Cyrus got glasses!

Cyrus spent the first four years of his life with only one functional eye (his right).  We just had no idea, since he learned his letters and numbers, could throw and catch, and gave no indication that anything was wrong with his vision.  At his four year old pediatric visit, he completely failed his vision test in the left eye (he was perfect in the right).
So, after some figuring out insurance coverage, etc, Gabriel took Cyrus to the Ophthalmologist on Thursday morning.  She diagnosed him with something called Refractive Amblyopia, otherwise known as lazy eye, and wrote him a prescription for glasses.  Gabriel and I have never had to get glasses before, so we wandered into Lenscrafters not really knowing what to expect.
The glasses-finding process really isn't that hard, but you definitely have to be sure about which glasses you'd like to have on your face for the next year of your life.  We tried a different glasses store first in downtown Athens, and they had NO selection or variety for children.  The glasses were all these tiny, rimless, blue or pink nerdy glasses.  Yuk.
Thank goodness Cyrus has a mother that has some standards, because I told Gabriel we were just going to have to do a little better than that.  So, we headed to Lenscrafters to find a plethora of different choices and very helpful staff.  I'm so glad we didn't stop at the first place and settle.
I'll admit, I've been nervous about Cyrus having to wear glasses.  I mean, he's just about to start school.  Why does he have to have this happen now?  I know looks are superficial, but I just want him to have a good experience.  After getting him the glasses you see in the picture, I have felt much better about them.  I think he looks nice in them, and he actually can already see SO much better than before.
Whew.  I'm relieved.  This problem can be corrected when caught early enough, so I'm hoping he'll have two good eyes later in life. Until then, we're trying desperately to keep these $200 pair of glasses from breaking or getting lost.  Sitting on the face of an active 4 year old, that is going to be a challenge.
-Shirin

The more going on, the less I blog

So, my stellar reputation as a good blogger is being sorely tested by these times lately.  I've had a lot on my plate.  Besides the normal commute, family, and cats I am used to tending to, I also have a foster cat, various other rescues, a faulty iPhone wifi connection, and my husband reinstalling windows and about to upgrade his entire computer system.  Plus, I've been running twice a week and trying to swim occasionally, which just takes up more of my precious free time.  Also, my normal blogging time, which would be right after the kids go to bed and instead of fixing lunches and cleaning the kitchen, has been delayed by my staying in the kids' room longer to rub Kai's head until he falls asleep.  He does great as long as I do that and he's up forever keeping Cyrus awake and doing various naughty deeds until all hours of the night if I don't.  I just want his brain to be healthy and get enough sleep.  Also, much of my free time with the kids has been taken up with playing games, doing puzzles, or learning about letters/numbers, ie. quality learning activities to prepare Cyrus for his first day of school.
Cyrus will be officially starting school on August 13th, which is just a few weeks away.  Gabriel just went school supply shopping for him, partly on Amazon.com and partly at Walmart.  Despite the fact that I'm grateful to him for taking the initiative to get it done, I feel saddened by the fact that I didn't get to participate in the exciting activity of "school shopping."  I used to love picking out my own folders and lunch boxes. Oh well.  My solace is that I have another kid and about 16 more years of school shopping to fill the void I'm feeling.  We're getting him ready, which is the important part.  Cyrus, for his part, is very excited about school and has loved working with his new work-books and doing lots of puzzles.  It's amazing how many times he wants to put the same puzzle together over and over again.
Work has also been busy.  I'm often the only vet for part of the week, so it's me and no one else to deal with any of the sick/emergency/work-in patients.  Recently, I've seen broken legs, snake bites, really weird dermatology cases, auto-immune diseases, tick-borne diseases, mammary carcinomas/other cancers, and several toxicity cases.  I like being busy, but the school year will bring a decrease in cases/illnesses, which I can't say I'm totally dreading.
I promise to blog more soon and post more pics.  Maybe even a video or two, if I'm really on top of it.  Right now, I'm very limited to whatever computer capabilites are available and whether or not my iPhone feels like working.  :-/
-Shirin

My stoic husband enduring "Daddy Mountain" games.

Our new foster kitty, Asali, is making progress.  She's very used to the kids now and just starting to hiss/growl a little less when she see my cats through the door.  We're still keeping them separated.

The boys have been a lot of fun and Kai is talking more than ever.  We laugh often at his attempts at complicated language, though they are often non-sequiturs.  Examples: a book about a cow attacking a mailman = "terrible mail package."  He said that phrase about 50 times.  Ha ha.

