Piggies............or "pretties"

Just a quickie little blurb about Erynn and her new look! She has been letting us do pigtails for the last three days and I am SO excited!! Of course I'm biased, b/c I'm her Mom, but I think she looks SO cute in piggies. She calls them 'pretties' though. "I wanna show Papa my pretties! Mommy, lookit my pretties!" Love them.

Vent

Watch out tonight, I'm in a mood.

That being said, I need to vent. It's 9:30pm and I have *just* sat down. yes, since I got home from work at 3:45pm. What, you ask, have I been doing for the last almost five hours? EVERYTHING. At least that is what it feels like. Let me start by saying I have been getting 2-3 hours of sleep per night since last Thursday. You know that right there sets me off. Granted, it's for a good cause b/c of the LASIK. All night long I'm woken up when I roll over because I have to wear what I can only compare to ski goggles when I sleep to protect my eyes. Fine - I'm dealing with it.

Back to today. I get up for work at 430am, get ready and head in. It's a normal day. Busy but fine. I get home and I need to make stuff for the boys' Valentine's Day party tomorrow. I know what you are going to say. I didn't HAVE to MAKE something. But I did. It's what I have done ever since they started going. I *always* make something, I don't just send something in from the store. So I made cookies and brownies. Then I had to put the goody bags together for the kids. All 16 of them. Fine. Then I take a quick minute to eat 1 cup of Kraft Mac and Cheese, (yes, I measured it out!) John was "making dinner" b/c I had enough to do so this is what we ended up with. After I inhale that I sit down (okay, so technically I *did* sit before now but you know what I mean) with Aidan and let him write the kids names on the envelopes for the cards. He was very excited to be doing this.

BTW - here is the card - cute, eh? Erynn doesn't go to DC with the boys but they were *adamant* about her being in the picture with them "b/c she is our baby sister and we love her" Awwwww, sibling love.

So, I get done doing the cards with Aidan. I put them in the envelopes, seal them and gather them up with the goody bags. There were a few extra cards so I sent them out to family and friends nearby. (Yes, Steph, this means you lol) I put all the goody bags and the cards into a container together. Then I put the cookies and brownies in another container. THEN I carry it all out to John's truck b/c, if I don't, I KNOW he will forget them in the morning.

That is when I really take notice of the effing BOMB my husband has left all.over.the.house. Seriously, I'm not even exxagerating. The playroom looks like every single toy my kids own is trying to escape. There are dirty dishes all over the kitchen table. The pot, with mac and cheese still in it, sits on the stove. The sink is full of dirty dishes. The counter tops have fingerprints, crusted food, smudges and just *gook* all over them. The living room has John's shorts (um, shorts?! It's 20 degrees outside, wth did he have shorts on??!!) are in the middle of the floor along with papers, dirty socks, sippy cups, etc. Everywhere. Betcha can now guess exactly why I haven't sat down all night! The house is spotless. SPOTLESS. Did I mention when I'm pissed off I clean???

Oh. Where is John you ask? Well, he is working a detail tonight (and yes, I realize this is YAY good news and I am seeing it as such) and he decided he wanted to take a nap. YES, I know he has that right. I know he has to work all night. But, so did he. He knew what *I* had to do tonight so he could have taken the time to pick up all day. Aside from running Aidan to the Dr for his 5 yr check up, he was home all day!! He didn't have to leave it all for me to do on top of everything else I had to do for the kids party. He didn't even offer to help with any of that. Now I'm exhausted and I'm sitting down here waiting for him to wake up from his nap b/c I don't want to wake him up. UGH. Does this make me a saint?!?! ;o)

LASIK

So, I finally did it!! I had LASIK surgery last Thursday! After talking about it for over two years I finally did it. It went really well and I was freaked out for no reason. I want to remember what it was like so I'm going to write it all out. Feel free to skip this post. ;o)

I go in for my check up, have all kinds of testing done and I'm a "perfect" candidate. The surgery is scheduled for 3 wks later.

