Between my last post on the subject and now we decided to order some glasses for both me and Maggie from zennioptical.com. It seemed pretty risky since they’re made and shipped from overseas, but after reading the reviews and paying over $100 for Maggie’s first pair that were scratched within the month, we decided to try it out. We really needed to find a way to get her inexpensive enough glasses that we wouldn’t all panic and/or yell every time she acts her age and takes her glasses off and leaves them on the floor. I ordered a pair of $8 glasses (all of the glasses include the bullet-proof polycarbonate lenses) for me and a pair of $20 glasses for Maggie. Hers were the memory titanium type, where you can bend them and they don’t need to be re-adjusted (). They combine shipping for however many glasses you order, so it cost me $5 in shipping for both of us. About three weeks later (they say to expect them to arrive in no less than four weeks) the glasses arrived. Maggie likes the purple zennioptical glasses even more than her pink Lenscrafters ones, and they seemed to stay on better, and all the adults in the house have stopped flinching every time she gets mad and threatens to throw her glasses. Yay! Mine are also perfect and I like them better than my old ones–they’re lighter, thinner, and a better shape.

All that said, I think it was important that we went in person to stores and tried on real glasses and wrote down the measurements of the ones we liked. I wrote down the general shapes that looked good, the frame width (apparently the most important number), bridge length, the lens height and width, and the arm length. I got the optician in the store we’d already bought glasses at to give me our pupilary distances so we’d get that just right (especially important for Maggie with her lazy eye). Then I used those numbers to find frames on zennioptical that were similar to the ones we knew we liked, which we could do because zennioptical gives you all those measurements for their glasses. So, if you’re considering buying glasses online, I definitely recommend you go through that process first.

Anyway, I was still a little worried this morning before going to the doctor that we hadn’t gotten the right frames or that they’d turn out to be the wrong prescription. But the doctor confirmed that both pairs of glasses were just the right prescription. Later when we went to have them fitted by the optician, the optician (who was a 20-year specialist in fitting children’s glasses) commented that the frames I’d chosen for Maggie were practically indestructible, that they were great quality frames, and perfect for a two-year-old. When I told him I’d gotten both the frames and the lenses for $20 plus shipping, his jaw practically dropped to the floor and he ran around telling all the other opticians in the room. He told me that they sell similar frames in his office for less than other local places and they charge over $100 for the frames alone, plus over $100 for the lenses! Which means I got them for about 90% off. I’m okay with that.

Now that I have the endorsement of the ophthamologist and the optician, I’m ready to order about three more pairs of glasses for her from zennioptical just as backups. And since you can buy prescription sunglasses from them in any of their frames for an extra $5, maybe I’ll get some of those (for her or for me?). But probably in a few months when my wallet has recovered from her expensive glasses…

Oh, while I’m praising people, can I just say that our San Rafael Kaiser ophthamologist, Dr. Claiborne, is lovely and worked wonderfully well with my sometimes excitable two-year-old?  And our awesome child-friendly and impressively experienced optician’s name was George, so ask for him if you need to have your child’s glasses adjusted in the San Rafael Kaiser glasses store.

So, what’s been going on here?  Hmmmm…

Thanksgiving in Arizona with my parents and some of my siblings was divine.  We had all sorts of good food, including a cheesecake flan made by my very own Chef Colin.  My brother, Uncle Nephi, was a hit with Degen and Maggie as expected.  They just can’t stop talking about him and how wonderful he is.  We did some yard work together, which really means everyone else did yard work while I sat in the sun and kept them company.  I tried to lift a shovel of dirt once and immediately thought better of it with my very large belly and confused sense of balance (not to mention my healing sprained knee and very loose ligaments).  I got to see my sisters Ruth and Eliza pass their road tests and receive their driver licenses on the same day!  Yay Liza and Ruthie!  The test proctor was impressed with both of them and their driving skills.  We cooked and talked and my mom adjusted all of our backs (she’s a DO so she can do that stuff) and went to the park and the kids played with Grandma and Grandpa and their aunts and uncle.  It was really ideal, except that a couple of my sisters were missing (on the other side of the country for Thanksgiving this year). My mom cut Maggie’s hair for the first time (with bangs so she can see without pigtails) and trimmed Degen’s to a presentable length, then Mom and I went to a nearby salon and had our hair cut too.  I really love spending time with my mom, even when she has to study for her next qulifying exam part of the time.

