in a piece of toast.

So yesterday I tried applying this super brilliant countdown strategy to vision therapy. We are currently only doing very physical, “vestibular” activities (spinning, rolling, etc.), and they go fast (you know, when they go). I turned into Jack Bauer, set the timer for 15 minutes, and informed Stella that we had to do four eye games before the timer went off. I told her this with the urgency of a counter-terrorist expert called in to thwart an impending explosion. Only my voice was much, much higher, more enthusiastic. It helped! Though by about 10 minutes, we were significantly derailed by someone’s whining and avoidance tactics. So, I’ll split “eye games” up into two 10-minute sessions, spread apart, and see how it goes. Aaaaaand that sentence shows clearly how such mind-numbing minutia has officially taken over my life. Hey, we do what works, and you’ve got to celebrate the little triumphs (our children’s and our own), right? RIGHT? [Insert guzzle of wine directly from the bottle.]

Please excuse me while I go high-five Stella and snuggle with the microwave.

Quotable?

Posted on by amberhj

I have the good fortune to be writing copy for a really delightful web-based company whose product is perfect for moms like me. Currently, I’m both collecting and writing inspirational quotes for their use. It’s fun work, and hilarious at times–in my brain. Especially when I write lines myself that are supposed to sound incredibly wise and timeless. Seriously though, this is right up my alley. My favorite proverb is Japanese and it’s been on my Facebook page and tucked away in an old post on this blog for a while: “Fall seven times, stand up eight.” Yes! That just fires me up! I have the complete pleasure of sifting through wisdom and getting paid for it. I get to let my highest self take over and come up with words that sing. But my mind can’t help but wander sometimes. Here are a few of my so-called “original quotes” that didn’t make the cut (i.e. they came to me and I mentally deleted them immediately, preventing them from being typed into my crudely formatted Word doc):

Get it done. Even if it’s a complete disaster.

Dinner cooked and not cleaned up is better than starving your family.

A snack in time saves a meltdown.

Go outside of yourself, and your home. It’s boring inside sometimes.

A tantrum is just a toddler’s way of teaching you about adversity, and the value of sanity.

You don’t know your worth of until a two-year-old hurls their disgustingly expensive glasses at you.

Be one with the mess. A dirty dish never killed anyone. Except maybe due to food poisoning in the instance that it was used again without washing, which of course you would never even think of doing.

Possiblity lurks in every corner. You either seek it out, or miss out. Or, while looking for it you get sidetracked and spend an hour using the handheld vac to eradicate dust bunnies, hunched over like a maniac never pausing to realize that you could have done it in five minutes using the “real” vacuum.

Time is but an illusion. Unless you’re the mother of a toddler, in which case it’s both non-existent and precious beyond words.

Farsighted toddlers like to keep their mothers near.

A missed nap is but a drop in the ocean of frustration.

The all-encompassing love of a child squeezes the heart and the brain. Take breaks.

An inevitable dip in the roller-coaster ride

Posted on by amberhj

When Stella gets really upset about anything at all, her immediate, go-to move is to tear off her adorable purple glasses with one hand (OUCH!) and throw them, with the force of every ounce of rage she’s got. Though to be fair, in the rare minutes when they are off, she will sometimes ask for them. And objectively speaking? Her specs simply handy during tantrums, as they happen to be the closest toss-able item. My point, I suppose, is that sometimes, despite my obsession with her eyes, it’s not all about vision. Not every fit or glasses-tossing, or vision therapy refusal has to do with her visual system! She’s a toddler, for crying out loud. Today, she’s getting a cold–her nose is running. She could be teething, as she’s complained about her mouth hurting and chewed through several pacifiers (disclaimer: we plan to get rid of them very soon!), too. Any of these things could explain her aversive behavior lately. Mind-boggling mysteries of the toddler mind abound, and I’ll never solve them all. But a pesky fact remains: Vision therapy has gotten tougher. Patching, too. I’m stressed out.

