ophthal-what?

Just to add to the flurry of posts in one night, I thought I'd mention our trip to the eye doctor this morning. We've been going every 3 months or so, for regular check-ups for Aria's patching. There has been some decent improvement, but the real cool thing is that Aria was awesome the whole time—though it didn't seem it would be that way at first... (as I write this, I see a squiggly-lined fade out to a flashback—diddle-liddle-oo! diddle-liddle-oo!)

This morning, she woke up fine, got out of bed, let me change her diaper, then the tantrums started.

First, she wanted the PJs off, without my help which she's able to do now. fine. "I won't help you, please don't get upset because I looked at you, Aria."

Then she had to dress herself. "But both legs won't fit into one pant leg." I even went so far as to take my pants off to show her how to do it. didn't help. she WOULD NOT let me touch her to help. She actually did get both legs into one pant leg at one point, and to show her it wasn't gonna work like that, I told her to go look at the school bus outside. she stood up, then kinda rolled over. we both laughed. :-)

It's now almost 7:45, we have to leave no later than 8:30, and I know that breakfast, getting her lunch ready, and getting her other school stuff together as well as us into the car can take up to 45 minutes. I decided to take matters into my own hands and put JUST HER FEET into the correct pant legs. Aria was then able to pull up her pants. "You need to pull them up in the back Aria, your pants are caught on your diaper."

Now the meltdown. The shirt. I stupidly put it on her all by myself. She's hyperventilating, pulling at the shirt with all her might trying to take it off while I take her downstairs. She's gyrating as I'm trying to place her in her chair for lunch. screaming at the top of her lungs. FUN! I stay calm. I make her breakfast which she of course doesn't want. she wouldn't even want juice and popsicles with lollipops on the side if I offered em at this point.

So. I reset. I took her out of her high chair. Laid her in the middle of the family room (because she kept throwing herself back when I tried to sit her down), and explained to her that we had to go to the eye doctor and she wasn't cooperating. "I know you love dressing yourself, and you hate it when your routine is messed up, but we have to work together this morning, please?"

I let her cry for about 2 minutes while I got her lunch and other things together. Time Management 101! Then, I went to her, hugged her, she returned the hug, and I talked to her some more about everything. She was ready to eat breakfast! I always let her take her time eating, I got totally ready, we got out the door at 8:40. not bad.

Now let me flashback again. over the weekend, I kept reminding her of Doctor Territo. It got to the point where I could say "Aria we're going to see Doctor Territo on Monday morning." and she would respond with "Doctor Rito look at eye. No hurt Aria." So when all these tantrums were happening, I was getting stressed for what could possibly happen when we got to the doctor's office. It was pretty bad on previous visits (slight flashback there).

well, the whole car ride, she was fine. we get there, she's fine. we get into the exam room, and when the doctor came in, she gave him a pouty face. I thought "oh no here we go..." But she didn't cry. The doctor went through his routine, and Aria took to it. she even answered his questions, and took a little test with pictures of objects on a screen, telling him whether it was a bird, car, hand, or birthday cake.

Since this was really the first time we were able to do these advanced tests with Aria, there was no real baseline until now. Now we have something to look forward to at the next visit!