Heartbeats and Eyeballs =)

Again with the facebook repeat. Let's just understand that is probably always going to happen so I can quit with the apologies about it. Okay? Super!

Bree's pediatrician heard a heart murmur at Bree's 18-month checkup that she'd never heard before so we went to the pediatric cardiologist today to get it checked out. We had Bree's blood pressure taken, an EKG (ten stickers with little clips to monitor her heart pattern) and then an echocardiogram (a sonogram of the heart). It was all much less scary than I had anticipated. The echo was actually really fascinating for me, and they had the PBS kids channel playing, so Bree was entertained. As it turns out, our little monster just has loud valves, so she's perfectly fine!

The cardiologist we saw was wonderful. He was patient and thorough and explained everything to me. He's going to write a letter for Bree's file so that the many many pediatricians we're going to see throughout her childhood will know what they're hearing. When he came in the room for the last time to explain all the tests and everything, Bree started pulling at the stethoscope and he handed it to her. She put the circle part on her belly (where it goes!) and then held out the ear buds for him and just made that grunting sound that drives us crazy until he put them in his ears to listen. So funny!

I was a mess and a half this morning and we're so relieved to find that it's just how her body wors. She's a noise kid. =) We didn't want to tell anyone beforehand because I didn't want to inflict that worry unnecessarily.

As for the eyeballs, Carly's going in for her first eye exam today. She's been saying her eyes hurt after she reads for a while and given that Paul has terrible vision, we figured it can't hurt to get things checked out. It's so funny because I have this preconceived notion of a kid who has asthma and wears glasses and THAT kid and MY kid are not at all alike. I'll update later about our eyewear status...again it's probably more of Carly being tired of deciphering hard words than her actual eyes, but we'll see! Last year when we thought she was just ignoring us when we were talking to her she ended up needing tubes, so...better to know. =)

Hopefully after all of this healthcare drama over the last several weeks we can give our insurance cards a rest! Goodness!

Updated:
Carly is in the middle of the hall right now, just beyond the invisible line Bad Attitudes are not allowed to cross, screaming and refusing to do anything else. She's overtired, disappointed that she didn't get to come home with glasses like Daddy and she's nauseated from having her eyes dilated. I'm just praying that there is no barf involved. Oh my word. Please Jesus, let there not be barf involved.

So about the doctor. He noticed a little bit of eye strain before the dilation but she still tested 20/20 even after her eyes were dilated (when they couldn't strain, she still saw as well as before - this is good). So we have a little prescription for .75 reading glasses that the doctor said we could fill or not, or we could go get the 1.00 reading glasses at Target. He said Wal-Mart, but I know he meant Target. =)

So that brings us up to now. Bree is currently saying her first sentence which goes like this "Mommy! Ah woan gih dow" Which means, I want to get down. So let me see if I can get out of this stereo yelling. Fun times, fun times.