Big Talker

When you have two kids, it's really hard not to compare them. I try not to, but sometimes it's impossible. Looking back, I think Max was a lot farther ahead of Mya in the speaking category at this age. Recently, I discovered a possible reason why. One day a neighbor down the street came by with her kids and asked if Max could go play at her house. Chris and I were doing yard work, so it was a perfect opportunity to get some things done without the Number 1 helper! After some yard work, I needed to make a Target run so I decided to take Mya with me so Chris could finish up. There are many times I go run errands with 1 kid, but I never choose Mya. She's not very fun to shop with these days.

So, as I'm driving along with Mya in the back by herself, she starts talking up a storm! She's pointing out everything we see. The ones I remember right off hand were tractor, truck, car, cow, moo, horse, slide, park, puppy, balloons. Typically, she doesn't say a thing when we're driving around. (unless of course it's on a long trip and then it's not words, but screams) Max completely dominates conversation. Since this trip, I've made more of an effort to direct questions and conversations to Mya in the car and at home and she has exploded with words. It could be a coincidence or maybe not?!?

Here are a couple pictures taken recently of little Mya. When people ask me if she's going to be a girly-girl or a tomboy, I have to respond with both! One minute she's digging in the mud with the boys, wrestling and playing trains. The next minute she's putting her babies to bed with her purse on her shoulder while showing off her painted toes! She doesn't go many places without her baby and a purse these days. Here's proof.

Total Recall

I've been asked by several people for an account of my procedure. I also know that I am a guinea pig of sorts even though lasik has been around for quite awhile now. I can think of a few people who were like me and said, "I'll wait until you do it..." when I told them I was finally serious.

I'll try to make this brief...

#1) Picking a doctor was not easy. I had several people refer me to different places. I've been waiting to do this for 10 years so deciding to finally take the plunge was no small feat. I did a lot of research in addition to asking around. The Minneapolis newspaper advertised a guy with soap opera looks at the bargain price of $500/eye. Sounded too much like a chop shop to me although I'm sure he does great work. There's probably some drama to go along with it as well. There were doctors near and far and prices that fluctuated greatly. Ultimately, I decided on Wolfe Clinic which had multiple locations in Iowa, but the closest was 1hr15min away. Price was about the same as the local place I was refered to but still not what I would consider a small amount. They were refered to us by a good family friend that worked there once which made it feel a bit more personal, plus they had a great website, so to me that meant they probably could slice a good eye too. I think that planning ahead to help take cost out of the equation a little bit made it easier to go through with because it was 100% based on how it felt and not as much about how much it cost.

#2) The consult really sold me. I went over to Waterloo for the consult and they tested, tested and tested some more. I couldn't believe all the tests they put my eyes through! It made me feel like they were really doing their homework to make sure they could give me the best recommendation and that they would tell me if they didn't think I would be a good candidate. 3 hours for tests might seem like a nuisance, but to me it was everything that I needed. I scheduled the procedure that day for the following Monday.

#3) Word of advice - DON'T GOOGLE "Video of lasik eye surgery" the night before your surgery. I thought it would be good to see what I was getting into. Wrong. First of all, there's all kinds of different ways to get lasik done. One of which involves a blade cutting the flap of your cornea open. Video of this is not pleasant and even though it's not what I was going to have (mine was 100% laser), it still made me more nervous than I was prior to watching the video. I'm convinced that what you don't see can't hurt you.

