Eyes and Ears

Sweet HG had an eye operation on Wednesday. This was to help correct the alignment in her eyes. They look GREAT! We won't know for sure if this will be the final surgery needed for the alignment for several weeks, but they look good and straight to me! I'll try to take a picture of them tomorrow. They are a bit swollen still and rather red, but they look much better than I expected, to be honest. I imagined that they would be much more blood shot than they are. She has taken it easy for the last two days and is still rather tired. The hardest part is that she has to have drops put in her eyes (antibiotics and steroid) for a week, 3 times per day. She doesn't care for this at all! She did do better today. I'm sure about the time she gets used to it, it will be time to stop. She also cannot touch her eyes at all and so she has to sleep with these splints on her arms. She doesn't really seem to mind the "no-nos" on the arms and actually asked for them tonight! Ha! She doesn't wear them during the day, but she knows she cannot touch her eyes. If I see her getting close to touching them, I will remind her in spanish. She will then repeat it to me, telling me "No tocas!" That girl!
After the eye surgery, they did a sedated hearing test (ABR). We did not expect any hearing issues but did this at the request of the speech therapy folks. They feel that HG will benefit from a specific type of speech therapy but she can only receive it if she has no hearing loss. Well, the ABR showed a signficant hearing loss. We were shocked! It did not seem possible for her to have this severe of a loss and for us to not notice it at all. Yes, her speech is bad, but according to the initial/verbal report from the ABR, she shouldn't hear much of anything at all. If you have spent any time around HG, you will know that she does indeed hear you, often repeating what you say. Today we folllowed up with the ENT and his initial comment was, "Well, this is going to be an interesting case for sure!" The ABR was contradictory to some of the findings of the initial hearing testing done in his office with an audiologist. He said that if he only saw the paper report on HG, he would say that she could not hear much of anything at all and that we would definitely notice it. Since she was responding to his commands (in poor spanish at that!), he knew she could indeed hear better than the ABR showed. So, his approach is "let's wait and see." She does have a large amount of wax in her ears (he cannot even see her ear drum) and wants to work on getting that out before we go to the next step. He said that he thought the ABR "over stated" her actual hearing levels. So, we are grateful today for that potentially good news.
For now, we will continue to heal and continue to "work" on HG's development. She is doing SO well!

Happy B'day, J!

Poor pics, I know. Sorry! That's the best I could do with my phone. and poor lighting!

Today we celebrated J's birthday! After swimming for the big girls this morning and work in the yard, we ate dinner at Babe's. Yum! We had never been to Babe's and we all really enjoyed it! The girls were a little freaked out by the "chickens" in the entry way, but they were able to laugh about them on the way out the door. Then, a yummy ice cream treat at Dairy Queen. Whew! We are stuffed! In fact, we had to save the presents for in the morning because we were all tired and too full to celebrate any more. Happy Birthday, J!

My Fish

HV and HM swim... a lot. Even as cold as our pool is now, they still get in (not daily, but still!). This school year they joined a swim team through their school and have loved it! Technically, HM is too young for this school group, but the coach said "let's try her and see how she does." She's been in the water with them every week since then! They had their first meet this past weekend and did GREAT! Both girls competed in all 4 strokes and placed in the top 3 on all events for their age bracket. HM came home with a medal and 4 ribbons. HV came home with a trophy and 4 ribbons. They issue points based on their ranking and HV had the highest number of points in her age bracket. Needless to say, we are proud of our "fish!" Good job, lovies!

Two on Thursdays

So she was my date tonight. Pizza and then to the park to feed the ducks was on the agenda for us. We had a good time together.
Since bringing HG home, it has been hard for all of us. We are SO grateful, of course, that she is here. It's just an adjustment for us all. The "big girls" are feeling a little left out and so we decided to have a babysitter each Thursday afternoon/evening for HG (and ironically, her name begins with H as well!). J and I each take a kid and go do something, just the two of us. There will be times when HV and HM have a sitter too and J and I will be having a date. We've got that lined up for next Thursday! So, if you want to "borrow" our big girls for a Thursday afternoon/evening, let me know! It's good for all of us!

and then she was 8

HM today, her 8th birthday

One of the first photos of HM, 3 days old

Oh my! Our "middle" baby is 8 years old today. Boy, she has grown and changed! Entering the world at just 5 pounds and a few ounces, we never imagined that she would grow up to be such a "big" girl! She can still scream and screech with the best of them, but she can control herself so much more in the last year or so. She's such a good big sister to HG and a little sister to HV. I can't imagine our family without her! We love you, Stinky Girl!

No, she doesn't stink. :) I'm not sure why we call her that, but we do.

Serving Spoon

I had a date tonight, just with my oldest "baby." Check out that spoon that came with her pork lo mein! She thought it was hilarious!

And yes, I did eat at a chinese food restaurant. They WILL prepare chicken lo mein without veggies, just in case you wanted/needed to know. :)

Socktopus

I love this thing! In order to continue to cut back on expenses, I've started hanging some of our clothes to dry. I bought a metal drying rack but was struggling with how to keep the socks from falling off. I found this little gizmo at Ikea and HV named it the Socktopus. It does have eyes too! (No, I don't leave it hanging here. It's just hanging there for the picture). We'll see how this impacts the electricity bill.