I fully believe in vision therapy, but as of this moment, I’m not 100% sure of our current ability to keep up the regimen with proper diligence. I always wonder if we’re doing enough. Some days–like, oh, TODAY–Stella resists patching and “eye games” like it’s a form of medieval torture. Of course I don’t blame her. If she doesn’t feel like being still or finding matches or attempting whatever task I’m presenting (though I always try to provide two options so she can CHOOSE), why wouldn’t she be annoyed? She doesn’t truly understand why we’re doing all of these exercises every day. It must be confusing and frustrating when I insist that she stick skewers into straws or put on awkwardly large red/green glasses (okay, I’ve taken out the lenses and taped them to her specs instead–am I a rebel or what?) and find matching shapes on weird-though-now-way-too-familiar cards, rather then go to the park, have a tea party, or paint.

To be clear, despite the bumps in the road, I have most often felt certain of Stella’s continued visual improvement. Like when she says, as I reported recently, “I can see with BOTH eyes, mommy!” Or when she does the balance beam, a two-feet high, 4-inch wide one at the playground, all by herself. Or when, early on in her vision therapy journey, she stopped during a walk we’d taken a million times, to feel the rocks that stick out of the concrete beneath our feet–something she’d never done before. We know that she made great strides during her first three months of vision therapy. But we’re well into our second three-month segment and it’s becoming more of a battle. I worry that her increasing lack of cooperation (corresponding with my increasing and decidedly unhelpful frustration) is a worrisome reflection of visual difficulty that should be resolved by now, and/or that this behavior may make real recovery impossible, at least in the short-term.

I’m not giving up. I’m just a bit worn down. The stakes are high. We invest a lot into Stella’s therapy, financially, emotionally and time-wise. The thing is, the stakes don’t need to be this high. They shouldn’t be this high. Vision therapy is supported by decades of evidence and research, and should be more widely embraced. This would take a huge burden off of families like ours, and improve outcomes for children.

I have a lot of anger about health care in this country. By the time Stella’s course of vision therapy is over, we’ll have spent somewhere around $20,000 on much-needed care for sweet Stella that was not covered by insurance. The stress and pressure created by our system does not help Stella, or our family as a whole, thrive. We don’t yet own a house. Our one car is a dented 2003 Ford Focus (tan and blah and not me at all but it works!). I still consider us lucky, but we are definitely and uncomfortably stretched. Outrage takes over when I think about Stella and other children, who by no fault of their own need extra help in order to survive and flourish. What if we couldn’t have used our nest egg to fund $1,000 in hypoallergenic formula each month to help Stella survive as a baby? Maybe they would’ve stepped in when she was seriously ill, having been forced to ingest formula (or breast milk) that was literally killing her. A letter from her pediatrician insisting that Elecare was a medical necessity did nothing. Formula was conveniently “excluded” under our plan. (It’s so abhorrent to me that I’m having a hard time writing about it without becoming extremely emotional.) Now, with vision therapy, not only do we lack support from the health care system but also most doctors. Maybe they’d help us out when Stella failed to learn to read? When she started rejecting school altogether? It’s the signs of progress and Stella’s happy demonstrations of new abilities that keep me going. They’re worth every penny and more! It’s her natural, toddler-appropriate resistance, combined with incredible pressure to see results due to exorbitant costs, that make times like this so hard. My reactions to her lack of cooperation may be overblown, due to the fear created by the situation. Maybe I push her too hard at times, out of desperation, making it all worse.

This is all really honest and dark. I’ll emphasize that on daily basis, we’re doing okay. I really, really try to make the exercises more fun and rewarding. In a forthcoming blog post, I’ll share the little successes I’ve had in that area, and explain the adaptations that have helped with gaining vision therapy cooperation with a two-year-old! No small feat. I totally enjoy devising solutions that make her exercises palatable. When it works and she has fun while doing highly beneficial therapy, I’m incredibly fulfilled and uplifted. It may sound completely insane but the idea of actually BECOMING a vision therapist has crossed my mind. So that I  can work with her long-term, at her pace, at a slightly older age when she is perhaps more able to focus her attention, without driving us into bankruptcy. I’m only half kidding when I say that a vision therapy education probably wouldn’t cost too much more than Stella’s vision therapy itself.