#4) The actual procedure was quick. Real quick. First part - they put some drops in to numb the eyes. Then they gave me some Valium which at the time I didn't think did anything at all, but afterwards it's obvious they are pretty sweet because I remember thinking that I was Mr. Joe Cool through the procedure and having no worries at all. Ya- that could not have been me sin-drugs. First step was going to a "clean room" where they have a "laser" (think Dr. Evil from Austin Powers when I type that) set to cut the flap over your cornea. Actually, it's not really cutting in my case. This "laser" puts bubbles at an exact depth under your cornea, and they form a flap. First, the doctor put an apparatus in my eye to hold the lid open. Didn't bother me at all and I couldn't feel a thing. Then for the worst part of the whole deal - they put this cup type thing actually on my eyeball to keep the cornea centered. They literally push it until it pops in place on your eye. It didn't hurt at all, but it felt a little weird. And immediately afterwards, everything when black. He rolled me under the "laser" and about 30 seconds later, I'm out from under it, he removes the cup deal and I close that eye. You know what it's like when you stare at the sun with your eyes closed? That's what it was like for me, except I saw red which made me think my eye was bleeding profusly. Then it turned green and before I could think about it any more, he had me open the other eye and we repeated everything again. Total time was about 3 minutes. Once both were done, I opened my eyes on command and things were blurry. They prepped me to expect that, and it wasn't as bad as they had made it out to be. I was able to stand up and walk to the room next door where another "laser" was housed. I layed down and again had an apparatus hold one of my eyelids open. Feeling nothing, I could see the doctor moving the eye around, washing it off, and what I assume to be him folding the cornea flap over. The I hear "Hoden, right eye, 7 seconds". I was told to stare at the green light, which immediately went a little hazy and after what must have been 7seconds, the light is clear again and they close that eye. Repeat with the other one. This part was absolutely painless, easy and over in half the time it took to "laser" the flap. Once done, they said to open my eyes. I said "are you sure?" thinking that no way should I be able to see after all that. I was able to squint them open and see just fine. They taped some clear plastic protective shields over me and sent me on my way. Bottom line - the procedure was absolutely painless and much quicker than I could have hoped for.

#5) After 30 minutes in the car, I started to feel a little irritation in the eyes like when you get a little dust in there. Nothing crazy, but up until that point I had felt nothing. Once home, I easily slept for a few hours while Beth took the kids to a park (my wife is great). When I woke up, my eyelids felt a little sticky and there was still some irritation as well as some sensitivity to bright light. Nothing that made me want to rub my eyes like crazy or anything like that. By 6pm and 6 hours after the procedure, I felt 100% normal other than the fact I still had these plastic shields over my eyes. Post-op wasn't as bad as I thought it would be either.

#6) My vision wasn't as remarkably better as I thought it would be that day. It wasn't until after I got to the doctor the next morning and took the plastic things off that I really realized that things were a lot better. In retrospect, I should have taken off those shields as soon as I woke up. Instead, I drove to the doctor with them on like a baffon because they told me too. They are just there to keep you from rubbing your eyes at night. Anyway, lesson learned was to not judge your vision improvement until that first eye exam. Apparently I have super-human vision at 20-15. Like Superman. If you want x-ray vision you can get it for a price. They don't advertise that fact.

#7) I went to work the next day after my check up and everything has been great since. There is a little redness on the outsides of my eyes where I assume the cup things suctioned themselves to my eyeballs, but it is not a lot worse than what they look like after a late night out.

I've been extremely happy with the results so far. One of the main benefits I wanted all along was to see the ball better in all the sports I attempt to play. Spotting a fly ball before it is 10 feet from me, watching the spin on a tennis ball, being able to see where the golf ball lands...these are all things I compensated for before since I didn't wear glasses or contacts. I hit a bucket of golf balls at the range on my way home from work today, and truth be told it didn't look a whole lot different. I could see the ball, but I can't remember what it was like before. We'll see how everything else pans out when it comes to sports. All I know is I still have 4 years eligibility... Coach Huinker?!?!? But then tonight, I was outside and looking at the moon rise and seeing all the detail in it - that was something I haven't been able to experience without glasses for as long as it has captured my imagination. I know it was worth every penny. At least for me anyway.

3 year check

Yesterday was Max's 3 year physical. I had his appt. scheduled on his birthday, but I found out that he was going to have to get a shot that he missed along the way and I didn't want to do that to him on his birthday! He weighed 33.6# and was 38 1/8" tall. Both of those stats are just below the 75th percentile. He got his vision checked for the first time and that was perfect. He ended up getting 2 vaccinations which was a big fiasco (like usual) but nothing a little Dairy Queen couldn't fix:) He got tubes in Jan of '08 and they are still in place perfectly. The ENT that put them in told us they would fall out in 6-12 months! So...we definitely got our money's worth!

