The Taylors

Grae’s expression in this last picture cracks me up!

If you have noticed a significant decrease in how often I post, it is because most of my latest attempts to take decent pictures of Grae have been unsuccessful. I love natural light pictures (as opposed to using flash), but taking natural light pictures requires that Grae remain still while facing a window – if he turns away, his face is not properly lit; if he moves even a little, the picture is blurred. I would guess that 95% of the shots I have taken during the past month or two are blurred. (Well, the natural light variety, anyway – the ones I like to post).

So this post and the next are of pictures that I took while Grae was tied into his high chair. In this post, he was next to our sliding glass doors. In the next, I just put his chair on the sidewalk outside. This ‘captive’ method will have to suffice for a while. That, or I may need to give in and start posting more pictures taken using flash. (If you didn’t already know that I struggle with being a perfectionist, I guess you know now!).

We were able to spend last weekend at a resort near Redmond, Oregon called Eagle Crest. It’s mostly a golf resort with three 18-hole courses. We spent our honeymoon there 3 years ago and decided to return to the scene for our 3rd anniversary. Let me tell you, it was just like the first time around. Not. This time we had an 8 month old kid, less money, and mostly just enjoyed having a big jacuzzi tub to soak in.

We had a very pleasant and relaxing weekend, all in all.  We got out walking several times during our stay.  And since we’re approaching winter, we didn’t need to dodge any golf balls or anything like that.  There is a nice river trail in addition to the paved paths through the neighborhoods and golf courses, so we found some nice variety.  Not only that, but it was sunny down there most of the weekend, albeit a little on the chilly side.

Monday morning as we were getting ready to leave I stumbled out the door to take some things to the car and there were five or six deer standing around munching on various plants.  They casually looked up at me and generally kept their distance, but overall didn’t seem too concerned that I was there and had disturbed their breakfast.  It was a fun surprise ending to our stay at Eagle Crest.

Enjoy the pictures.

Last week I received my new Anne Marie Padorie (AMP) Duo Pocket diapers! It is obviously too soon to provide a useful review of function and durability, but I can say that they fit amazingly, are very cute, and are trim enough to fit under jeans (if you scoff at the importance of any of these factors, you are probably not a cloth-diapering mom!).

AMP Diapers are a Canadian brand that have just entered the US market. Erika Martin is currently selling the diapers as a special order product through her website www.christeningday.com, but she is developing a new website through which she will sell these, and possibly other diapers and baby products. Once she has her new website up and running, she will have stock of AMP diapers available for immediate purchase and shipping.

Stay tuned for future reviews and comparisons to other cloth diapers…

We are spending this weekend in Utah because yesterday my brother got married. Second wedding in our family this year! It’s been fun to have such great family events going on, albeit a little hard on the bank account and vacation time. However, family weddings are definitely much more important than a few dollars in the bank :-).

Kendrick and Lisa had a great day of events planned, starting with the sealing ceremony in the early afternoon in the Salt Lake Temple. Many from both sides of the family had gathered there and were quietly waiting in the sealing room for the bride and groom to show up. They finally did and then we waited another 5-10 minutes for the sealer to show up. I was sitting there wondering what the holdup was when I heard what sounded like President Monson’s voice in the hallway outside the open door to the room. I turned to look and, sure enough, there was President Monson! I figured he must just be making the rounds or something and that it was pretty cool to see him around the temple, but then he came into our room and started shaking hands and talking to people! Whoa! What a surprise! It turns out that Lisa’s family knows President Monson (her Dad is (or was?) his hometeacher) and they are good friends. But in order to make sure that people didn’t come to their sealing just to meet President Monson, nobody except parents was told that he would be performing the ceremony. President Monson generally reminisced and told stories from memory as they came to mind. He sure has a wealth of experiences to draw on and is a remarkable man. It was a really surreal experience, one that I’m glad I didn’t miss. And I honestly don’t just say that because President Monson was there – temple sealings, especially for family members, are always tremendous experiences and this one was no different!

After the temple ceremony we went outside for pictures.  I took a few on my iphone posted here.

Later that evening they held a nice dinner for family and friends that featured some fun surprises of its own.  For starters, Jon Schmidt was there to play a special number for Lisa and Kendrick (a surprise for Kendrick).  We enjoyed a nice dinner, a video with pictures of the new couple throughout their lives, and finally sent them off in a horse and carriage.  It was a fun day – one that I’m glad we were able to take part in!

