Keeping in Teutsch

Last weekend (or possibly earlier this week...I can't remember!), I let Juliette paint one of the little pumpkins we had gotten from the farmers market. (We haven't made it to the pumpkin patch yet...that's on the schedule for next weekend.)

It's been a busy weekend around here. Friday night we attended our first UL football game. (Matt went to a game or two last year, but this is the first time Juliette and I have attended.) UL played Oklahoma State, who is ranked #22, and since we aren't ranked, that meant we were in for a slaughtering. Since the game was televised on ESPN2, it didn't start until 8 pm, which meant for a VERY long and late night. (We got home at midnight and we left with about 6 minutes left in the 4th quarter.)

At first, Juliette wanted to sit at the very top and we were practically in the corner of the end zone. I wasn't too thrilled with that seating option and wanted to sit a little closer, but then Juliette decided she wanted to sit ALL the way at the front. See how close we were!

Juliette cheered (with free pompoms she got from someone) and clapped when everyone else clapped for about the first quarter and then she got bored. For most of the second and third quarter, she played with a little handheld game we bought from home, and then she decided to start cheering again at the beginning of the fourth.


This is Cayenne, UL's mascot. He kept giving high fives to the kids along the front and Juliette was scared of him at first, but then about halfway through the game, she decided he was okay and any time he came by, she held out her hand for a high five!

This was the score at halftime. We were leading 21-17, which is quite impressive considering we aren't even ranked. All of that changed, however, within five minutes of the third quarter and it just all went downhill from there. We did score again, but OSU scored a ton and I think the final score was somewhere around 54-28. Ouch!

After Juliette warmed up to Cayenne, she started holding out her hand to anybody who walked by--band members, cheerleaders, dance team, etc.

This weekend was the Festival Acadiens at the park down the street from us. It's a Cajun music and food festival and so we walked down there yesterday for lunch and to check it out. Matt got a shrimp poboy and I got chicken and sausage jambalaya...yum, yum! Matt also got beignets, but I didn't eat any of them. It was quite hot, though, and Juliette didn't want to listen/watch any of the music, and did I mention, it was REALLY hot, so we didn't stick around long. I did take a quick walk through the craft booths and almost all of them were local artists and had some gorgeous things for sale--not just paintings, but mosaics and ironwork and ceramics and wood...really pretty stuff.

Juliette was REALLY tired (from the night before) and at this point, she had "switched" with me. I had gotten her a baked potato, but she wanted my jambalaya! This isn't the best picture, though.

After we got home, we all took naps and then last night, I took Juliette to see the "owl movie" that she has been wanting to see. It was really good...we both enjoyed it!

And since I'm watching the Saints game while I'm writing this, I have to show this picture of Juliette from this morning. This was right after we got home from church. Geaux Saints!

Back when Juliette was about 8 months old, I started getting concerned that she might have a problem with her eyes crossing and her pediatrician at that time referred us to a pediatric ophthalmologist there in Monroe. He checked her out and said she had pseudostrabismus (which I had already researched and diagnosed myself before we went to see him) and a slight astigmatism and to bring her back when she was 2 for another check-up.

Pseudostrabismus is the false appearance of cross eyes (or just one cross eye) and this false impression is simply because of the way the child's facial structure is made up and because of them having a wide, flat bridge at the top of their nose that causes the skin to cover up some or all of the white part on the inside of their eyes. (Clear as mud, huh?) Anyway, they eventually grow out of it because as they grow their facial features develop more and they don't keep that flat, wide bridge. If I wasn't being so lazy tonight, I could show you a comparison of Juliette's eyes now (in which you can see the inside whites of them) and her eyes when she was younger (where there wasn't much whites).

Anyway, we took her back to the eye doctor when she was 2 and he said her eyes were still straight and that everything looked good and her astigmatism was too minor for correction and to bring her back at 4. Well, here we are at age 4 and I was REALLY concerned that her astigmatism would need correction this time around.

I asked her new pediatrician here for a reference and told him I wanted someone conservative who wasn't quick to put kids in glasses if it wasn't really necessary, so he recommended I skip the guy in Lafayette and go on to Baton Rouge to the eye doctor that he uses for his little girl. (Now, let me say here, really quickly, that if she needs glasses, then she needs glasses, and we'll get them, but I didn't want a doctor that just saw us as another "customer" to sell glasses to--since all the pediatric ophthalmologist usually sell frames and glasses in their offices--and I didn't want to have to deal with broken frames or lenses and losing glasses, etc., etc. if it wasn't absolutely necessary.)

I had told Juliette she had to go to the eye doctor for him to look at her eyes and that she may have to get glasses. She seemed to embrace that idea, as I noticed when I came home yesterday from work to take her that she had drawn glasses with a marker on Woody, Buzz and Jessie (her Toy Story figurines).