Some bigger things he's been doing these days are getting up in the night to go potty so he doesn't have to wear his diapers anymore. This is great, but it means me getting up in the night to help him because he's only half awake and who knows where he'd end up going to the bathroom! He is now getting himself dressed (all except his socks) and becoming more independent about what he wears. He can hold Chloe's leash during walks (while sitting in the stroller) and has started to have some chores. He can bring the recycle bins and the garbage can on wheels in from the curb and he can also feed Chloe. Pretty soon I won't be doing anything around here! (yeah right:)

I've noticed a huge change in Max's vocabulary lately. He has been spending a lot of time with some older kids in the neighbhorhood and he's definintely listening to them! Here are a few of the phrases that have come out of his mouth lately:

"Mommy, mommy, come out come out wherever you are!"
"na-na-na-na boo boo, you can't catch me"
"last one there is a rotten egg!"
"I beat you Mya" (this is said around 100 times a day)
"just wait 2 seconds"
When I asked him who taught him something, he responded: "My parents" I said, who are your parents? He didn't know. Must just hear people say that, but he has no idea who his parents are! I filled him in...:)
"Holy Cow!" (when he walked downstairs and found his toy room clean)

He's definitely growing up. So far I am LOVING 3 years old. Things just seem a lot easier right now with him. Could be that he is finally able to reason (for the most part) and that his sister is just entering the terrible 2's! Thanks to Max, I know what's coming:) One of his favorite things to do is still to bake, so I'll end this post with a picture of him after we made a chocolate cake one day:)

20/20!

UPDATED: Chris went in for a vision check today to make sure everything went okay and his vision came back 20/15 which is actually better than perfect! Not sure how that's possible, but I guess it is:) So....I should probably change the title of this post!

Today Chris took the plunge and got Lasik eye surgery! He has wanted this for about 10 years. I hate to admit it now, but I think I was a big reason he held back. I really didn't want him to get it done, but now that it's over and he's not blind, I'm all for it! He decided on Wolfe Eye Clinic in Cedar Rapids to do the procedure. They said he was a great candidate because his vision wasn't horrible and he was only near-sighted and not both near and far-sighted. Who knows...they probably tell all their patients that they're great candidates! He can't wait to play tennis and catch a softball and actually see the ball! He wasn't able to wear contacts and glasses and sports don't mix very well:)

The procedure itself was pretty interesting. He told me all about it on the way home. I could attempt to explain it on here, but it would probably be a major flop, so I'm going to have him write a blog in the next couple of days. We go back tomorrow morning for a quick check-up and then he'll be at work in the afternoon with perfect vision! Crazy what a laser can do these days:)

I've had no trouble beating him all these years in tennis, but now that I know his vision is actually correct, I'm a little worried!

Per doctor's orders, he has to wear these glasses for 24 hours after surgery and every night for a week. Per wife's orders, he has to put these on the minute he walks in the door after work for a couple of weeks because the living room resembles a WWF ring many nights around here and the surgery was WAY too expensive to risk Max or Mya (or Chloe) wrecking it!

Randomness...

My blogging brain isn't working very well lately so I'm having a hard time coming up with good ideas for posts! So...in order to update my regular readers here's a little synopsis of what we've been up to lately mostly through pictures. Mya continues to be in love with boots and hats. You can find her dressed like this (see below) more times than not. She turned 21 months yesterday. Her talking is increasing everyday. Her newest two word phrases are: "help me", "right there" and "don't know". She also started asking "why" a lot, but doesn't really care what the response is at this point, so it isn't too annoying...yet:) Max and Chris (possibly Chris even more than Max:) enjoyed flying a kite so much these last few weeks when the spring winds were in full force around here. It was pretty funny how the neighborhood kids came running when the kite went up in the air. Who knew a $10 Sam's Club purchase would provide so much entertainment! After paying for one too many $17 haircuts for my little man, we bought some clippers and decided to cut Max's hair ourselves! (well, Chris did. I'm not brave enough) It turned out awesome. Even better than some of the "professional" ones (if you count Cost Cutters as professional.) Speaking of hair...Mya's curls are again in full force. Unfortunately she didn't want to get her picture taken when I wanted to, so this is what you get:)
We have been playing outside a lot lately. Both kids are getting so much better at riding bikes. Here's a video of them showing off. It gets a little long, but I wanted to post it so you could see how fast Mya is on that little thing. She knows exactly what to do and then lifts her feet so she can glide at the end.