Just before Thanksgiving I was officially diagnosed with gestational diabetes, and just after Thanksgiving I was put on a low dose of insulin overnight to take care of that stubborn fasting number, just like when I was pregnant with Maggie.  My current OB, Dr. Klekman in Santa Rosa, is wonderful and is very laid back about the whole thing while also vigilantly watching and listening for any possible problems.  The diabetes educator I’ve been assigned to, Astrid Ortega, is also friendly and relaxed, even when my kids are running around her office in circles.  I do have to have weekly consults with her, weekly appointments with Dr. K, weekly nonstress tests, an ultrasound at 36 weeks to check the baby’s size, and they want me to induce at 39 weeks if the baby doesn’t arrive before then.  They only have me testing my blood sugar four times a day (compared to seven plus when I was pregnant with Maggie) this time and I don’t have to check my ketones in the morning like I had to last time around.  It’s really helped me this time around to have relaxed providers who explain things slowly and listen to me when I have concerns.  It also helped to have some past experience to compare it to so I had some idea of what was coming.

Monday was Colin’s birthday.  Happy Birthday Colin!  We spent it, just the two of us, in Los Angeles at a training for a new product Colin was researching for his company.  It was the first time we’d been (relatively) childless overnight since Degen was born, so it was fun for me to have a little break from my “job.”  It really was amazing to have a room to myself and several meals in a row with no squeals of “Mommy Mommy Mommy!” requesting a refill of plate or cup.  Thanks so much to Sonja and Dick for the time off!

Wednesday was my sister Abby’s birthday.  Happy Birthday Abby!  We celebrated Colin’s birthday with his parents, sister Kim, and her boyfriend that evening.  I gave him 2G of RAM for his laptop, which he’s apparently very happy about but accidentally found out about in advance because I wasn’t sneaky enough to delete it from the history of my browser.  So, no surprise, but a good gift anyway.  Kim and Colin’s parents surprised us with an awesome gift–an overnight stay in Kim’s downtown San Francisco apartment after Christmas (hopefully before baby), complete with local restaurant reservations, spa treatments, babysitting, and touristy touring recommendations.  And I thought our LA trip was a vacation!  Definitely a surprise, and a very cool gift.  No, I wasn’t bothered that his birthday present was pretty much half for me (and neither was Colin, as far as I could tell).  Who needs Christmas presents when your husband gets birthday gifts like that?

Maggie chipped a tooth this week, so I’ve got to get her to a dentist to check and see if we can/should do anything about it in the near future.  We’ve got to finish off the Christmas shopping and do some seriousgift wrapping.  And I need to have the car serviced right away (of course the regular maintenance would fall on this month).  And our renters of our house in Utah gave notice, so we’ve got to find a new family to live there, preferably starting in January.  And I really should get appointments for teeth cleaning and doctor checkups and eye glasses for everyone in the family before the end of the year.  I don’t even know if that’s possible, but if it were it’d be ideal.

It’s always busy around here, even when I have no energy.  Actually, I’m usually okay as long as I don’t have to stand up for long or carry anything and I get a nap in the afternoon.  Any guesses on how often those three things coincide?

This morning I took two kids to the doctor with me so I could get a physical.  It was an adventure!  It was the first normal, healthy, no babies, regular doctor (not an OB) physical I’ve had in I don’t know how long.  The doctor (someone I’d never seen before) seemed a little confused that I was there because I wasn’t sick.  Funny.  Everyone seemed confused that I had two kids with me, but they managed politely and positively to work around Maggie screaming when I put her down and Degen wanting to continually get another drink of water from the water cooler (he loves water coolers).