Day of Surgery

I go in at 815am. I sit around for a bit and then I'm checked in. I get all of my post op instructions, eye drops, Xanax and 1000mg of Tylenol. I'm brought into the "relaxation room" to let the Xanax kick in. It doesn't really make me feel any different at all but I have a *very* high tolerance to meds so I'm not surprised. I just go with it. I'm given numbing eye drops three separate times and I'm ready to go in.

I go into the room - which is all glass - and John is escorted to a chair right outside of the room. There is a TV monitor there as well so he got to see the entire surgery. They lay me down on the table and tell me to look up at the halo of lights. My vision is fuzzy so I just stare up. the nurse tells me look up, look down and they insert the speculum. (Seriously, it's called a speculum. Not sure whose brilliant idea that was b/c we all know where the other speculum goes!!!) It didn't hurt at all and I only know it was in b/c I couldn't shut my eye anymore. Then the Dr puts what John called a big suction cup on my eyeball. Again, it didn't hurt at all. Just a ton of pressure. They tell me stare straight up, that they are going to start. This first segment is when they laser cut the flap that the second laser will work under. On my left eye it did hurt but not from the laser. When the machine came down it pressed right on the suction cup which then pressed something, I assume the speculum, into my cheekbone and it HURT. I kept flinching. But, that part is only 15 seconds (literally) long and I was fine. Rinse, lather, repeat for my right eye (less the pain b/c that one was put in right) and I'm done with the first segment.

Second segment is the actual corrective laser. The whole table moves over to the right now I'm under a different machine. They tell me to just look up at the green dot but hello?! They just cut a flap in my eyeball and are holding it open. I can't see squat!!! The machine comes down and finally, I can faintly see the green light. Score, I'm just going to stare at it. They tell me this next part will be 23 seconds and I'll hear a clacking. Yep, I hear it. What they don't tell you about is the smell. Oh my. I had *heard* that it smelled like hair in the hairdryer - you know how that sometimes happens. What I didn't hear is that no, it's worse than that and it lasts the entire 23 seconds. No, not a very long amount of time in retrospect, but when you are under that laser and smelling it it is!! The clacking stops and they are done with the left eye. At this point the Dr smooths the flap back down. I can only compare this to a paintbrush. I could tell he was doing it and it was helping to clear my vision. On to the right eye. This time I knew what was coming so when they said "okay, 23 seconds" I held my breath. NO problem. Laser, smooth eye flap back down and I'm done! Dr Neilsen has me go ahead and sit up and immediately there is a chick in my face with a Polaroid camera. Um, okay. Smile. She puts that one down and grabs a digital. Smile. LOVE the bonnet.

Dr Nielsen says, "look at the clock and tell me what time it is" I say "9:27" Yup, it's that easy.

I'm told to go home and sleep as LONG as possible. That if I don't my eyes are going to feel really bad - like I have onions in them. Okay, no problem. I go home and John takes the kids (and the dog LOL) and he goes to run errands with his Dad. Ahhh, sleep. Crap. I wake up an hour and a half later. O.M.G. I now completely understand WHY they were so adamant about sleeping. But it's not onions. Oh no, not even close. It feels like I have ground up glass in my eyes. Holy. I get up and walk downstairs, with my hands over my eyes b/c it's too bright and very painful, and I get my eye drops and another 1000mg of Tylenol. I go back upstairs, put the goggles back on and try to go back to sleep. It takes a while and my eyes are *streaming* with tears. It hurt, but not enough to make me cry. I really think it was my eyes trying to lubricate themselves and stay moist. I finally fall back asleep and wake up 3 hours later. I. Feel. Great!!! NO more pain at all and I can see the clock clear across the room!! Things were, and still are, a bit hazy but that is to be expected. I have 4 different kinds of eye drops I have to use 4 times a day for a week. One of them is literally just like Milk so I'm sure that is where the haze comes from.

Post op check up was the next day. I went in and they tested my vision - 20/20. YAHOOO!! They are very impressed that my eyes aren't red or bloodshot at all. Um, thanks. They ask if I see halos around lights and I say I do and I'm told that is normal and should go away with time. My coworker was kind enough to tell me that it took her friend EIGHT MONTHS to lose the halo. Yikes. Thanks for that. Regardless, it was all worth it. I'd do it again in a heartbeat. I definitely recommend it to anyone who has been thinking about it!!!!