We had a much needed kid-free weekend this last weekend. Grandpa and Grandma Huinker took our kids to their house so we could get some things done around here and enjoy some time to ourselves. We exhausted our eating out budget for the next few months, but it was worth it! Chris built some shelves which I am very impressed with and with the help of the green thumb Grandma Pat, we got lots of landscaping done on Sunday. A combination of playing a tennis match on Saturday and gardening on Sunday made for a sore mommy around here! Picture below is for Grandpa David...:)

Workout king

Truth is, I hate working out. The only working out I like is when there's a ball involved and some competition. We bought an elliptical machine a couple of years ago, but didn't use it for 6 months straight so we sold it. I visited a gym, but decided I would probably not use it enough because I'm the master at excuses and my kids stink at the drop off daycare-type situations. (ie..church nurseries and MOPS)I knew I needed to do something so a friend recommended this workout video to me. It's Jillian Michael's 30 day shred. I am not a workout video person (well...I'm not really a workout person, but I told you that already) but this video is awesome. It's 20 minutes and I feel like I get a full body workout with strength, cardio and abs. I have a hard time walking up the steps when I'm done.

Since I can't seem to get my bu** out of bed in the morning and I'm too tired at night and Max doesn't nap anymore, it doesn't leave a lot of time to do this alone! So...I decided to let Max work out with me and now he begs me to work out! He asks me multiple times a day if we can "do workout" and if he can use his "handles" (weights) He does really well following the directions until there's about 5 minutes left and then he can't pay attention anymore. He wants to jump on me when I'm doing abs usually:) Here are a few pictures I took of him today while we were "doing workout". He needs a little work on his form during push-ups, but other than that he's golden! Jillian would be proud...:)

HGTV, Here We Come!

2 tired, sore and sunburned parents and 2 very tired and very dirty children later, we have a garden! We couldn't have asked for a better weekend to work outside. Besides sleeping, we were in the house for a total of 3 hours Saturday and Sunday combined. It was garden city around here. Our next door neighbors and us planned to build our vegetable gardens, but we ended up getting a lot more than that done!

It started with kabob sticks and string and ended up looking like something straight out of HGTV! We went to Menards on Saturday morning to get the wood to build these things. 2 hours later, we were on our way home with 4 hungry children and 2 very tired children. Both of those tired ones were mine:(

Chris did a great job salvaging the sod and leveling the ground where we put the garden and it turned out great. It will perfect for my lettuce, green beans, tomatoes, peppers and carrots. I also planted 5 raspberry bushes from Papa Zach's garden as well as some rhubarb from Grandma Bev. This little project might turn into a second income for me this summer! Watch out Farmers Markets:)

Chris helped build Chris and Amy's (neighbors)garden until they were using flashlights to help as they drilled boards together. One of the other neighbors named their garden "The 8th wonder of the world" so if that tells you anything about the size:) It turned out beautifully and they have kids who will help weed! I'm not going to teach Max how to weed because I'm sure I'll get more help than I want and one day I'll go out and find no vegetables!

Today we went out to Amy's parents' farm and they very graciously gave us 4 huge truck loads of good old Wisconsin soil! The kids had a great time at the farm riding in the gator and feeding the cows. Max was all about the cows, but he won't touch a worm. Mya will hold the worms, but froze when she saw the cows. Since the farm was 45minutes from our house, it took awhile to get all the loads here and dumped in the places it needed to be. Thankfully, the entire neighborhood came out to help and the job got done in a very smooth manner. Here are some pictures of everything!

Here's a sequence of pictures of our garden. Max was quite the helper.






Here's the 8th wonder:)




I wasn't kidding when I said very dirty children.

Uh-oh...now what?

