Meredith's eye surgery

At the very end of September, right after we closed on our house, Meredith had to have eye surgery to correct blocked tear ducts in both eyes. This condition was present from birth, but they usually give it a year or so to clear up on its own, however, if it goes past a year then it usually has to be corrected surgically. It is an extremely minor surgery (probably less invasive than getting tubes put in your ears) but any surgery they perform on your child is a major one to the parents, especially when they are putting them to sleep! It was a simple procedure that took about 10 minutes. It went really well and she is doing fine otherwise - there is nothing wrong with her vision (she can spot Spongebob in Wal-mart a mile away), which was a concern since Todd had so many vision problems as a child.


Here we are in the waiting room before surgery. Todd, Mimi, and I were with her. Mimi came along for emotional support since Todd had to go straight to work after the surgery.

Meredith was in a surprisingly good mood, considering how early it was (6 am) and she hadn't had anything to eat or drink since midnight the night before. She just entertained everyone in the waiting room

Since I have already had a comment about Meredith's appearance on this morning, I will emphasize this again - it was VERY early in the morning and she had had NOTHING to eat or drink since about 8:00 pm the night before. You obviously can't explain all this to a 16-month-old, so we took her, sleeping, out of her bed and put her directly in the car - we did not mess with her any more than we had to with silly things like brushing her hair or changing her out of her pajamas, putting on shoes, etc....anyway, moving on...


What an attitude! She did not want to put on the surgical gown. She was yelling at me here.

She had a great time playing in the pre-op area

They had all kinds of cool toys there!

She really enjoyed this car

After the surgery was very traumatic for all of us. I know a lot of you have already been through surgery with a baby or toddler, so you know what I am talking about - if not, consider yourself lucky. According to the doctors, you can expect that they are usually very confused due to the anesthesia, and quite often, agitated. "Agitated" was the understatement of the year and could barely be used to describe Meredith after the surgery. We could hear her screaming from the waiting room. Of course, she was perfectly fine, she wasn't in any pain or anything (they had already given her tylenol before they woke her up), but it was just unnerving for us to hear. Needless to say, there are no pictures of that. There was nothing we could do for her. The helpful post-op nurse suggested that "they usually calm down when you get them in the car." I think it was her polite way of telling us to leave, that Meredith was upsetting other patients in the surgery center (they do surgery from youngest to oldest so there were other children around in the morning). We eventually just had to put her in the car, where she promptly fell asleep.



Here she is a little later on, after she had calmed down. Nothing was wrong with her eyes other than she had a little ointment on them - she just happened to close them at that moment.

Her get-well balloons - complete with her favorite - Spongebob Squarepants

Mimi and Papa got her a "fridge dj" to take her mind off her troubles - she loves it and it is still one of her favorite toys

Mimi also got her a Dora the Explorer doll

In other news - this is what happens when you leave your children with their grandparents!

The next week, we went over to the new house to take some things and clean up, and Meredith stayed with Mimi and Papa. Not only did they put an Alabama (Auburn's biggest rival, for those who don't know) jersey on her while we were gone...

but it was the dog's jersey!
Here is the rightful owner of the jersey, George

I think this was Meredith's first time playing in a sprinkler, which she thoroughly enjoyed!

Stay tuned for more updates!