As always, enduring all the craziness, my sweet little feline babies.  I hope Asali starts being nicer to them soon.

Casey's visit

Last summer, Gabriel's older brother, Casey, started an annual tradition (I hope) of driving up from Tampa to visit with us for a few days.  Since he's a teacher, he gets his summers off and has some time before classes start again.  Morgan couldn't make it this year, unfortunately, but we've still had a lot of fun visiting with Gabriel and his two brothers.

-Shirin

Having dinner and catching up with Casey Tuesday night.

My silly, apple-eating boys.

On Wednesday afternoon, Bren came over and Gabriel took off work, so we were all together.  

Since I rarely have enough time to prepare much food and I had guests, I fixed up a bunch of yummy finger foods for us to graze on, including spinach dip, pico de gallo, hummus with bread, veggies with dip, fruit, leftover pizza, and deviled eggs.

Love these guys.

Casey and Brendan showing off their triceps.  Ha ha.

Despite some cloudy weather, Casey and Gabriel humored me and Cyrus and took us to the neighborhood pool.

Morgan, Casey's son, is already an excellent swimmer, so Casey worked a little with Cyrus holding his breath.

Party pooper Gabriel didn't swim because he "doesn't swim on cloudy days."

Brendan playing outside with the boys.

Where did Kai get his curly hair?  Well, Brendan and Tita have it, so it was in the genetics somewhere.

A very nice picture of the guys.

And...you have to have a silly one!

A picture with the sole girl in the house.

And...another silly one.  You can't be with these guys and not get silly.

We let the boys each take turns with the camera.  Here's Cyrus' best one.

And, here's Kai's best one.

Montessori School revisited

As I mentioned recently, we had decided that we were going to send Cyrus to Pre-K at Gaines Elementary, a public school near our house, despite the fact that we had gone to an Open House at the Athens Montessori School (AMS) last year and LOVED it.  Nevertheless, we were concerned about paying tuition for a private school and the public school really did seem perfectly fine for a four year old.  However, Gabriel came to me a few weeks ago saying that he had rethought sending Cyrus to the public school, and that he wanted to check AMS out again.  So, that's what we did this past Wednesday.  I had already sent in the new application, since the one we did last year had been accepted but we declined it at the time since I had no job.
Our recent visit confirmed what we thought: this is going to be an AWESOME school for Cyrus.  The primary class consists of a group of 3-6 year olds (about 12 per teacher).  They do different activities according to skill levels and interests.  Older kids teach younger kids.  Younger kids learn from their peers, as well as their teachers, and then take the responsibility for teaching even younger kids later.  There are many topics that are going to spark Cyrus' interest: music, numbers, puzzles, geography, household activities, gardening and it goes on and on.  While we were there with the director, discussing the ideas behind a Montessori education, Cyrus got to meet one of the teachers.  She showed him the kitchen where 3 kids make their own snacks and sit down to eat together at a time, and he noticed an activity involving a pitcher and some soap-making components.  He quizzed her about what all the items were for and before any of us knew it, he said "Let me try that!" and grabbed the pitcher, walked to the sink, and filled it with water.  I think the teacher was a little taken aback and told him that he needed a lesson in it before he could do it, but he was so gung-ho that the director said to me, "Oh, he's ready!"  I know he is!
Since we were late in applying and Cyrus is actually a year older than when they recommend he start in the primary class, we had to wait for approval for a spot.  Luckily, the director was able to go inside while the boys and I played on the playground outside and come right back out 20 minutes later with the good news: they found a spot for Cyrus!
We got the acceptance and intro packet today in the mail and Cyrus has been assigned to the "Yellow Class." Gabriel and I could not be more excited.  I am just so darn thrilled about Cyrus starting school in just 1 month exactly (August 13th is the first day).  I mean, butterflies-in-my-stomach excited.  We have a whole list of supplies to get, instructions on only putting him in closed-toed shoes, and bringing low-sugar, low-food-coloring, low-preservative snacks.  There's a parents list-serv, a Yellow Class potluck dinner, and all sorts of volunteer opportunities for parents to get involved with too.  It's going to be awesome.  I think it'll really create the sort of "community" that helps a child feel involved and cared-for by more than just his parents.  We'll probably also meet like-minded people/parents.
I'm sure I'll post more on this later.  Did I mention how excited I am?
-Shirin

Playing outside after our tour of the school

The school complex is fairly widespread and has lots of green space.