This afternoon started off just like any other normal afternoon around here these days. Mya went down for her nap around 1:00 and Max settled in for some "rest" time on my bed while I finished putting the lunch away and got a few other things done. Then, I got Max and we went downstairs to play. Mya woke up a little earlier than usual and she wasn't happy to be awake. So, I decided to leave her in her bed until she was ready to get up. After a few minutes of letting me know she was not happy with my decision to leave her in the crib, she fell back asleep. That was around 2:00. An hour later Max and I were up in the kitchen coloring and eating cantaloupe when 2 little feet started walking down the hall. At first I was scared because I didn't know what the noise was. Then...I was really scared when I realized what the noise was! Mya jumped/scaled/crawled out of her crib!!!!!! Of all times I wish I would have been watching the monitor. I didn't hear a thud so I have no idea how/when it happened.

I'm really hoping it was a one time fluke and she doesn't continually do this. I may have to take the advice of my neighbor and sew (or rather have Chris's mom sew) her a bag/sack type of pajamas that zip in the back so she can't get her leg over! I'm not ready for the toddler bed yet. 2 kids on the loose in this house could be a major disaster!

(the only crib picture I could quickly locate! taken about a year ago)

Easter in review

We had a great time celebrating Easter this year. The egg hunt was worth the hype, we got to spend time with family, had a major milestone in the car and the much anticipated Bunny did not disappoint. Where to start...

Last Thursday night we had a neighborhood Easter egg hunt. I had been telling Max about this for about a week and built it up even though he had no idea what to expect since it would be his first hunt. Turned out it was worth the hype. Who knew filling a few eggs with candy and hiding them various places would be such a big deal to a 3 year old boy! Throw in doing the egg hunt with his neighborhood buddies and it was pretty much heaven. Here are a few pics.





Then, Friday morning we went up to the twin cities. We had a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad trip up there with a couple of kids who refused to close their eyes, but once we got there it was great! We were able to see Chris's Grandma Bev in the rehab center. She had a stroke last week and is gaining back the use of her left leg and foot more and more each day with some intense therapy. Thankfully that was all that happened and hopefully she'll be back home really soon. She was able to come home on Easter Sunday for a few hours so we got to spend some more time with her then which was wonderful. It's comforting to know she's the same Bev we all know and love even though she's at rehab. She figured out how to get her own personal menu (the other one wasn't good) she's got people sneaking butter into her (they only have maragarine there), she's setting off alarms when she gets up without permission, and I'd be willing to bet she has the therapists laughing out loud with some of her comments:)

Saturday was spent doing some shopping at the Outlet malls and the kids went to a couple of parks with Grandpa David and Uncle Jeff. According to the pictures they took, I have a couple of dare devil children. They have no fear when it comes to parks. Auntie Tara came by for a visit later in the day and we took the kids to Super Target. I tried to pass my kids off as my niece and nephew a few times while we were there so if that tells you anything about their behavior....

Much like Santa, The Easter bunny was able to find us in many different places! He came to our house on Friday morning and left some books and movies for the kids and some starburst jelly beans for mom and dad:) Then, he really came through in Maple Grove with some bubble machines that we heard about the rest of the day and the entire drive home. In fact, putting the bubble machines to work was the second thing we did when we walked in the door after we got home. (see paragraph below for the first thing we did) He also found us in Bloomington! Max managed to eat his candy, Mya's candy and his cousin Savannah's chocolate bunny! I guess that's what you get when you take a nap...:)




The milestone on the way home...a normally 4 hr 45 minute trip home took us 4 hr 17 minutes. Why you ask?? WE MADE IT HOME WITHOUT STOPPING ONCE!!!! There were some meltdowns very early in the trip, but once they settled in we just kept going and going and going! Before we knew it, we were 20 miles from home and I just kept my fingers crossed that Max wouldn't say he had to go potty. The kid must have a bladder of steel because he had 2 sippies of milk during the trip. The bathroom was the first stop when we got home, but I think he could have waited if we would have been willing to roll the dice. Who knows...driving that far with a couple of toddlers and not stopping will most likely never happen again but it was definitely worth noting. Not too many adults can make it in the car that long without stopping so I was pretty impressed with the world's almost worst car riders.