Cautiously Optimistic

Easton is winning! , Julia is doing awesome! and Austin is probably a big brother by now. 

And, to add to all of the imom pride, we got an AWESOME report from Dr. Cogen today! 

Since we are so far into the Eye situation, we only have to visit his PO once every 6 months, which is nice since Birmingham is not where we actually live. But, the time between visits seems to take f o r e v e r. Our last visit granted us an extra hour off of patching each day. That made 2 hours without a patch. Two hours is basically the time he is in the car, the bath and the minutes throughout the day that it takes us to get a new one on his eye. I did not AT ALL expect any more time off this visit because we got an hour off last time, so when Dr. Cogen said, "FOUR hours" off of the patch, I was floored. Literally, I started crying.

I cannot explain the thoughts that fought for attention in those few seconds when my brain tried to process, FOUR. I just won the lottery, what on earth does one do with four hours of not patching, this will change everything, there is no way he just said 4, FOUR. Most of all, I thought "THIS IS WORKING!!" 

Four. 

AAGGHH!!

I am still a tad bit overwhelmed at the excitement of it all. 

Other bits of news from the visit:

1. Anderson is "remarkable". Yes, I know. Also, he is "proof" that this works. "This" being parents and grandparents who literally have no free time or sanity because they stalk a toddler with an eyepatch. 
2. He identified all of the shapes with both eyes. Hand, Cake, Horse, Old School telephone. We have been practicing letters, so it was his first time seeing the shapes. I was beyond proud. 
3. His vision is...wait for it...NORMAL!! As long as we stay focused and keep patching Dr Cogen said he should have reading vision, driving vision, etc. He wouldn't commit to long term diagnosis because he said reading letters is a lot harder than shapes. Despite my frantic request to try letters, Dr. Cogen said it would be best to end on a positive and save them for next time because it isn't going to change anything at this visit. That just gives us 6 more months of practice before the big game. 
4. My kid is awesome. My mom is awesome. We are awesome. Everyone and everything is awesome!! I am just a tad bit giddy about this whole thing. 
5. Finding Nemo was playing in the exam room. Fate. 
6. We can't let ourselves get too excited. It's still the middle of the marathon. Just because you can make it to mile 14 doesn't mean you can finish. So, Deep breath. Stay focused. Keep patching. We are at 11-12 hours a day, which is still a tad bit daunting, but nothing compared to 13-14!

 Someone is proud of the A+ that he earned at the visit.

I try to take a few pics each visit to document his growth and progress along the way. 

imoms-Arlo needs Glasses  is the BEST glasses book that I've found for Anderson. It is a cute story with a dog that sort of resembles Chloe, it's interactive and it's informative! I love the "Everyone is special" approach to most glasses books, but I really appreciate this kid friendly book that explains a visit to the eye doctor! We used it to try to read our own eye charts. I added a few subliminal messages to ours, though.

Thanks to everyone for the support and encouragement!!