Day 978 - Ellie's Second Eye Exam

Something happened 1,344 days ago. Based upon the title of this blog, I'm guessing folks will be able to ascertain that it was the date of Ellie's first eye exam. Fast forward 1,344 days and there you have the day of Ellie's second eye exam. For the record, I didn't tabulate that difference on my own. I had to find a handy, dandy calculator on the internet that specializes in figuring out the number of days between two dates. It also calculates seconds, minutes, hours, and weeks in case you're interested.

The reason for the lengthy delay between Ellie's eye exams make sense if you think about it. For one thing, it's pretty hard to determine how well a toddler/child can see before said child is capable of taking an eye test. Second, it helps that Ellie and Ethan are now on our family's vision insurance.

Our main reason for scheduling this appointment for Ellie was due to Bethany and me noticing that one of her eyes (usually her left) will occasionally trail off by itself, completely independent of what its mate is doing. Since my eye did the exact same thing as a child which necessitated surgery, Bethany and I definitely thought it was pertinent to start having Ellie's vision checked on a regular basis which brings us to yesterday.

While checking in for an appointment is normally a pretty uneventful task, it wouldn't be a #DaddyWrite post if there wasn't some kind of challenge in doing so. In this instant, the receptionist couldn't locate Ellie's name or appointment in the database no matter how hard she tried. Things got really weird when she realized that she also couldn't locate Bethany's or my information in the database either. I guess that's what happens when one's computer comes unconnected from the network though. Never fear as her coworker was able to locate our appointment although it was for Bethany, not Ellie. That was a relatively easy fix though.

Once we headed back to the exam room, Ellie took her place in the big chair with me seated across the room. From there, Ellie began her eye exam or as she referred to it, school. In her eyes, that probably wasn't far from the truth as she was essentially being tested on her knowledge of letters and numbers. Between Ellie's height and her knowledge, it seemed like the eye doctor was a little surprised to learn that Ellie was only four. 

While Ellie did pass her eye exam "test" with flying colors, our appointment wasn't all good news. We did discover that despite her solid vision, she does have a slight astigmatism which was the main reason for the somewhat lazy eye. The doctor's prescription? Eye glasses. While I now know astigmatisms are no big deal, I was not really prepared for that information in the moment. In fact, I found myself feeling bad for Ellie for having to wear glasses at what seemed like such a young age. The more I thought about it though, I realized (and Bethany told me) that Ellie already knows plenty of girls who wear glasses and it's no big deal to them. Therefore, it we don't make it a big deal, then it won't be one.

Actually, it won't be a big deal until Ellie breaks her glasses. That might be a little irritating but still not the end of the world. #DaddyWrite

Day 972 - **Insert Screaming Sounds Here**

I find that a good scream can be rather freeing. At the risk of sounding like a B-movie horror villian, will you scream with me?

Wow, that felt good, right? However, I think another one is necessary in order to truly exorcise the frustrations of this day. Ready? One, Two, Three...

Scream Shia, scream!

Now, I know I'm ready to write about today and all it took was me taking a few cues from Ethan. Who would have thought?

I feel like it goes without saying at this point that today was somewhat of a struggle. While the occasional rough day comes with the territory for being a stay-at-home dad, today was something else. Part of the reason can definitely be traced back to last night as for the first time in a couple of months, our family returned to life group. Now, I realize that's not a huge thing but when you consider that it resulted in Ellie and Ethan going to bed almost two full hours later than normal, it all starts to make sense.

Actually, on second thought, the rough patch began last night as both kids suffered through separate screaming sessions as we attempted to put them to bed. Neither was particularly fun but Ellie's was definitely worse if you're keeping score.

Today, while I started the day filled with hope anew, it became obvious pretty quickly that Ethan did not share my zeal for the day. Within ten minutes of us beginning our day, he was laying on the floor, kicking and screaming all while being totally inconsolable. The weird thing is that nothing we did really could help him. He finally just snapped out of it on his own.

From that point, I realized that rather than planning the whole day out, I was going to have to be subject to whatever was going to make Ethan and Ellie happy at any given moment. The first example of that would be Ethan taking a morning nap. Now, this wasn't just a 30-minute power nap. Instead, it was a full-fledged hour and a half snooze session. While he awoke from said nap in a decent mood, it definitely impacted the rest of his day. For starters, his afternoon nap would only last a brief while resulting in a long afternoon for the little guy.

