The Vallecillo’s

Our Beagle Bell can either be at total and absolute brat (which turns out to be about 95% of the time), or very sweet and tolerant. Today larsen found a bag of clothespins (yes, we have clothespins and I don’t even know why we have them or where they came from) and decided that Belle would be an excellent subject for testing how strong of a grip they had.

I don’t know if Belle was just being sweet and loving to Larsen, too dumb to realize what was going on, or just too darn lazy to go through the effort of getting her butt up and moving somewhere else.

Today Larsen went to his ophthalmologist appointment as planned after his last doctor’s visit in response to our comment about his “lazy eye.” We weren’t sure what to expect out of this visit, but I wasn’t expecting a full eye exam with pupil dilation and everything. Now…it has been as very long time since I’ve been to the eye doctor, but from what I remember and eye exam involved looking through some scary looking contraption and deciding whether something looked better “this way” or “this way” (both of which looked exactly the same).

I was wondering how that procedure would go with a 4-year old and couldn’t help but feel sorry for whomever would be attempting to perform such tests on Larsen. Come to find out all you have to do, at least with kids, is look at some flashing lights. Yes, that’s it! No questions asked! Don’t you just love progress?

Unfortunately the results were surprising, and not in a good way. Apparently Larsen is very farsighted, meaning he can clearly see objects that are far away, but has trouble seeing things close by. And not only is he farsighted, but apparently he is “6-times worse” than normal. I’m still trying to figure out exaclty what that means, but that is the story I heard. I’m sure Mandi wasn’t firing on all cylinders after hearing the farsightedness part, so we are not sure what all was said past the fact that he was going to need glasses.

Larsen, according to the paper that was handed to me, has accommodative esotropia. Basically meaning the crossing of the eyes due to farsightedness. The only solution for it at this point is prescription glasses to correct the farsightedness that is causing it, so I guess off to get glasses we go.

Hopefully things will go much better when we go to check his tip-toe walking in February.

We are such “lucky” parents! Not only do we have “no talking days“, but we now also have “no seeing” days as well. Larsen has decided that not talking for a whole day is just not fun enough, so the new game now is not opening his eyes for the day.

We used to think the most annoying game of the bunch was the “no talking” one, but we were so mistaken. The “no seeing” game takes the cake because of the obvious handicapped state the child ends up in. Luckily he hasn’t lasted a full day playing the “no seeing” game, but I wouldn’t put it past him. Thus far his record for the “no talking” game is 3 full days, I kid you not!

When we went to the doctor last week we asked if he had heard of a child doing such things. It was no surprise to us when he said: “he is on his own wavelength on that one for sure.” I’m not sure if we supposed to feel special or not.

Today was Mason’s birthday party at Main Event in Lewisville. This is a great place for kid’s birthday parties because there is so much to do! I’m not sure if Larsen had more fun bowling or watching the balls coming out of the machine, but he sure was excited to see the ball that just disappeared in the distance come right back in a matter of seconds. Wow, how do they do that!?

Of course, there is much more than just bowling. Like video games that gives you tickets in return that you can later cash-in for prizes…always a favorite with the kids. We had places to go and people to see, so we skipped those this time around. We did though have some pizza, cake and sang “happy birthday”…of course.

Today was Larsen’s “4-year” visit to the doctor, and I can assure you it was not one of Larsen’s favorites by a long-shot. This is the visit when a 4-year gets booster shots, 4 of them to be precise. Larsen got lucky in that he already had one done during a past visit, so he only needed 3 shots this time around. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Once we got to the doctor’s office Larsen was taken by the nurse to the back-room for both a hearing and eyesight test. When he came back we were told that although he did fine with the hearing test, the eyesight test was met with resistance. Needless to say, the eyesight test would have to be done at a later time.

Afterwards the doctor came and did the usual “21-point inspection” on Larsen. Once all the poking and probing was over with, the doctor asked the obligatory question: “do you have any other questions for me?”

It was a this point when Mandi and I jumped right in and addressed our two main concerns:

1. Larsen’s lazy-eye:

We have been noticing lately that Larsen’s right eye will sometimes “wander off” slightly. At first we thought he was doing it on purpose, but after seeing the same thing on his school pictures we decided this may not be a voluntary event. The doctor did some rudimentary tests, but basically told us it would be best to see an opthamologist for this.

2. Larsen’s continued tip-toe walking:

For the longest time Larsen has preferred to walk on the tip of his foot, and we have been hoping it would just “go away” on its own. Now he is 4-years old and we have seen no indication this is going to stop anytime soon. The doctor checked on Larsen’s ability to bend his foot backwards and found it to be a bit on the “tight” side, so he again suggested we go see a specialist that can better tell us why this may be happening.

We have already scheduled appointments for the above, which I’m sure will be anything but uneventful.

The day ended in a very painful-note in the form of 3 shots on the thighs. The first shot wasn’t so bad, with only a single “in hurts” uttered. The second one received a few more “it hurts” followed by a tear or two. The third one, this one was the whopper since it stings as it goes in, received the full blown continuous “it hurts” with full-on tears and crying. This “mode” continued for several hours after we got back home.

It was sad and definitely one of those moments when you are reminded how much you feel for them

Our new neighbor Mya bought Larsen a drum set (and we can’t thank her enough) last week. I was in no hurry to open the box and put it together, but it finally happened after much procrastinating.

Yes, it is loud and obnoxious…but he has so much fun just banging on it that we find the strength within to endure a short drum solo here and there.

There is a new “game” in our household, albeit not a very fun one for anyone else but Larsen. The game is, as I like to call it, “drive mommy and daddy crazy by not talking™”. What you might not realize is that this is an all day affair, so that means the game usually starts when Larsen wakes up and it just may not end until the very next morning!

I know what you are thinking: “I wish I could get my kid(s) to shut up for a whole day!” And you are right…having a quiet day around the house is indeed very nice (if only I could get the dogs to learn this game as well), but that only means you have to put up with a lot of pointing and grunting when he wants something. It also means we need to come up with “yes” or “no” questions…for example:

“what would you like to eat?” must be broken down into a series of “if-then-else” statements:

if (“do you want some chicken?” = true) then “cook chicken”
else if (“do you want some meat?” = true) then “cook meat”
else if (“do you want some rice?” = true) then “cook rice”
else if (“do you want some pizza?” = true) then “cook pizza”
else if (“do you want some eggs?” = true) then “cook eggs”
else if (“do you want some cereal?” = true) then “cook cereal”
else if (“do you want some oatmeal?” = true) then “cook oatmeal”
else “Larsen stays hungry”

So you tell me, which is better…silence or guessing-game?