Happy Birthday, Sydney!

Four things that would best describe Sydney at age 4:

1) Sydney is a momma's girl. Syd loves to cuddle with me. She also lets me know that she missed me if she's been gone for awhile. And, whenever I get Sydney something she really likes such as ice cream or a movie, she always remembers to follow it up with an "I love you, Mom."

2) Sydney is relentless. For example, she loves to watch tv. The other day she asked if she could watch a show. I tried to hold her off with a firm, "maybe in a little while." She waited about 6.7 seconds and said, "how about now?"

3) Sydney loves treats (and will do just about anything for one). When we were at the lake, Sydney refused to go tubing. After many, many attempts to get her on the tube, I offered her a cupcake. Tubing--DONE.

4) Sydney still gives out the best stink-eye in town. I challenge you to find anyone who is better at it. I'd love to have a stink eye-off.

Eye Carumba!

Last week, Trace had a fight with Nash's suspenders.
Score after only one round:
Trace--0
Suspenders--1

Picture this:
I'm busily cleaning house (no laughing, please) when all of a sudden, I hear Trace start to cry, and cry, and cry. I figured he was jumping on his bed again, and hurt himself, again. No rushing upstairs necessary. After about 2-3 minutes of wailing, I decided to offer some support.

Here's a taste of the dialogue that occurred:
Trace: My eye, my eye!
Me: What's wrong with your eye? What happened?
Trace: I don't know, it just started hurting!
Me: Did you hit it?
Trace: No! NO!! I don't know what happened.
Me: Why is it hurting?
Trace: I don't know, it just started hurting. Really bad.

There was no apparent wound on his eye initially, and since they're so Asian-like (no offense CamErin), I had to pull his eye down to further examine. I then got a nice visual of a long blister-looking thing that was bluish/redish on the white part of his eye.

Since Trace was claiming that it spontaneously started hurting, my optimistic mind begins to go there:

eye tumor = cancer of the eye = surgery = lots of debt = blindness = everything else horrible I could think of.

So, within minutes we're in the car and Tyler's getting an appointment for me at the eye doc's. As all the wonderful thoughts are going through my mind in the car, I notice that Trace's crying has weakened.

Me: Trace, is your eye starting to feel better?
Trace: A little bit.
Me: Do you know what could have happened to it?
Trace: I think I might have hit it with a belt-thing-y.
Me: What?! This information would have been helpful 20 minutes ago!!!
Trace: (Silent)





















The story ends like this: Eye doctor verifies that he does in fact have a very nasty wound on his eye that will self-heal, but the bigger concern was his very, very poor vision. (This did not result from the fight, just so you know). Stay tuned for pictures of Trace and his new specs, coming in August.