Cataract update

We went to the cataract surgeon last Wednesday. His office seems to be out in the middle of nowhere, but it's really smack dab in the middle of a retirement community. Smart guy. Anyway, he looked at Claire and said there really was no rush at all. