typcial saturday morning

it's been some time since i last had the time + inspiration to edit another little movie. i shot all this footage in about 20 minutes yesterday morning + spent the night after the kids were in bed chopping it up.

(you can also click on the youtube logo in the movie and watch it there in higher quality. under views, just click on "watch in high quality")

NOTE: if the movie says it's been removed, hit the refresh button in your browser. youtube is having problems playing movies lately.

props to my homies in cleveland

ave wanted to let everyone know that you gotta be tough to be from cleveland. to prove her point , she's threatening to throw a jab in the pic on the left.

little does she know, she is not from cleveland. (special thanks to mr pindeho for the shirt)

plunger

last time we were at children's hospital, we asked for advice on removing the lens. they handed us this little orange plunger and a small sheet with instructions.

the thing works like a charm!

basically, when the lids are open, mara can expertly pluck out the lens. this has helped us immensely and i would recommend to anyone needing to pluck out a contact lens out of a two year old.

jasper eye update

its been some time since i've given an official progress report of jasper's eye on the blog. we talk with so many nearby friends and family that i forgot how many we communicate sometimes through this.

in many ways, its been tough to write about since the contact lens has been stressful and loads of work. it's always easier to write about the good times.

as i mentioned, the contact lens has been quite tough for us. it's been about a month since we began placing it in his eye each morning and taking out each night. he still fights like a champ, but we are slowly getting faster at placing it in and removing it.

the most important part has been the least successful: patching. with the lens in, we have to patch the good eye, forcing him to use and consequently rehab the bad eye. we are supposed to do this 6 hours every day. the unfortunately part about this is that he wants absolutely nothing to do with the patch. he rips them off within milli-seconds, rips them off of our eyes (when we try to show him how cool it is to wear a patch), and rips them off all his elmo dolls (when we show him how cool elmo is when he wears a patch). the doctors gave us a few weeks to try and then gave us 2 options: 1. place a pitch black contact lens in the good eye, essentially doing what a patch would do without the ability to rip it off -or- 2. give up.

2 weeks ago we went to the doctor to have his good eye measured for the black contact. last week, the black lens arrived in the mail. we waited to try it out for the first time till today where we could devote the whole morning if necessary to work with him.

i strongly believe we had help from a higher power. when we put the corrective lens in, we got it in on the first try. instead of the normal 15-20 minutes....it took less than a minute. we gave him a few minutes and then strapped him down again for the black lens. once more, we got it in, this time on the third try.

as expected, he freaked out initially. however, within a few moments, he was up on his feet and wanting to play ball with me. and, most important, he could see. he still hit walls, ran into corners, and tripped over things, he could see enough to calm down and actually run back and forth from mara + i...something that he couldn't stop doing.

15 minutes after the black lens was in, he was laughing and throwing the ball. every 15 minutes or so, he would stop and lay his head down with his eyes closed to rest (pictured above). he hasn't really used the right eye for the last 8 months, so we are sure it tires easily. we left it on for over an hour and took it out pretty easy. we are uncertain how much he can see with the black lens out of each eye. we wont know until he can clearly talk and let us know. but what is certain is that he could function with nearly all sight removed from his good eye.

it was truly a blessed day.

some other good news to report: while i was in OH, mara took jasper to see the retina specialist, Dr. Lee, who said his retina looks so good, he has graduated him so that the only reason we would need to see him again soon is if the cornea doc thinks its nessarily in the future. the retina has remained attached and healthy looking.

we saw the cornea specialist, Dr. Song, on Thursday of last week. he said jasper cornea looks absolutely great and mentioned that it's cleared up even better than he expected. he said he is confident he can see with the lens in his eye. he told us this before this morning, which in no uncertain terms, proves it.

daily pic

manhattan beach

we stopped in manhattan beach over the weekend to visit some friends. before we left we took a stroll down the pier.

ice cream

daily pics

daily pics

jasper's idea of a baby seat

daily pic

mara + jasper

kim + dave

while i was in columbus, i got to meet up with dear friends kim + dave and rain + finn. you may remember dave from his visit to LA + suffer his small flesh wound.

the crew

some of these guys ive known since 3d grade and the others since freshman year in high school.

OH

i went to ohio over the weekend for some male bonding with a few guys ive known for a very long time. it was good to be back in the motherland land for a few days.

almost there

daily pic

new bed

jasper is about to move into a big boy bed so we began our search at ikea last weekend.

at the beach with bella monahan!

Comic Con

the past weekend, i took the family down to San Diego to visit and stay with the Monahans and stop by Comic Con.

these things scaried the day lights out of jasper.

daily pics

pe pe!

we haven't put much pressure on jasper to start use the toilet. with ave coming into the house and his eye workout each day now, we felt it would be a bit much. but much to our astonishment, he's been yelling pe pe! pe pe! lately and running to the toilet.

pops shoulders

upside down