the middle of the marathon.

Visit # 9 for the eye resulted in a bit of a bi-polar reaction for me.

Positives of the visit

- Dr. Cogen's Words of Knowledge/Advice/Genius:

"I am very pleased with what I see." (In reference to Anderson navigating around the Mr Potato Head pieces on the floor, his observation of the lens with all of the fancy equipment, the fact that I am still alive with some degree of sanity after the last 2 months of all day patching)

"The next year is going to be the hardest. You are in the middle of the marathon. It's long, tedious, not rewarding but required.'

"I am cautiously optimistic that you are going to be a success story." (Hmmm. I always appreciate the caution, but I would like to focus on that success thing.)

"You are doing a better job than most." (I guess this is like a B? I don't like B's except in math class, in which I am grateful for anything in or above the passing range. This will be an A by the time we are done. I like A's.)

"You can't overpatch. You can't get this time back." (Always.)

Anderson's love of the ruff ruff
One of the things the doc does to get Anderson's attention is this dog that barks & lights up. Anderson loved it & kept waving at it & saying, 'ruff ruff!' It was a hit.

The waiting room
For a good chunk of time we were the only people in the waiting room, which gave us full reign to play garbage trucks & climb on the furniture. Somehow we still spent 2 hours there, but that is the price for greatness (and it takes that long for the dilating drops to do their thing).

When someone did join us, she proceeded to enlighten us with details about her granddaughter's birth weight (2.4 lbs), her Baptismal gown (beautiful, made by a cousin in New Jersey, too big), her favorite deli meat (corned beef). She thought I was very attentive to her but, I was clearly just playing peekaboo with him. I don't care about lunch meat. Look at his little face between the chairs!

6 months
We don't have to go back for 6 months! This is pretty nice considering we have been there 8 times since January.

That bi-polar thing/Negative of the visit:

We still have to patch all day. Duh. I knew this, I know this, I will always know this. But, that doesn't mean that it doesn't still stink to hear it. I was having a really good afternoon, hanging with the fam, the sounds of 'better than most' playing in my head. Then, I went to write his next 2 appointments in my calendar & something about seeing July, 2012 was a little numbing. We literally have to do this for another year. Oh, and like 5 or 6 after that. It seemed so real, official and awful. I am pretty good about 95% of the time, but I think I am allowed the other time to just be annoyed. Amanda was there for me & said, "I would be mad, too. It's awful." Thank you, Aunt Manda. Sometimes, I don't want someone to be encouraging or positive, I just want them to let me be mad.

And, like a true bi-polar, I very quickly switched back to happy.

This picture was going to be how cute he was playing with Mr.Potato Head but before I could snap the picture, he recognized the expensive machines. You will notice there are no glasses for the tater & that is because Anderson kept taking his own glasses off to put the Potato Head ones on. Cute, but not really going to work.

I will say it every visit until he is 3 (7? When will he stop playing with it?), but WHY on earth do they have us wait in a room, that is basically a closet ,with one giant, expensive toy? Nothing will be able to win his attention from it.

1 beach, 10 words, 100 popsicles & 1000 pictures!

We went to Hilton Head with Brandon's family & had such a fun time!

If you expect anything less than a post with a ridiculous amount of pictures then you clearly do not know me at all. I really tried to condense the pics. Tried.

Anderson has really started talking a lot lately & it is so much fun to interpret his words. There were quite a few that seemed to be the key words of the week so I have used those as a starting point for the post!

1. "Bobble!" No, I didn't mean to write bubble. He calls me Bobble . A lot. He is definitely in a Mama's Boy phase, so we heard my name probably once a second or so. Not that I am complaining at all. I love that for these few minutes I am all that he needs to make his life complete. It's a pretty mutual feeling.

We just got there & I wasn't planning on actually going in the water. Who was I kidding?
2. "DIG!" What is the perk of the beach if not as a giant sandbox? When we first walked to the beach, we kept excitedly pointing at the water & Anderson just plopped down in the sand as if that was why we drove all that way. He liked the dry sand, the wet sand, all of it.

In an attempt to not wake the entire family up at 5:30 am every morning, we took Anderson on morning walks. It was really fun & we found all kinds of random stuff & animals.

We totally stole this hole from some bigger kids. I am pretty sure that he thought he made it. He was very proud of himself & his digging skills.
Everyone told me how great his age is because, "he will love the sand but be scared of the water." Hmmm. Let's just say there are no pictures of him in the water because if he got within a foot of it he was off trying to swim away. He is fearless and I don't say that with pride. But, he was pretty cute because every time we pointed out the waves he would start frantically waving.


We found this on a walk & he thought he made this, too. I like that he dreams big.
3. "Bug!" We saw a lot of these because he thought the little crabs on the beach were bugs. Back to that fearless thing, he kept picking them up! I don't have any pics of that either because I was too busy freaking out about them pinching him. Then Brandon told me they don't actually do that. I still worried a little bit, though. Duh. I'm a mom.
Brandon found a mole! It was excellent. I saw the dirt moving in this little tunnel shape & told him to check it out. I meant look at it, but he started digging it up and picked up the mole! Clearly the fearless thing is genetic. It was pretty cute but looked terrified so I was screaming, "put him down! he's blind! we have sympathy for vision problems!" Then, I was kind of bummed I didn't get a picture because it was the first one I'd ever seen.
Most of the animals that we looked for were bugs, ruff ruffs (he pointed them all out on the beach in the morning), & tweet tweets (frantic waving if they were in the sky, frantic chasing if they were on the beach) but we did meet the occasional gator (snap, snap) on our bike rides. I love how I'm nervous about a tiny crab but I let us get this close to the alligator.
Brandon caught a lizard & Anderson kept wanting to hold it.
We enjoyed a slightly larger version of the beach bugs one night.Anderson was awesome that night, playing with a new little tractor.
4. GuGu! (& GG, uncle Austin, Jpa...)

