monkey eyes

Monkey's eye surgery went well today.  The Dr sliced off, and then re-attached, a muscle.  Sounds gruesome, right?  It kind of is, if you think about it.  But we're really glad we have a good Dr with natural eyeball muscle slicing abilities.  'Cause she's great.

I do have to say that he handled this whole eye surgery business much better when he was one.  Now that he's all smart and talky he just keeps yelling, "My eye hurts!!!!"  And then kicks his legs around.  But having had surgery on my eye a few months ago I am VERY MUCH MORE sympathetic towards him.  Because after my surgery I wanted to do the same thing - instead I just whined a lot.

He refused to open his eyes for dinner tonight.  Even though we made pancakes especially for him.  He just sat in his chair blindly jabbing his plate with his round-tipped fork, hoping he could snag a piece of pancake.  It was pretty successful until the end when only a few scattered pieces were left.  So Two Bits would spear them and hand Monkey the fork.  She's such a good sister.

I think the highlight of the whole day was right before the surgery.  Not only because Monkey was pain-free and happy then.  But because they gave him something to drink that really helped him "relax."  I love how they use the word "relax" when they should really say, "And now we're going to get your 3 year old TOTALLY HIGH."

Once it started kicking in he began slumping really low.  He refused to lay down, so he was basically folded onto his own lap.  And he got intensely interested in his hands.  Like they were the coolest things he had ever seen.  So I helped him explore his fingers while he intermittently giggled. 

Then the Dr came over to his bedside and said, "Hey Monkey, are you ready?!"  And he slowly looked up at her from his slumped, hand discovering, position with big puckered duck lips.  It was definitely one of those "it was funnier in person" things, but it had us all cracking up.  Then we told him they were taking him in a rocket ship to the moon and that we loved him and would see him later.  And that's when the fun stopped. 

But he's a tough kid, and he's doing pretty good.  And I don't mind listening to him yell, "My eye hurts!!!" over and over while I massage his legs and hold ice packs to his face.  Because I know - it really hurts.  Plus I kind of love the kid, so giving him extra attention doesn't seem too hard.