Our little fashionable pirate...

We noticed Aria's eye sometimes turning in when she was an infant, but the doctor told us this was normal and it would probably correct itself. It seemed to get better sometime after she turned 1, but then got worse around 15/16 months. At her 18 mo appointment her doctor sent us to a specialist and he concluded that she needed to patch 3 hours a day until her 8 week follow-up appointment. At that point he will assess her improvement and she will probably have to continue to wear a patch for a while. The doctor did say that sometimes patching doesn't help and it can only be fixed with surgery. Hopefully we won't have to go that route.

So after about 2 weeks of trying and trying to get Aria to wear her "sticker" we were finally successful with total compliance. At first there was nothing we could say or do to convince her she needed to keep it on her face. We approached her with a fun attitude, clapping and singing, but she wasn't having any of it. After reading some advice on-line, I came across this:

Consider having a rule that only parents touch (put on, take off) the patch (e.g., "When the patch is on, only Mom or Dad touch the patch.")

So there it was. The one piece of advice that was the key to our success. She finally let me put the "sticker" on and I told her that "mommy will take the sticker off when it's time". Voilà! She didn't pull it off her face. I had to remind her about 20 times, but it worked! Everyday has been the same since. No fight, no fuss.

Cute Aria with her wonky eye (about half her pictures turn out this way now, this will be one of the few you get to see :-)

We picked out some fun stickers for her to wear and of course they match each outfit accordingly:

Ladybug Red

Smiley Blue

Flower Power Pink

Make sure to take time to smell the flowers :-)

Daycare = Ear Infection + Pink Eye

So after a long weekend of snot and little sleep Aria had her first sick-day and stayed home from school. We took her to the doctors and found out she picked up a cold that turned into an ear infection and also got pink eye! Double wammy. Poor little girl. Hopefully she'll get better soon.

We did take a little time out Saturday and went across the street to play with Austin. He's the same age as Aria and is a little cutie. Here are some pictures:

Austin and Aria having a ball!

Aria mowing our neighbors lawn...

Here's a closer look at the background - like father, like daughter!

child care search

Virginia licensed child care search

here's a good tool to use, that we found after we put Aria in daycare. something that kind of upset Dana yesterday was that it seemed as if there may not have been enough staff watching kids before pre-school (pre-pre-school if you will). and lo and behold, that's exactly what kind of violations Chesterbrook has been cited for, and just last month even!

so we may switch her at some point to the local kindercare, they haven't had any violations in over 6 months. i feel like a bad parent for not doing this search beforehand. it didn't even occur to me!

First Day!

Aria was dropped off by mommy at her preschool/daycare at 8am this morning. Apparently, she didn't seem to care much, because of all the new toys. The teachers and helpers couldn't believe it was really her first day!

I'm thinking when she realizes what's happened, we'll pay for it tomorrow.

I forgot to grab the camera on my way out to work, so I can't post the picture I took of happy Aria this morning, ready to go in the car. I will post tonight when i get home. :-)

update: here's Aria ready to go to daycare!

back to work...

This Monday will be Aria's first day in daycare/preschool! Dana picked out her outfit already, we have the list of things we need to bring for the first day, as well as things we need to bring everyday. we're all ready!

am i ready to work 8-9 hours straight on Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday? i dunno. it's been over 16 months since i did that, and even then it was tough (with a new baby in the house). :-)
it doesn't help matters that I'm going to be swamped with work. :-\

Wish me luck!

Day 6: Survivor San Juan

i feel like Dana's been on the show Survivor, and they voted her off at the second tribal council. and i think that's how long she would last (sorry Dana). she's too nice and they would see that and get rid of her fast. I'm thinking her tribe would have won the first immunity challenge, and then lost the second, so they voted her off :-(

I think the challenges would be Menudo- and Bacardi-based...

no million dollars for us unfortunately.

Day 5: play date and mommy request stats

Our good friend visited with her son today for lunch and playtime. It was a fun time, but lets just say Aria will learn about sharing eventually. :-/

Sorry Dana, she only asked for you twice today. It's interesting how that's changed over the week. On Sunday, since she was expecting you to get her in the morning and feed her breakfast, the mommy requests were front loaded and numerous, and tapered off until the end of the day. on Monday the majority of the mommy requests were right about dinner time. it's almost as if she knew what day it was and maybe you were on your way home from work! the chart below illustrates the mommy request trend over the past 5 days. the orange line at top shows the totals throughout the week at the time periods on the x axis. you can see that overall, she misses you most at dinnertime. it is perfect that we will be picking you up at the airport right around dinnertime tomorrow! I can't wait!

Day 4: Wednesday? what happened to April fool's?

"Mommy? This toy phone doesn't have good reception"

I had planned on doing an April Fool's post, but the fact that i forgot illustrates how messed up I am this week. Sunday felt like a Monday, and i fell asleep on the couch Monday night (oops!), so when Aria woke up i had no idea what was going on! with work and Aria almost 24/7 this week, i totally missed it.

Today Aria and I went to Chesterbrook Academy to hand in the enrollment forms and get any final info for what we need to bring on Monday. Aria had so much fun in her new classroom, she met her classmates and played a while with all the toys. I don't think it will be a problem when we drop her off for the first day. she actually got upset when i picked her up to leave!

all was well though because we played outside when we got home. Aria's mood has been pretty good overall over the past 4 days, but mommy being absent is taking its toll. her temper tantrum threshold is much lower, as evidenced by the following photo series — I call it "The Camera is Not a Toy":

"Smile for the picture, Aria, so Mommy can see you on the blog."

"Oh, can I see the camera Daddy?"
"No?! OK, I throw a tantrum then!"
"huh. what was I so upset about? I dunno. Hey look at that glass over there!"
"I can see myself!"
"OOH Daddy! can I see the camera?"

Needless to say, the camera disappeared for the rest of the afternoon.

Mommy requests today: 5
Total Mommy requests: 36

Day 3: Grandma doesn't have a name

i think because we try and try to get Aria to say grandma, she ignores us, and doesn't try to say it or some facsimile. since Christmas, she has called both grandpas "pop-pop" (and without much prompting either), but when asked to say grandMA, she says "pop-pop", and when asked who they are, she says "pop-pop", so that is her name for all four of them!

My parents came over today, so i was able to go in to work for our weekly meeting and get some work done. :-)

seeing my parents out this evening we saw a couple neighbors with 2 bishon frises. Aria had a blast! she was hugging the dogs, and they kissed her, and she loved petting them. sorry, no photos! :-(

mommy requests today: 10
total mommy requests: 31