The doctor checked the red spot on my tummy and said it’s no big deal, just an infected hair folicle that should go away on its own.  The scar on my back is definitely just a scar, not a cyst, but may be the kind of scar that keeps on growing.  As my sister later said on the phone “what’s the difference between a scar that keeps on growing and a tumor?”  I’ll have to ask my mom about that one, but the doctor thought it wasn’t a big deal.

Because of my history with gestational diabetes, he checked my blood sugar and said I do not have diabetes.  He seemed totally unimpressed with my assertion that I’d been working on improving my chances of not getting diabetes and had lost 15 pounds in the last month and a half, and I was a little disappointed that he wasn’t more cheerleader-ish about it.  He was also unimpressed that I’ve been working out 30 minutes a day for the last 40 days.  Hmph.  He did tell me to keep doing it and said that if I don’t I’ll get diabetes.

My tongue has big cracks in it, and the doctor said that can sometimes be a symptom of anemia, so he had an iron check done.  No anemia, either.  Both that test and the blood sugar test involved drawing blood, but the nurse at the lab in the office was so expert that I hardly noticed the prick!  It was seriously the least uncomfortable prick I’ve ever experienced.  Speaking of needles, I was also a couple of years overdue for a tetanus shot, so I got one of those from another angelic nurse who managed to give me the shot while I wasn’t looking and I didn’t even know for sure if she’d done it or not until I felt her stick the bandaid on.  THAT is impressive.

Degen was excited to watch him check my eyes, ears, mouth, and nose.  He listened to my heart and my breathing and Degen liked that too.  I have a feeling he’s going to start to pretend he’s a doctor soon.  Maybe a Batman-Doctor.  Degen and Maggie both have been entertaining us by singing “na na na na na na na na BATMAN!” at unexpected moments lately. They both like the old Adam West 60s version of the Batman Movie.

So, clean bill of health.  Nothing to do but what I’m already doing.  And now I can step on rusty nails sans consequence…j/k

Speaking of shots, I’m going to say something rather controversial.  My mother didn’t have my three youngest siblings vaccinated back in the early 90s, I guess because she questioned whether all the ingredients in the immunizations were safe.  When I had kids, I called her to get her advice on shots and she said that since she’d gone to medical school and seen more research and information about the newer vaccines she’d decided that they’re safe and she’d have the kids immunized now if she had time.  However, she said that she thinks it’s somewhat unnescessary to immunize babies unless they’re going to be in daycare or another high-risk place for getting diseases.  She suggested that, since I’d be staying home with them and their access to infected people would be extremely limited, I might want to wait a year or so before having them get their shots so that their little immune systems would be more developed when they deal with the onslaught.  So, that’s what Colin and I decided to do.

We started Degen’s schedule of shots at a year and Maggie got her first shots today (18 months) and they’ve both been exceptionally healthy.  When our new doctor here questioned me about why these were Maggie’s first shots, I explained the above to him, and he (understandably) told me that he disagreed with my decision and told me that “there’s a web site of women like you telling their stories of how they regret their decision to not immunize their children.”  The obligatory guilt trip over after I smiled sympathetically, he mentioned in a rather surprised tone that my kids are really actually very healthy.  He took a look in their ears and down their throats, told me they’re growing well, asked me if they fight a lot (they don’t), and handed me some informational paperwork on potty training.  Then he sent in the nurse to do the shots.

At our old doctor’s office in Utah (American Fork Clinic, Dr. Hoggard), they had a great nursing staff.  When they did a big set of shots (two or more at a time), they would send in two nurses and administer two shots simultaneously, efficiently and effectively.  It was awesome.  The nurse at my new doctor’s office did a great job today, but she was only one person, and Maggie got four sticks in succession in her chubby little legs.  I prefer the other system.  Maggie didn’t scream until the third shot, but then she made it known that she was not interested in putting up with us any more.  All the shots finished, she screamed and cried for about three more minutes and then I gave her a sucker that the doctor had handed me for her on his way out and she quickly became cheerful again.  The one odd thing about the process was that the nurse explained the normal sysmptoms and when to worry or not about her shots as she gave the shots.  I heard nothing.  I was busy trying to calm Maggie down to hear her over Maggie’s screams.  Luckily, she gave me some paperwork explaining everything (I hope!) she’d just said.  Of course, I was so distraught about my injured baby that I forgot to take the paperwork with me and didn’t realize it until I’d gotten both kids buckled happily into their car seats and had to undo my heroic work and go back into the office and ask another nurse to go searching for the papers.  And no, I didn’t know which room number we’d been in.  And then we repeated the walk-to-the-car and buckle-up processes.