This morning, Stella really resisted patching. Which is what sparked this wave of doubt and prompted me to analyze why I feel so much pressure… why the stress is mounting. But it may have nothing to do with her vision. And my worried questions about Stella’s vision can be addressed to some degree during her weekly in-office sessions, which is immensely helpful. In addition, I’m trying to get help with her at-home therapy, stocking up on chocolate chips (the ultimate, last-ditch incentive for cooperation) and hanging on until her next progress evaluation next month, hoping to get the reassurance we need. Ideally through some sort of computer-based testing rather than reliance on Stella’s ability to call out what she sees during testing. Because LORD help us if she’s teething or tired.

To feel like we’re standing on semi-solid ground–that would be a gift. I know we’ll get there. I do. In the meantime, I hope that in some small way, perhaps just by sharing our story or calling out the lack of support, we can make it easier for those that follow.

 

Stella insists she can see with BOTH eyes

Posted on by amberhj

Yesterday was sunny and crisp. A Golden Delicious apple of a day. Okay, a frozen one. I’d recently read about how incredibly important and beneficial outdoor time is to kids’ eyesight, and was determined to whisk Stella off to the neighborhood park immediately after her nap. Stella woke up, and after wasting about 30 to 45 minutes doing absolutely nothing in particular, I removed the eye patch from her glasses and we headed out on foot.

Half a block into our walk, which was really more of a run, Stella seemed to have a revelation. I saw it before she said a word. She suddenly paused, looked around, smiled, and excitedly exclaimed, “I can see with BOTH eyes!” She went on to make this declaration at least twenty times. “Mommy! I can see with BOTH eyes! I can see the leaves. I can see the berries. I can see with BOTH eyes! Mommy! I see with BOTH EYES!” While she was having a great time, seeing with BOTH eyes, my mind raced to interpret this statement in relation to her amblyopia and strabismus and vision therapy. I tried not to let my hopes soar, and simply focused on the happiness of the moment. She was thrilled. I was spellbound and silent, mostly. I did say, “Yes, you CAN! You can see with BOTH eyes.”

What did Stella mean, exactly? It could be clear, simple, and run-of-the-mill. Even with her amblyopia, Stella does see with both eyes–with one more than the other, but still. I see with both eyes, as do most people, obviously. Was she simply making a smart, toddler-esque realization about the world and how it works? Or was a shift taking place in her vision? The whole point of our current vision therapy and patching efforts is to help her see with BOTH eyes, equally. Out of nowhere, she was expressing the essence of everything.

I mentioned the incident to Stella’s vision therapist today, and naturally, she found it very interesting. We both acknowledged that because Stella is two, it’s hard to know why she was saying that she can see with both eyes. But yes. Be still my beating heart! It could be that her eyes are working together better. Binocular fusion and increased stereoscopy (3D vision) could certainly create such an excited and interested reaction. On the other hand, it’s also possible that she’s seeing double–which isn’t necessarily bad. Sometimes kids in vision therapy see double here and there as their brains figure out the path to binocular fusion. But I don’t think that’s it, because she had no trouble grabbing small berries or pebbles, no difficulty running fearlessly up and down the small but steep slope that runs parallel to the sidewalk. She made eye contact with me frequently and purposefully.

When Stella’s eyes crossed severely on that day last April, the day that (thankfully) set us on the path to glasses and patching and vision therapy, she couldn’t see or do much of anything. Eye contact was impossible. She could walk, but not as steadily, and if told to walk to mommy, she’d miss me completely and sail by to my left,  aiming at one of the two inaccurate, fuzzy mommy images that she saw. Her arms flailed in front of her, grasping. She wasn’t scared. She seemed dazed and thoroughly amused, playing around in the blurry void. Nothing of this sort happened yesterday. There was a general feeling of clarity, in the way she spoke and behaved. Regardless of what Stella was actually seeing and experiencing, I view this small but striking incident as positive development. Even if her vision was not being transformed in that moment, it was still wonderful to hear and behold.

Due to a rough night of broken sleep, today’s vision therapy session was challenging. Stella was tired, and her fuse was short. But we did some solid work, and learned some new exercises. During the long-ish drive home, again I noticed something out of the ordinary. I looked back several times to see Stella positively beaming. Smiling such a sweet, powerful grin while gazing at something specific–one time it was the cherries hanging from the rear-view mirror. Stella smiles a lot, but this was different. Focused, for no obvious reason. We were listening to NPR, so I know music wasn’t the spark for her pronounced delight. I think it was her eyes again. Maybe she was seeing double and found it entertaining. Or perhaps she was seeing the world in full depth and dimension. How beautiful that would be.