Since she was so young the last time we took her to the eye doctor, I wasn't sure how her eye exam would go and doubted it would be like an adult eye exam, however, I was wrong. They asked if she knew her letters and I told them that she knew most of them, so they did the normal test with the letters and she totally (well, pretty much) rocked it. Just like a little adult, she was naming off the letters as they got smaller and smaller! So growny! The doctor came in and double checked to make sure her eyes are still straight (they are) and then decided he wanted to dilate them, so they put eye drops in her eyes and we went back out to the waiting room to wait for about 15 minutes. During that time, Juliette wanted me to read a kids' magazine to her. There wasn't much "reading" to do, though, so I started asking her if she could count how many apples where in a picture of a family at an apple orchard. She looked at it and then said, "I can't see with these eyes." It was SO funny (because I knew it was because her pupils were dilated)! I got a big kick out of it.

We then went back in to see the doctor again and he looked at her eyes closer and then tried to get her to do the letter chart again. She told him some of the letters on most of the lines, but at that point we had been there almost 1 1/2 hours and she was tired of the whole "tell me what letter you see" thing and just started saying "O" for everything, so he just gave up. At one point, she told the doctor, "I can't see with these eyes. I just need glasses!" He told us, though, that her astigmatism was still minor and did not need correction, but we have to take her back in 2 months, as he wants to look at her eyes again without them being dilated. (I think he was rethinking the whole dilation thing and couldn't see exactly what he needed to see regarding the astigmatism.) So, anyway, we go back in 2 months and I'm sure we'll get a clearance to not return for another 2 years. Matt has an astigmatism and wears contacts and I am nearsighted and wear contacts, so I know she's going to eventually end up having to wear glasses, but neither Matt nor I were this small when we got our glasses, so I'm hoping this astigmatism stays minor until she is older.

As we were leaving, Juliette was totally bummed that she wasn't getting glasses and kept saying "But, I need glasses!" She specifically wanted the "princess" ones that she saw in a big display (complete with a big Cinderella) as we were walking out. As soon as we hit the parking lot, she was saying "The sun, the sun...it hurts my eyes...I can't see," so I gave her my sunglasses to wear. (I realize now that I could have taken quite a few pictures to illustrate this story about our trip to the eye doctor, but I left my camera at home, so you'll just have to use your imagination!)

By the time we got home, she seemed fine although her pupils were still dilated. They are still pretty big today, as well, and so I asked Dr. Google how long it would take for them to go back to normal and saw on some site that it may take 1-3 days for small children, so I'm not worried about it. Now...if they are still dilated by the end of the weekend, then I'll call Monday, but she's not complaining and she seems to be able to see fine and hasn't told me "I can't see with these eyes" today, so I'm sure she's fine.

I just realized after writing this whole post, that some of you may not know what astigmatism is and might think it's something really bad or abnormal, so click here to read more about it. It's pretty common.

Check back later this weekend for some more posts. I've got a few other things to blog about...namely, math and fishing! :)

Happy Friday!

I know I've been gone for way too long...and there's a good explanation! Back at the beginning of the summer, I took a little part-time job with an old publishing contact doing some data entry for their publicity company at night. It's only around 6-10 hours a week and I only work Monday thru Thursday nights (typically after Juliette is in bed), so it's very manageable, but it has made me not have time to be on the computer much for personal stuff, so I just haven't been blogging. I really do like blogging, though, so I'm going to try to keep up a little better.

Since I've been gone, there have only been a few things to blog about, but I'm having trouble loading all the pictures to the blog, so I'm just going to give a little recap and skip the pictures:

Our mini-vacation to Houston
Back at the beginning of August, we went to Houston for a little mini-vacation. We saw the Braves play the Astros, visited the aquarium, zoo, children's museum, health museum, and toured NASA. We had a fun, busy time and wished we could have stayed longer and done more!

Juliette's 4th birthday
Juliette turned 4 at the end of August and we celebrated multiple times. The day before her birthday we took her to Chuck-E-Cheese's (since Matt had a class the night of her birthday) and then on her birthday we took cupcakes to daycare, got McDonald's for dinner and had a little birthday cake when Matt came home from class. Then, we had a birthday party for her Labor Day weekend at my parents' house.

That's about all that has been going on since I last blogged. Juliette started back to preschool and is doing great with her schedule of preschool in the mornings and daycare in the afternoons. She has a new teacher at preschool (Ms. Coghill from last year retired) and although Ms. Coghill was technically Dr. Coghill, she just had them call her Ms. Coghill. Juliette's new teacher, though, is younger and I guess not as humble about her doctorate, as she has the kids call her Dr. Mary.

Juliette also started dance last week and LOVED it. As soon as I picked her up, she wanted to know when she could come back. All the little girls in her class looked so precious in their little leotards and tights!

Before I go, I want to share a recipe with you guys. I made this last night and ate a piece before it cooled and hardened and didn't think it was that great, but then today, I tried it again and it is really good. So, be patient, let it cool and harden in the fridge over night before eating it! :)