Degen is really into chivalry, to my delight and chagrin.  He likes to hold doors open for people as they enter or leave, and it’s very cute and a habit I want to encourage.  The downside comes when I’m trying to corral both him and his sister into or out of a building and he wants to stay and hold the door open for the next 10 people while I try to figure out why he refuses to obey my command to “come!”  That happened to us today BOTH times we left the doctor’s office on the way to the car.  An ancient gentleman who was going into the office was confused about why Degen wanted to hold the door open for him–hopefully he wasn’t insulted.

Speaking of shots, I’m going to say something rather controversial.  My mother didn’t have my three youngest siblings vaccinated back in the early 90s, I guess because she questioned whether all the ingredients in the immunizations were safe.  When I had kids, I called her to get her advice on shots and she said that since she’d gone to medical school and seen more research and information about the newer vaccines she’d decided that they’re safe and she’d have the kids immunized now if she had time.  However, she said that she thinks it’s somewhat unnescessary to immunize babies unless they’re going to be in daycare or another high-risk place for getting diseases.  She suggested that, since I’d be staying home with them and their access to infected people would be extremely limited, I might want to wait a year or so before having them get their shots so that their little immune systems would be more developed when they deal with the onslaught.  So, that’s what Colin and I decided to do.

We started Degen’s schedule of shots at a year and Maggie got her first shots today (18 months) and they’ve both been exceptionally healthy.  When our new doctor here questioned me about why these were Maggie’s first shots, I explained the above to him, and he (understandably) told me that he disagreed with my decision and told me that “there’s a web site of women like you telling their stories of how they regret their decision to not immunize their children.”  The obligatory guilt trip over after I smiled sympathetically, he mentioned in a rather surprised tone that my kids are really actually very healthy.  He took a look in their ears and down their throats, told me they’re growing well, asked me if they fight a lot (they don’t), and handed me some informational paperwork on potty training.  Then he sent in the nurse to do the shots.

At our old doctor’s office in Utah (American Fork Clinic, Dr. Hoggard), they had a great nursing staff.  When they did a big set of shots (two or more at a time), they would send in two nurses and administer two shots simultaneously, efficiently and effectively.  It was awesome.  The nurse at my new doctor’s office did a great job today, but she was only one person, and Maggie got four sticks in succession in her chubby little legs.  I prefer the other system.  Maggie didn’t scream until the third shot, but then she made it known that she was not interested in putting up with us any more.  All the shots finished, she screamed and cried for about three more minutes and then I gave her a sucker that the doctor had handed me for her on his way out and she quickly became cheerful again.  The one odd thing about the process was that the nurse explained the normal sysmptoms and when to worry or not about her shots as she gave the shots.  I heard nothing.  I was busy trying to calm Maggie down to hear her over Maggie’s screams.  Luckily, she gave me some paperwork explaining everything (I hope!) she’d just said.  Of course, I was so distraught about my injured baby that I forgot to take the paperwork with me and didn’t realize it until I’d gotten both kids buckled happily into their car seats and had to undo my heroic work and go back into the office and ask another nurse to go searching for the papers.  And no, I didn’t know which room number we’d been in.  And then we repeated the walk-to-the-car and buckle-up processes.

Degen is really into chivalry, to my delight and chagrin.  He likes to hold doors open for people as they enter or leave, and it’s very cute and a habit I want to encourage.  The downside comes when I’m trying to corral both him and his sister into or out of a building and he wants to stay and hold the door open for the next 10 people while I try to figure out why he refuses to obey my command to “come!”  That happened to us today BOTH times we left the doctor’s office on the way to the car.  An ancient gentleman who was going into the office was confused about why Degen wanted to hold the door open for him–hopefully he wasn’t insulted.