 

 

 

But terror takes the sound before you make it

Posted on by amberhj

Yesterday afternoon, during Stella’s nap, I was working here at the computer with sunshine pouring in from the window when thought I detected the slightest noise behind me. I swiveled in my chair and was jolted by the sight of Stella, standing just a couple feet away. “Thriller” would’ve been an apt soundtrack for that moment. She scared the living crap out of me–but thankfully I only gasped and didn’t scream. Stunned speechless by her stealth, I suppose. Come to think of it, her disheveled hair, squinting eyes not yet accustomed to light, and baggy sleep sack did give her a ghoulish look. She got out twice more before I finally gave up on that particular nap time and accepted our weekend fate: Shopping for a big girl bed. And perhaps a small bell to be sewn onto her pajamas.

UW pre-optometry students to the rescue!

Posted on by amberhj

Stella, nailing "The Treat Game" with her assistant, named Baby.

Stella, nailing "The Treat Game" with her assistant, named Baby.

Stella knows how to use “WHAT!?” for comedic effect. At PCC, the natural grocery store we hit up to three times a day, there are fun sculptures outside. In reference to one of them she exclaimed, “A dog on a bike–WHAAAT!?” Just a sliver of a pause inserted. She went ahead and tacked on the prolonged “WHAT!?” in a flat yet exaggerated way, the timing and tone appropriate for SNL or In Living Color. Clearly, she’s a comedic genius bound for stand-up stardom.

As I’ve hinted at before, here and at Little Four Eyes, accomplishing our allotted daily vision therapy is a challenge. A grind. More for me than for Stella. In the way that getting up at 5 AM is challenging for a wine-guzzling nightowl. (I swear that’s not me. Usually.) I’m not the most organizationally proficient mom you’ve ever met–unlike my cousin who organized, within an inch of its life, the kitchen drawer that holds her young daughter’s dishes and utensils. To me it was an awe-inspiring thing of unattainable beauty. Honestly, I’m just happy to have identified a drawer into which I can toss that stuff from across the room, since it’s usually left open. When it comes to what needs doing in daily life, I get it done, but piles, toe-stubbing, sweating, and flat-out sprinting are involved. My creativity helps compensate, though. It kind of makes up for the disarray. I write fabulous copy for a range of clients in order to pay for Stella’s vision therapy and other stuff, and enjoy it, and I easily conjure up ways of executing or adapting vision therapy so that it’s somewhat innovative and actually fun for my two-year-old, who is quite young to be doing vision therapy in the first place. I find this type of work–the creative part of vision therapy, but not necessarily the execution–incredibly motivating and satisfying. Which is only natural, but somehow my difficulty seems much more severe than it should be. Of course, it’s not some horrible Sisyphean nightmare either. I believe in vision therapy. Though I struggle with getting it done, our daily work is incredibly valuable and effective, and Stella is resilient, adaptive and more cooperative than she gets credit for. Oh, and she’s creative, too! Using random objects like bulb syringes and blocks and ribbon, she’ll construct a tall, thin structure with a rounded top and say, “Look, mommy! I made the Space Needle!” And you know what, it really, really looks like the Space Needle. Clearly, she’s a brilliant engineer/designer bound for international renown.

Genius aside, when it comes to vision therapy, it really, really helps that she’s willing to step up to the very hardest challenges for a taste of Theo chocolate, made one neighborhood over from where we live, just down the block from Cody’s workplace and PCC. We often stop in for tastings, pretending to be tourists, though I’m not sure we’ve ever fooled anyone, even with our well-honed Boston accents, since we are loud, include a toddler wearing purple glasses, and head directly to the Hazelnut Crunch every time. In the context of “The Treat Game,” explained in my recent post at Little Four Eyes, she’s now grabbing two cards at at time so as to find matches twice as fast. Those red/green glasses just aren’t posing enough of a challenge anymore. Not when Theo chocolate is on the line. That’s my girl. But I know we can’t rely on chocolate. That’s simply the trick I keep up my sleeve. We have been in need of assistance for a while now.

