First Haircut

My original plan had been to wait and get Ella's hair cut for the first time when we go to Disney World in January, but I reached a breaking point a week or so ago.  Her hair was just a MESS -- constantly in her face (she hates having it pulled back), she would get food in it, and she'd developed the oh-so-lovely habit of putting it in her mouth.   I was done.

The problem, though, turned out to be finding somewhere to take her.   I thought surely there would be some kind of kid-friendly hair-cuttery around here, but I was wrong.  I don't have a salon or hairdresser that I go to on a regular basis at all, and I wasn't willing to risk a SuperCuts or Great Clips disaster.  So we wound up driving to Durham -- yes, it's as ridiculous as it sounds that we drove an hour each way to get the kid's hair cut.  (We did have dinner at The Cheesecake Factory -- where we saw 'Canes announcer John Forslund! -- so we had that little bonus as well.)

She got really upset in the car when we were about 15 minutes away -- no idea why.  She's usually a great traveler, so I don't know if she was just tired of riding or what.  But that didn't bode well for her being thrown into a new situation with strange people, which is a tenuous scenario in the best of times.

We tried sitting her in one of the little kiddie chairs they had when we first got there, but she didn't like that idea too much.  I wound up holding her, and she did pretty well after that.  By the end of the whole thing, she was even smiling.  The people at the salon were super-nice, even when she was
wailing away.

I wound up just having them trim it up and make it tidier -- I think she took off around an inch, maybe.   She also got a few little layers put in to bring out her curls in the back a bit more.


And because I'm a sucker, I wound up getting their "First Haircut" package -- it came with before and after pictures, a lock of her hair, and a little certificate.  Too much.

Here's the finished product (complete with her lollipop reward):

Ella's Eyes

This past Tuesday, we had a visit with the pediatric ophthalmologist regarding Ella's drifting eye.  It's been going on for awhile now, and after speaking with her regular doctor about it a couple of times, and seeing no improvement, he referred us for a consultation.

I tried to prep her in advance and let her know that the doctor just wanted to look at her eyes and wasn't going to hurt her, but of course, that was all in vain.  As I expected, she freaked out.  I have no idea how he managed to examine her, with all the screaming and crying -- I had to physically restrain the child (I felt AWFUL) -- but he did, and diagnosed her with moderate exotropia, which means that her eyes -- with her, mainly the right one -- turn outward.  Aside from that, though, he said her eyes looked good and healthy, which was great to hear.

So we're trying patch therapy.  She has to wear a sticky eye patch for a couple of hours a day on her good eye (and yes, we do call her "Patchy" and talk to her in pirate-speak -- I'm sure that will be brought up in therapy) to see if that will help strengthen the weaker one.  It wouldn't be a cure, but it can help to correct it.    We'll do this for about 3 months, and then she'll have another exam to see if there's been any improvement.

She actually doesn't seem to mind the patches too much, which I'm really impressed with.  She fussed at me a bit the first day I put one on her, but since then, she's been good about it.   That definitely makes it easier.

Keep your fingers crossed that the patching is effective.  We really hope that it works and we can avoid anything more invasive (read: surgery).

A few recent photos.

A visit to preschool and other things.

(Author's note: I realize that I have been terribly deficient at updating as of late.  I will endeavor not to fall so far behind in the future...mostly to keep Jon and my mother off my back.)

After some debate, Jon and I decided it would be a good idea for Ella to tackle preschool in the fall.  It seems sort of early, but she doesn't get much interaction with other kids her age, bless her heart, and she tends to hang a bit tightly to the apron strings sometimes.

So we (well, I) researched a few local programs.  We just wanted something a couple of mornings a week, nothing crazy...and nothing ridiculously expensive, either.  The combination proved a little harder to find than I expected.  Finally, I hit on one that sounded like a winner -- the Little Friends program up at the local Friends Meeting.  It's two days a week, from 9-12, and as an added bonus for Jon and me, the Quakers are SUPER-liberal.  Woohoo!  It's a co-op as well, so a parent assists each day (you wind up going in about once a month), and I think that's a pretty neat aspect as well.