One of the classroom buildings.

Kai transporting sand with a bowl.  What a good little worker bee he is.

 Experimenting with the monkey bars.

Brother monkeys.

Their announcement board at the exit.  Can't wait to become a part of this cool community!

Lots going on

I had a good day with my boys today.  We didn't do anything that different, other than visit the Athens Montessori School again (more on that later).  Bren came over to play, I went running with Melissa, we played outside on playgrounds in the morning when it was still cool, and did puzzles and watched a movie this afternoon.  Just a good day off.
Gabriel is still quite busy with his job and I tend to be really busy in the summers as I've mentioned.  Yesterday, I lost a patient I tried desperately to save (he was only 3 years old) and it's been haunting me. I keep thinking about if there was anything I could have done differently.  Hard to know.  Such a sad case.  Gabriel and I have also given up on the house search for now.  We decided we just need to figure out things a little more solidly in regards to our five year plan before investing in anything else at the moment.  We had definitely liked some of the houses we looked at in the Five Points area with one of the best elementary schools in the county (Barrow Elementary), but they were built in the 70s and all needed work.  We just don't need that right now.  Gabriel still loves his job.  I am getting better and better every day at mine.  It's amazing what two years will do.
Cyrus starts Pre-K in August, just 1 month away now.  It'll be a big change but one I think he's ready for.  I'll post about our trip to the Montessori school, but the summary is that we had decided to go with the public school option until Gabriel changed his mind again a few weeks ago.  We reapplied and went to visit and meet with the director today.  He said Cyrus was definitely ready for their Primary program, which just seems AWESOME!  They have music, language, gardening, numbers, sensoral, courtesy, and many other lessons for the kids.  They have great outdoor activities, as well as lots of indoor ones as well, even with the afternoon daycare.  It's going to cost us more, but we think we'll probably start him out there and see how we do.  Their education is very important to us.  But, again, more on that later.
OK, this was supposed to be a short post, but I guess I had a lot to say.  Well, like I said in the title, we have lots going on.  Oh yeah, and we got the kitten Beatrice a wonderful home with a Psychology professor from Winthrop I used to cat sit for.  Yippee!
-Shirin

Lots of videos of the kids to peruse

Day with Bren

Last week, as you know, we were sans babysitter, so Pap pap came up for Monday and Tuesday, I covered Wednesday, Gabriel stayed home Thursday, and Brendan and Gabriel halved the duties on Friday.  Whew!  Thanks goodness for Gabriel's family always pitching in so much.  What would we do without them?
Well, because I was gone and working so long on Monday and Tuesday, I didn't get even ONE picture of Pap pap with his bubsies.  Sorry Gene!  My bad.  Luckily, Brendan sent me two short videos and a picture of what he did with the boys while he was there.  This is why uncles are so awesome.
-Shirin

A few pics on the 4th of July

Since I was off today, the boys and I had some fun.  Sadly, Gabriel worked all day so he could take off tomorrow to cover daycare being closed all week, but we did get to have lunch with him.  Here are a few pics before I hit the hay.

-Shirin

We went hiking and exploring nature this morning behind Memorial Park.  This was a natural archway created by a fallen tree.  So pretty.

I let the boys be the leaders and decide which paths to take.  They had fun with that, though they squabbled a little over the details.

They climbed all over the place, as well and looked at some fallen tree seeds/nuts and even planted a few.  Cyrus kept stopping to listen for wild animals, but I told him that they heard him way before we got there and were probably hiding.

We found a home for Beatrice.  I think she'll be going there next Wednesday.  Poor Cyrus will miss her.

I convinced my dad's psychology professor colleague, who I used to cat-sit for, to adopt her.  She said her little girls are so excited.  I'm very happy because they will give her an excellent home.  Beats sitting on Hwy 106 with a bloody nose!

My naughty two year old who never wants to go to bed.

Poor bubsy busted his lip really badly tonight when he tipped forward on the stool and hit his mouth on the table.  There was a LOT of blood, but luckily it was just his lip and not his teeth.  

 Happy 4th of July!

Busy

Sorry for the lack of blogging.  I've been out of town last weekend and then the only vet this week at work.  I haven't had time to post anything, but I have been doing great.  We had a nice weekend in RH last weekend with my parents (thought sans Gabriel) and this Mon and Tues, we got to host Pap pap here while he helped us with babysitting.  We're so very blessed to have such good family close enough for fairly frequent visits.
I'll post pics soon.
-Shirin