As opposed to my mental lopsidedness, my sister is organized AND a creative problem solver. When I told her I was thinking of hiring someone to come here a couple times a week and help with our at-home vision therapy, she immediately suggested that I find an optometry student. I was all, “Brilliant!” Because wouldn’t you know it? We live right next to a giant university–WHAAT?!

So I got in touch with an officer in the pre-optometry club at the University of Washington and she kindly put out the word. I’ve received five applications from wonderful young minds! I’ll not only tell them everything I know about vision therapy and provide true insider information on to get Stella’s cooperation, but I’ll also throw in a pot of coffee and some sort of hourly rate. The peace of mind I’ll get, and the likely improvement in Stella’s outcome, will be worth it’s weight in Theo chocolate. Wait. Maybe I should pay my vision therapy assistant in chocolate bars? What can’t that stuff do?

And that’s not all! I’ve got a lead on a fantastic babysitter and zeroed in on a preschool that may just be ideal for Stella, due to its notably bigger focus on physical activity and fitness than any other preschool I’ve learned about. They have gymnasts and professional ballet dancers work with the little ones an hour a day–WHAAAT?!

Feels like we’re on the brink of being on a roll. We might even, after almost two and a half years, get some much-needed support–WHAAAT?!

Honestly, it’s not just Stella’s eyes that need the help. It’s me.

All I want for Christmas is an earlier bedtime

Posted on by amberhj

Night before last I slept like a baby. A newborn, actually. I was up until midnight, and wide-eyed from about 1:30 to 6 a.m. At which point I drifted into peaceful slumber for 90 minutes.

I went to bed late after Stella went to bed late. I slept from midnight until 1:30 a.m. Then I found out that my third nephew, my youngest sister’s first baby, had been born!  Three thousand miles away. He’s why I’d stayed up to begin with–I wanted to know about his grand entrance and all the key details as it happened! But frankly, it was taking forever. So I went to bed with the phone next my head and bolted awake at the sound of an incoming text. And I don’t care what cynical people say, it’s a miracle! It’s amazing! He wasn’t here and now he is, out in the world, a new person that is partly my sister and partly her husband. He and my sister, they’re just one of those “meant to be” couples. They’ve been together forever, and oddly and horrifyingly and at different times, they’ve both sustained life-threatening accidents and spinal injuries.  They are soul mates and survivors and now they are not only still here and okay, they have a son! He was eight pounds, one ounce, and super adorable. Like Stella, he took his time joining us out here. But why not? That’s kind of a big transition. Nothing to be rushed into. But don’t tell my sister I said that. She was pissed. All that aside, I just can’t believe that my littlest sister is now a mother. I’m not sure why it stands out so much out of an entire childhood together, but way back when, I did her gorgeous, shiny, long strawberry blond hair for the prom and made it frizzy and she was so kind to me about it, whereas I would’ve thrown a fit. She’s just great. She’s my baby sister. She’s a mom now. It’s crazy wonderful.

And that got my brain hopped up on all kinds of big thoughts, including how fleeting and wondrous all of this is and how I really need to do and be better and will I have another child and why do I live in Seattle instead of in Boston near my family and did I miss the holiday episode of Modern Family, all of which kept me awake until 5 a.m. That’s when I started to drift off, and that’s when Stella started screaming as if being attacked by vicious  zombie stuffed animals. So then I slammed my door open (it can be done, as I demonstrated), and rush into Stella’s room. Her “paci-binky” (yes, she came up with the term and I think hyphenation is warranted) had escaped from the crib and I could not find it a-n-y-w-h-e-r-e. So in a rage, I turned on the lights, and scoured the area muttering like a mad person. With no luck. So I went back into my chamber of insomnia and dug up an old pacifier and I have no idea why I knew that we still had it or furthermore, that it was in my underwear drawer. The unconcious is a funny thing when furious. So I gave it to her, thereby probably causing her to need braces and major an costly orthodontic intervention as that old pacifier is big and bulbous and probably for little babies with no teeth, and then stormed back in my room. Full of adrenaline and devoid of hope for any sleep whatsoever.

