Lesser of Two Evils

Collin went to the eye doctor on Thursday to check up on his "lazy eye." Basically he will need surgery to correct it, it is just a matter of when. At the moment his left eye is too weak to recover properly from surgery, so we need to strengthen it for a while. We tried the eye patch thing for a while and it was super frustrating trying to keep Cyrus away from Collin, so the doctor gave us a prescription for some dilating eye drops for Collin to use every other day. The results are not as good as with the patch, but better than nothing. So ok, the drops. Well, today was my first attempt with the drops. It really is a two person job, but I managed to get them in but not before traumatizing the poor thing for a minute trying to pry his eye open. I could tie his hands down, but I would really rather not have to do that. So I patched him afterwards, snuck up on him and slapped on the patch. He played with it for a while but eventually forgot about it, until it was time to take it off. OUCH! More trauma. Looks like it will suck no matter what I do. Poor Collin, my happy go lucky baby is getting tortured on a daily basis. I just hope I have the strength to endure the role of torturer for his benefit. Tolerate the heartache in exchange for my son's eye getting strong as quickly as possible to get the surgery over with as quickly as possible too.

On the upside he is starting to imitate more. My mother taught Collin to fake cough, which if he were not such a quiet grunting baby I might be annoyed with, but I have to admit it is pretty cute. I can make a sound and he will make it back with this big smile. No syllables yet, but some times I swear I hear him call out "Maaaa" when he groans for help after he climbs into the wagon and cannot get out.

And speaking of climbing, Cyrus' new trick is climbing into the chairs at the kitchen table. Something all kids must learn to do, yes, but we have ceramic tile floor, so the chairs move very easily. Crisis averted the other night after he managed to get into the chair and lean towards the table causing the chair to slide out from underneath him- but Mommy caught him just in time! Woo Hoo Mommy! Now the chairs are in the living room on the carpet when they are not being used by big people. Cyrus talks all the time and imitates everything. I love it when he brings me things, whatever he pulled off the kitchen counter or found on the floor that he knows is not a toy. If he is allowed to have it I give it back, other wise I say "thank you" and put it away. I only hope it lasts.

Oh yeah, I had a birthday over the weekend, now in the final year of my twenties. I am really looking forward to my thirties, I will still be young but no longer as naive and ignorant. (At least I hope I am not as naive and ignorant!) :P It was my birthday all weekend long, went out Friday night with my Sweetie, Saturday night with two of my closest friends (the boys spent the night at my parent's house! So I slept in!!!), and spent Sunday with my family. Monday morning Gaia went back to her mother's house, and I am always so torn when she goes home.

A month every summer just isn't enough time with her. Yet at the same time I was ready for a break from being hovered over from the moment I woke up to the moment she went to bed. This was the first year she was old enough to really help out with the boys and she did a lot to help out. But having two houses and two sets of very different rules (and parents) must be hard on a kid. This has been a very hard year, the recovery from so much overwhelming pain and stress. I was not at my best this summer for her, and I hope I can make it up to her somehow, sometime. Being a stepmom is really hard, I cannot replace her mother and I do not want to, so how do we fit in with each other, you know?

Well, whew! Back into the blog again! Let me post some pics on here and get myself to bed!

Cyrus having a rockin' time at the Clubhouse for Kids.
Those are my favorite shirts of theirs, in case I had not said so before!

Collin leans out the window of the toddler area where he played
much of the time since he isn't walking yet. Cyrus was running amuck elsewhere.

...And I just want to apologize to those who use IE- I do not know why in the world the type is in super HUGE font, but I will try to fix it. I use Mozilla Firefox, and it looks perfectly normal, so...