I got a call from the teacher, and she invited Ella and me to come visit the classroom during their summer camp.  We were there for about an hour, and I really liked what I saw, and what Stuart (the teacher) told me as well.  Ella wasn't opposed either -- she colored some, had a cupcake, and read some books with the teacher on the sofa.  So I think it's going to be a really good fit for her (and for us!).

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The tree is finally down in the backyard, and not of its own volition!  A few days after my last update, the tree people (via Duke Power) came out very early in the morning (well, it was like 8:15am...early for us, not for humanity), and they took it down.

It was quite a process to watch.  They had all kinds of ropes tied to it and looped over other trees and whatnot.  One guy wound up scaling a VERY skinny tree near the falling one,  and was using a chainsaw -- ONE-HANDED -- to cut the dead tree into logs that they went crashing down to the ground.

Once they had it cut down to a reasonable height, another fellow cut the dead tree down at the base, and the guys manning the ropes swung it up and over the fence, and then lowered it to the ground on the other side.  The whole process took about an hour, and I still am amazed today that we never lost power, the fence didn't get torn down, and the shed is still standing.

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BODILY FUNCTION TALK AHEAD.  Don't say I didn't warn you.

Ella's potty-training is going REALLY well, and Jon and I are both really pleased and proud of her progress. We've been working at it full-throttle for about a week now, and are having great success with regular pees, with very few accidents so far.  I've mostly just been letting her run around pants-less, and she seems to be getting a good handle on when she has to go, and self-regulating.  

Up until last night, we'd only had pee, but she absolutely floored both of us by sitting down and pooping in the potty -- completely unprompted!  We hadn't been really focusing on that at all -- just asking her occasionally if she needed to do it, which was always met with a "no".  Last night, though, she just sat down and went!  I think it freaked her out a bit -- she got kind of upset about the whole thing, but it wasn't anything some stickers and a few M&Ms couldn't sort out.  

I would LOVE to have her fully daytime trained by the time we go to FL in January, so keep your fingers crossed that everything continues to go smoothly.

Weekend Update

Ella spent the night over at Grandma and Pop's this past Friday night, so Jon and I took decided to do something we haven't done in about 3 years...we went to the movies.  First off, HOLY COW.  I know people bitch and moan about how expensive the movies are, especially the concessions, but it's seriously ridiculous.  We went to a matinee, shared a popcorn and had two medium drinks (which were about a 1/2 gallon each), and it was over thirty dollars.  Are you kidding me?  Guess it's a good thing we don't go any more often than we do.

Luckily for us, though, we picked a really good movie -- Inception.  I'm glad we saw it in the theater, because I think it would have been a different experience altogether watching it on TV.  If you haven't seen it, I'd highly recommend it.  It's thought-provoking, and very well done.

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The tree in the backyard has now moved from leaning over the shed to actually being in full contact with the shed, and laying on the power line.  It's been like this for a number of days now.  Since it's been on the power line, we've had four different people affiliated with Duke Power come out.  Nothing has been done.  The most recent time we talked to them, they said they were going to contact our property management company, since they can't be responsible for the shed or the fence if they should be damaged while they're trying to remove the tree.  If they're not able to remove it themselves, they will have to cut power to the house, a private company will have to come out and remove the tree, and then they will restore power.

So we remain in "wait and see" mode.  Hopefully, the tree is not putting so much stress on the line that it will cause the power pole to break, because that would lead to even more problems.

This has been going on the better part of a month now, I believe.  So take that for what you will.

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Erika was in town last week, and she was sweet enough to take time out of visiting her family to shoot Ella's 2-year portraits out at the Bicentennial Gardens and Bog Garden!  Let me tell you, I think we picked the absolute hottest day of the year to do it on, but Ella was a trooper!  She did tons of walking -- we were out there for about two hours, I think -- and didn't whine at all until we were almost done.

Our time in the heat was well worth it, though.  Erika did a great job with the photos, and I'm beyond happy with them.  If you want to see a few, you can check out her photography blog.