It was quiet for a while, as my body’s adrenaline surge died down, then I thought I heard a peep. Or two. Then there was animated talking about monsters and Santa and robots, and then the screaming. Again with the screaming! It’s totally contrived, but at times very convincing. In that moment, I decided to let her scream and scream because fake screaming shouldn’t “work” and cause me to come running only to have her immediately quiet and smile (because she’s been totally fine the whole time) and cheerfully say, “Papa bear likes porridge!” in an attempt to engage me in early morning playtime, but I was clearly allowing it to work and so here we were, but as of tonight I was having none of it anymore! You hear me?! None! Of! It!

I knew, before caving, that she’d tossed her lovies, blankets and pacibinky out of the crib (but not Dolly or zebra–they’ve somehow been granted amnesty). When rage again lifted me from my rumpled bed, I held it in. I robotically located and returned the crap to the crib, put the blankets her and left. Yes, two blankets, because she has to have the one Mimi made her and the one from when she was a little baby, plus her two lovies (the blandly but lovingly named blanky and pup pup) plus her new bespectacled dolly, named Dolly, and her zebra, of course, because how could you drift off to dreamland without a black and white striped animal next to your head? I was then able to sleep from about 6 a.m. until 7:30 a.m. All told, I’m pretty sure my sister, the one who’d birthed a baby early that morning, got more sleep than me. She will punch me in the face if she reads this. Well, she’ll want to, but like I said, she’s wonderful and will restrain herself.

Stella has, by and large, been a great sleeper. Which is good, because if she’d had both eating and sleeping troubles, I’d have been committed long ago. But in the last month or two, something has changed. I keep telling myself that earlier naps and an earlier bedtime are the key. That we will put Stella in her crib by 8 p.m. on the dot (at the latest!) every night, that I’ll make sure she’s down for her nap long before 1 p.m. (today it was 2:14). It’s just not happening. Today she slept until 9:15, making up for the previous night’s shenanigans, and so we’re off kilter again.

Clearly this calls for a Christmas miracle! Or a watch. You hear that, Santa?

 

 

Christmas is everywhere. Even on our butts.

Posted on by amberhj

I frigging love Christmas. So does my whole family. Growing up, the season was filled with wonder, for reals, thanks to my mother’s amazing creativity, my father’s endless enthusiasm, and my (and my sisters’) borderline psychotic desire to BELIEVE. In fact, I probably believed in Santa until I was 15. I simply refused to give him up because that would mean less holiday magic, my drug of choice. (Wine is now a close second.)

To this day, come December, every nook and cranny of my parents’ house is adorned with enchanting and festive touches. Garland atop every piece of furniture. Lights on banisters, mantles and Christmas trees. (Yep, you’d best believe they have multiple trees.) The dishes, bowls and, well everything, magically become a holiday-themed version of  themselves. Goodbye, bland everyday pottery. Hello, charming snowflake mugs–I’ve missed you! Oh, is that an adorable family of holiday elves on the toilet? Why yes, yes it is. The magic even follows you into the bathroom, friends. If they could fit a small fir tree and holiday choir in there, they would. Outside, there are white lights on every edge of the house and all the trees within a half mile, except for one small concession. A small bush of colorful lights. That’s where my mother allows my dad to win one skirmish in their epic holiday battle of the sexes. White lights versus multi-colored lights. My mom’s Martha- and Jesus-like class and purity (all that is good and light) versus my dad’s gregarious, well-meaning but over-the-top garishness (probably representative of the crass commercial side of the season, and evil). Why, just this weekend at Target, I overheard a woman telling her husband, in one sentence with a dead serious tone and without breathing, to put down the colored lights we are doing all white lights. Clearly, too many colored lights will ruin Christmas. Thankfully, stylish, organized and unwavering women prevent that from happening.