Last Friday, I took Grae to Pacific University College of Optometry’s (PUCO) Family Vision Center for his first eye exam! As an optometrist and former PUCO student, this was VERY fun and exciting for me, especially since Grae had his eyes examined by my friend and former professor Dr. JP Lowery and PUCO’s current pediatric resident Dr. Melissa Zarn (who I had the pleasure of meeting at a Special Olympics vision screening a few weeks ago).

Couldn’t I have just examined Grae’s eyes myself? Yes and no. While I own a lot of the necessary instruments and tools for an eye exam, I don’t own pediatric visual acuity cards, and I don’t keep a secret stash of the diagnostic drugs required to dilate eyes. I guess I could have just asked a friend to lend me these things, but I wanted the excuse to spend some time with Dr. Lowery and Dr. Zarn anyway :)

Here is a look at how the exam went:

First, Dr. Lowery tried out a pediatric visual acuity test that he is developing with other PUCO faculty.

Then, Dr. Zarn took over to finish testing visual acuity (eating her tool was not part of the test)…

binocular fixation…

and then eye movement, convergence, and visual fields (excellent convergence, Grae!).

Dr. Zarn did a few more tests, but I missed watching them while I was chatting with Dr. Lowery. I did catch a glimpse of her attempting to check his eye pressures – Grae was crawling away with his eyes shut, while Dr. Zarn was trying to press his eyeballs through his closed lids – a pretty funny sight! (Yes, that is truly how we check pressures when examining babies! Unless the baby is put under general anesthesia, it is really the only option for little squirmers. Not very accurate, but able to pick up any extremely high pressure, hard eyes.)

After eye pressures, it was time to be dilated!

Having stingy drops put in your eyes is never fun, and I used to feel bad about putting these drops in kids eyes, but after seeing Grae get immunized? Eye drops are cake! Grae fussed for probably five seconds. Done. Easy. I do still feel badly for kids who are a bit older, though, because they are old enough to feel the anxiety of anticipation – they cry a lot more. A baby’s reaction tells us how bad it actual feels, however. Not very.

After the drops had been put in, I fed Grae while we waited for his pupils to dilate. Once dilated, Dr. Zarn estimated Grae’s prescription (using an objective test that is a bit wordy to explain – ask me if you are interested), and then Dr. Lowery examined Grae’s retinas and optic nerve heads.

Then I took a quick peek too – such an obliging little patient!

So what’s the verdict? Everything looks great. He has a visual acuity of about 20/100, which is normal for his age, but would be considered very poor for an adult (way, WAY not legal to drive with that kind of vision). He is moderately farsighted, which is also normal for his age. Because his eyes are at a typical level of farsightedness now, we expect that it will slowly disappear by the age of six. If he had been found to be excessively farsighted or nearsighted, he would have been prescribed glasses. His eyes work well as a team, he has normal eye movement skills, and his eyes are healthy. To top it off, Grae was very cooperative, so the exam was very easy. Because there are no concerns about his vision or his eye health, he won’t need another exam until he is about three years old – I am guessing he will be a bit less cooperative at that exam!

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The following is my plug for infant/toddler eye exams:

I am sure there are a few of you wondering if it is really necessary to have a baby’s eyes, or even a toddler’s eyes examined. My answer? Absolutely. 6-12 months is the recommended age for a first eye exam. Most babies will be found to have perfectly normal vision and healthy eyes, but there are some rare, very serious eye diseases that can arise within the first few months of life, and some babies will have excessive refractive error (farsighted, nearsighted, and/or astigmatism) that, if left untreated, can cause irreversible visual impairment called amblyopia (actually, mild amblyopia is treatable with a lot of time and effort, severe amblyopia is not treatable). I see amblyopia all of the time, and it is devastating to me – this loss of vision is completely preventable if the refractive error is caught early and glasses are worn. (You can read more about amblyopia here).

