thoughts

Sweet little Miley.  We have randomly tried off and on to get her to sleep in her crib lately, as opposed to being attached to me in my bed.  The first few times she stood up screaming, sweating and hiking her leg over the rail.  So we chickened out and gave in.  But I got the nerve up this weekend to try yet again and its night five, and I think we have finally succeeded.  I will say to anyone who is having a baby, a video monitor is worth every penny!  The first night she cried for 25 minutes then sat down and stared at the door for 20 more minutes thinking 'I know that women is going to come in here any time now and get me'.  That was even more pitiful than the crying. So here we are at night five and she just rolled over and went to sleep.  A miracle.

I'm slightly confused about what to do with myself.  I took a bath and polished my toenails and now here I sit.  Thinking.  Here are the highlights of my thoughts.

First:   How cute it is to me that Presley was so proud of Miley for sleeping in her crib.

Second: The kids in Presleys class did a science experiment this week where a lady stood at the end of a hallway and Brook stood with the children at the other end and covered their right eyes and had them hold a pencil in front of them; the point being perspective.  The pencil looked as tall as the lady because it was close to their face.  Presley came over to me and whispered "mom tell Brook she needs to cover my other eye".  Brook looked at me and already knew what she was saying and I told her "she knows, its OK".  And of course Brook switched sides very nonchalantly and covered her left eye.  When they all went back in the classroom I stayed in the hallway and cried for a while.  Then I sucked it up and went back into the classroom like nothing happened.  When we talk about her eye we are very careful to talk about it like its no big deal at all.  We don't ever want her to feel "handicapped" because of it or draw more attention to it than necessary, but we also don't want it to seem like a dirty secret either.  Brook handled it very well, exactly like I wanted her to.  Like it was completely normal and no big deal at all.  Honestly, when we first found out there was a "mass" in her eye and her retina was detached, we were prepared by the doctors the probability of it being retinoblastoma was very high.  So after lots of prayer, in many states, and lots of testing eventually resulting in our little girl being put to sleep to do invasive ultrasounds, we found out the mass was a clump of vessels that did not form correctly in her eye that pulled apart her retina. NOT cancer.  So instead of chemo, a glass eye or possibly death; she was blind in that eye.  OK.  No big deal.  Not compared to the alternative.  I am sooooo thankful that is the worst of it that I rarely dwell on the consequence we have.  But it was just one of those moments that I lost it.  She is beautiful, her eyes are gorgeous.  She is perfect.  It may have been the fact that she came and whispered it to me.  That she was so aware of the fact that Brook was covering the other kids right eye and she knew she needed the other one covered. Don't know for sure but I pray that we do whats right for her and that God protects her heart against self esteem issues, kids jokes that can leave scars when that time comes (it hasn't so far) and she finds a way to use it to His glory when she grows up.  I have been asked many times if I was mad at that doctor for scaring us to death.  The answer is no.  He is a well known wonderful pediatric eye doctor and was doing his job.  How do we know it wasn't cancer and that week we spend on our knees didn't result in Gods mercy and change of circumstance?  We don't.

Third: Sorry for the second :(

Fourth:  I got a coupon in the mail today for slip on Huggies!  What genius thought that up.  Its for babies who hate to have their diapers changed and refuse to sit/lay still while trying to change them.  I have the poster child baby for that commercial right here in my house!  I can hardly wait to go out and buy them!

Fifth:   My summer year reading list of "worth while reads"

    

   

 

   

That's it, hopefully Mileys new sleeping habits will allow more reading time.  Ive missed it for the past 14 months.

Sixth: Lucas has ran over 2 baby copperheads in our driveway in the past few weeks.  That means the momma must live in our yard somewhere right?

Seventh: Lucas just came home and put his police radio beside the monitor.  For a quick second I thought Miley was talking...creepy. I feel better now those thoughts are out of my head and am now going to go do something useful, like empty the dishwasher.