So, obviously, I haven’t yet collected enough decorations to fill our home to the brim but it’s my goal, damn it, and every year I inch closer. There’s currently a full set-up of Christmas regalia on the mantle entailing faux-mercury birds, a small tree comprised of fake red berries, very large ornamanets, a handmade “PEACE” banner (warped by glue and exuberance) complete with glitter and monkeys wearing Santa hats, plus pine cones, the standard glittery Eiffel Tower, etc. etc. A wreath will be strung up over the existing mantle display as soon as I can get my hands on a sturdy wire ring, as I’m using the extra bows cut from the bottom of the tree to make a simple, fresh wreath with a silver bow. Atop the bookshelf, you’ll find the nutcracker versions of Santa, skiing with goggles, and Mrs. Claus, with wire-frame glasses and a tray of cookies for Santa, because getting them at every house in the world just isn’t enough for that tubby saint. If Stella and I can assemble and decorate a gingerbread house without eating it into non-existence, it will join those two up there.

There’s a charming German Advent calendar hanging over Stella’s mini red piano, homemade paper ornaments strung from the chandelier, and a garland with lights on the conveniently red hutch. In Stella’s room, we’ve got a tiny, sparkly pink and white bottle brush tree on her bookcase, one of those small fake trees in the classic burlap sack (needs decorating) on the little white table by her windown, and white and red star lights from Ikea swooping down over her curtains. Outside there’s the typical wreath (may add star lights to this–TBD) plus giant sparkly snowflakes and over-sized ornaments hanging from silver ribbon on the front porch. Lights will be added this week and it’s killing me that they’re not up yet. There are some holiday bowls in the kitchen, white with red snowflakes, but that’s it for that space. Sad, I know. But it gets worse, as there’s no holiday presence in our room or the office–unless you count my holiday spirit when I’m in those rooms. I’ll rig something up, though. I’ll make wonder out of nothing. Because, you know, as proud as I am of the Christmas decorating I’ve done, I’ve got a long way to go before I reach my family’s exacting standards for holiday magic. “You call this a tree? It’s only got 300 ornaments! None of them vintage! Chump!”

Now, depending on your holiday orientation, you may see all of this as paltry and pathetic, acceptable, or outrageously insane. To the latter, yes, it might seem a bit much. On paper! But in person, it just works. Besides, holiday magic isn’t something that can be worked out on paper. If only you believed, you’d understand. Only jerks don’t BELIEVE.

I’m overjoyed to report that, unlike all the non-believing Grinches out there, Stella has inherited the happy holiday gene. This past weekend, I hastily arranged just a few decorations to get us started–the Santa nutcracker and the mantle adornments. She breathlessly reviewed each item several times, saying things like, “Look at my Santa! He’s wearing goggles! Daddy wears goggles, too!” Yes he does Stella, at the swimming pool. But she and I digress. That night, after we put her in her crib, we could hear her sobbing and screaming, “I WANT MY CHRISTMAS DECORATIONS! I WANT MY CHRISTMAS DECORATIONS!” Indoctrination complete, I thought. I gave her a big squeeze and told her about all the decorations to come the next day. Worked like a charm.

We put up the Christmas tree last night, though it’s still naked because, sadly, all our strings of lights died of unknown causes at some point within the eleven months that passed since they last lit up our lives. Our pricey Nordman fir  (they’re huge in Europe) is supposed to shed less. Yet, naturally, needles covered every visible surface of our home by the time the tree took its place of honor in the corner by the large front window. Stella immediately referred to the needles as “Christmas.” She said, “Here mommy, hold the Christmas,” as she passed me two bright green needles, treating them like magic holiday fairy dust. Then Cody got on his belly to fill the tree stand with water. Which is when Stella pointed at his needle-strewn butt and exclaimed, “He has Christmas on his booty!”

Whenever I ask Stella what she wants for Christmas, Stella says, without hesitation, “Ornaments!” Me too, Stella. Me too. Our toilet isn’t going to decorate itself.

*Disclaimer: I use both white and multi-colored lights. Mostly white, though.

Stella’s latest material

Posted on by amberhj

I’d like to share with you Stella’s first original joke, complete with killer timing thanks to a dramatic pause:

“My favorite color is…  BWIP!”

I’m sure that, like Stella and I, you’re laughing hysterically at this point. Catch your breath before I deliver the punchline.

“BWIP’s not a real color!”

And sometimes she’ll throw in:

“I don’t see any BWIP crayons!”

What I find so wonderful about this, besides the obvious comic genius, is the imagination and creativity involved.

It’s clearly very fun to be two, and to have a daughter who’s two.