One of the cool things about the trip was that Anderson was able to hang out with his uncles & granparents a lot. Despite the early morning wake up calls & eating dinner at 5pm, they definitely bonded! We decided Uncle Curtis is going to be called GuGu & Anderson was calling him that. Pretty cute.

5. "Ball!"

Oh, ball. An oldie but a goodie. Anderson pointed out every ball that we saw the entire trip. In true Glover boy fashion he tried his hand at kadima but decided to stick to football.

Found this football on one of our walks.
6. "Bike!"

If you ever go to Hilton Head, you will realize that it is clearly a town for bikes with a few tourists sprinkled here & there. I have never seen so many bikes. We decided to join the masses & became a little addicted ourselves! I took a little longer since my first spin resulted in me crashing straight into a tree. Literally, straight on. It hurt, I cussed, people laughed. It was pretty funny. Anderson really like riding it but, like everything else in toddler world, he wanted off when he had enough. Notice the glasses around his neck, no patch, frantic cries of "Bobble! Bobble!". Here I am! Bobble is right here taking a picture of you instead of helping you.


We rode to Harbourtown which had this huge playground, a lighthouse, little shops & restaurants. Very fun. This is where THE Garbage Truck was purchased.

7. "Glasses!"

He says, "Gyasses". Adorable. There are times when I really wish he didn't have a patch & glasses. The beach topped that list. I will say that due to our constant vigilance (Mad Eye!), the patch stayed on much more than I hoped. I was so proud of him for being such a trooper. Think about wearing an eye patch & glasses at the beach as an adult, much less a toddler. The patch got wet, sandy, pulled off. Ditto for the glasses. I tried to tell myself it's a rare thing & let it go but the ghost of Dr.Cogen kept appearing telling me, "You can't overpatch!" and "You won't get this time back!". Ugh. Enjoy a vacation as a 1 year old or see as a 13 year old? I am pretty proud of how well we kept it on, though. We were prepared to dry the eye, clean the glasses & reapply. He really was so, so good with it. And, the positive of the beach is that so many people wear sunglasses or goggles. He seriously was adorable as he would wave & say hi to girls, point at their sunglasses saying, "Gyasses" & then point at his & say, "gyasses". It was always girls, too. Maybe he has decided to start working the eye thing?
We tried the cloth patch idea but it didn't really work. I think he was more aware of it.
I always love when pirates patch the right eye. It really is the correct way.
8. "night-night"

or, not. WHEN do they start sleeping later if they go to bed later?? Someone tell me this! He was so tired from all of the activity that he would fall asleep so quickly, but he still woke up at 5:30 (or before) every morning! Since he was in our room & could see me it wasn't like I could just ignore him. Plus, it was really hilarious to hear how pumped he was every morning as he realized he was still in the room! "Bobble! Daddy!". Pumped.
Asleep on the bike ride.
Asleep on the swing!
He didn't even take the patch off!
Couldn't keep his eyes open. Check out the white belly! I was ridiculously OCD with the sunblock/layering. My goal for the week was to not have to google "toddler sunburn".
9. "Garbage Truck!"

Oh, don't think that we left this little obsession in Knoxville. TWO times we were able to see garbage trucks in action. His eyes zeroed in on this miniature truck at the toy store we took him to. Love at first sight, I guess. He couldn't go to sleep without it.
These pics are pre-garbage truck. We now realize that he was just settling until the real thing cam along. I love the stash of distraction devices. I was reminded often on this trip that toddlers + restaurants/waiting= not really that fun.
I love these shark jammies. 10. "big step!"

Yep, it makes the cut. He has been addicted to stairs since he crawled up his first set at 6 months. Now, he barely lets us hold his hand & he says, "big step" as he walks up each one. We spent a lot of time on these that led to the beach.

Halftime. Take a break, catch your breath, maybe get a snack...

Here are a bunch of random pics that I just wanted to include in the post.


I, myself, used a bottle of apparently worthless sunscreen every day. Tan=wrinkles/skin cancer. I guess there are worse problems than tanning too easily, though.





He is going to kill me for putting this on here, but it's awesome!




Skye & her family live in Savannah which is pretty close to HH so they came down for a visit! It was so great to hang out with them & Eli, who is almost 2, is adorable. Anderson kept saying Eyi when he left. He loves a friend. So do I! Love you, Skye!!
Look at us playing the mommy game.

We went to this really fun place called "The Sandbox". It was basically an awesome playground for kids with a ship, airplane, craft centers, trucks, slides, dress up areas. I need this in my house. Or, at least in Knoxville.

Cute little mermaid.

We end with Anderson testing out his first wand. He had the glasses, a scar from falling down the big steps, so it was just a matter of time. I am pretty sure it is made of a phoenix feather. I guess time will tell.