Once both kids were awake, we loaded up and went searching for a park. I say "searching" because things didn't go quite according to plan as the first park we stopped at had a bunch of broken equipment. From there, we loaded up and headed to Smithville for a fun afternoon of park time.

Once we arrived home, that's when things got really weird. As soon as Ethan saw Bethany, his little mind seemed to break. For starters, he began screaming at her to go back to work. When that didn't work, his screaming degenerated into a full-fledged tantrum complete with him stripping. Seriously, at one point, Ethan would spend a good 15 minutes laying on the kitchen floor with no pants or diaper, screaming all the while.

Finally after nearly an hour of screaming, Ethan decided there were two things that would calm him. First, he desired some carrots to eat. Second, and more importantly, he wanted to listen to 'Pat Mahomes, Take Me Home' yet again. After all, who can resist the healing properties of Pat Mahomes to fix all that ails us? Am I right? #DaddyWrite

Day 965 - The One With the Nickelodeon Playoff Game

Here we are again. It's January and that can only mean one thing. It's time for the Kansas City Chiefs to begin their playoff push on the way to successfully defending their Super Bowl championship. I, for one, am excited. That goes without saying. However, I'm also excited to announce that Ellie and Ethan are joining me in my excitement this year. That's definitely cause for excitement if I do say so myself.

As Ellie gets older, it's actually really fun to see her excitement for watching the Chiefs grow each year. I think part of the reason is that she sees Bethany and me getting excited for games and she wants to be included in that. She's certainly doing her part to be included in all of the fun too.

At the start of each Sunday (or whatever day the game takes place), we continue our tradition of hanging our "Red Friday" flag up in the window for all of the neighbors on our street to see and/or ignore. That's not the only tradition that must take place though. We also have to listen to "Take Me Home, Pat Mahomes" at least once. 

For the record, I would go on record as saying that Ellie is likely the only four year old who knows every word to that song. In years past, we would listen to the War Chant and do the Tomahawk Chop. As time went on though, I began to feel a little bad about doing the Chop with my kids hence our move to "Take Me Home, Pat Mahomes".

Ethan for his part is getting excited too. For one thing, whenever the "Red Friday" flag is unfurled, he immediately starts jumping up and down yelling "Chiefs!". He also does the same thing whenever he sees the Chiefs, or if I'm being honest, any other football team on television. It also bears mentioning that we have already read our library copy of "The Year the Kingdom Rose Again" approximately 15 times since picking it up on Saturday. 

As you can probably guess after everything you read above, our house is very excited for Chiefs playoff football. Unfortunately, this past weekend only served to disappoint as the Chiefs had a first round bye. Actually, "disappoint" isn't the correct term. For one thing, the Chiefs had a well-earned bye week in which the team could rest up and get healthy before their first playoff game. Secondly, Ellie and I began what we hope is a new tradition and watched a NFC Wild Card game together, live on Nickelodeon.

Yes, you read that correctly; I did say Nickelodeon. As in the children's network. The home of SpongeBob SquarePants, Paw Patrol, and a number of other iconic cartoon characters. For the first time, Nickelodeon aired a kid-friendly (well, mostly kid-friendly except for one ill-timed slip of the tongue by Cordarrelle Patterson) version of the broadcast complete with new announcers, graphics, and slime cannons.

Ellie, for her part, was completely and utterly enthralled by the broadcast. Not only were there cameos from some of her favorite cartoon characters but the slime cannons were a big highlight for her as well. For the record, there weren't really slime cannons. Instead, the effect was completed via computer graphics. That didn't make it any less cool though. Ellie would spend practically the entire game begging for touchdowns just so she could see the slime "erupt" in the endzone.

Truth be told, a part of me is a little bit sad that the Chiefs' playoff game won't be broadcast on Nick. It was actually really fun to see her learning all kinds of things about the game seeing as how the broadcasters explained everything in a kid-friendly way. I also enjoyed how a game pitting the Saints and the Bears of all teams held her attention like very few do. We even cast our vote for the NVP (Nickelodeon Valuable Player) together. 

For the record though, we didn't not vote for the eventual "winner" of Mitchell Trubisky though. That just would have been cruel. #DaddyWrite