Does your child really need to have an eye exam if they seem to see well? Won’t a parent be able to tell if their child needs glasses? Maybe, but by the number of adults I see who have high refractive error, did not wear glasses as children, and have amblyopia in one or both eyes, I think it is very likely that you will not be able to tell – their parents obviously didn’t. You might think that a child that is old enough to speak would be able to tell their parents that they don’t see well, but what do they have to compare their blurry vision to? For a child who has a high refractive error, a blurry world is the only world they know – they have no idea that their vision is not normal. Keep in mind that a comprehensive eye exam is for much more than just determining if glasses are needed – the entire functioning and health of the eye is examined. Routine eye exams should be just as automatic as taking your child to see a pediatrician or dentist – it seems silly to me that it typically isn’t. Oh, and when a pediatrician shines a light at your child’s eyes, or a school nurse asks your child to read letters on a chart, these are not even remotely close to being a comprehensive eye exam – in these situations, the health practitioner is screening for large, obvious problems, and those tests only detect a fraction of the types of eye conditions that a child might have. Take your child to an optometrist!

There are optometrists who have chosen to specialize in pediatric eye care, like Dr. Lowery and Dr. Zarn at Pacific University, but many optometrists who have not specialized in pediatric eye care are very comfortable and capable of examining your child too. If you have not had your child’s eyes examined, even if they are now school-age, I know that Dr. Zarn would love to see them – the more pediatric patients she can see as a resident, the better. She rotates through a couple of PUCO’s clinics in Portland and Forest Grove. If you would like recommendations other than Dr. Zarn, let me know.

An eye exam performed by an optometrist takes about an hour to complete and involves dilating the pupils to view the lens, retina, and optic nerves. When a child has normal vision and eye health, a typical eye exam schedule might be as follows: 6-12 months old, 3 years old, 5 years old (before they enter Kindergarten), and every couple of years from then on. If a visual or eye health issue is detected at one of your child’s eye exams, the frequency with which your child is examined, the treatment plan, and referrals to other health practitioners will be directed by the optometrist.

Ok, I think I’m done. If you actually read this whole post, thanks – you’re a trooper :)

Ask my parents about my childhood, and they will probably tell you that I was an intense and radical child. My mother says I was born a Suffragette; my father says my first words were “It’s not fair”. Starting at an incredibly young age, I took it upon myself to make sure others conducted themselves properly, to enforce the right (my right), and to fight for those whom I believed to be vulnerable and mistreated (which included women expected to be homemakers, children with bad parents, animals, insects, the environment, etc…). I dreamed of becoming a conservation biologist and of living in exotic locales, and the thought of shooting poachers brought me great satisfaction – it would be the noble thing to do. But I had to start small, so I joined my elementary school’s Recycling Club. Sounds slightly exciting, but all we did was stay late after school to sort paper: newspaper, colored paper, white paper, lined paper… yes, the recycling process was once much less sophisticated than it is today. Being a member of the Recycling Club was boring, but I was committed to the cause (and so many others).

Today, I am a much more mellow person than I was as a child, but the heart of that little girl is still within me. World issues that fired me up years ago are still of concern to me now – I just won’t throw a fit about it, or shoot anyone. During the past year, one topic of great interest to me has been the tremendous amount of waste being sent to landfills and the problems associated with that. Because I care about my personal contribution to landfills, I have chosen to cloth diaper Grae, I have become more dedicated to recycling, I am trying to use fewer disposable products, and I am currently researching methods of composting kitchen scraps. I am aware that some of these lifestyle modifications are controversial, and that they are not perfect solutions, but I have weighed the options and feel confident that these modifications are of some benefit to me, my family, and society.

Because I have spent so much time researching this topic and trying to make positive changes, I wanted to share a video that creatively highlights this issue and a few others. I actually disagree with a few of the things the narrator says in this video (Chris has some criticisms as well), but I still think it is an excellent message as a whole. It is twenty minutes long, so grab your breakfast or lunch and check it out. I would love to hear your comments about it too – positive or negative. I would enjoy some discussion.

I attempted a photo shoot with Grae a few days ago. I tried very hard to capture and maintain his attention, but you can see how well that went…

When Grae had repeatedly dragged himself away crying, I gave up and just took some candid shots.

Still not a happy camper.

These pictures definitely show who he is right now – a curious, impatient, frustrated baby. He will be much happier (I think) when he can crawl and do more for himself.

Remember this guy? It’s Sumo Grae!

Two months old and sixteen plus pounds.

Grae has only gained about half a pound in almost three months, but he continues to lengthen. I think he weighs about twenty and a half pounds and is twenty-nine or more inches long. Clothing fits him sooo much better now that he has a waist. And a neck. I sometimes miss our little sumo, though :)

(Chris took this picture when Grae was having his passport photo taken; it was recently rediscovered).

… and not interested in looking at the camera. *sigh*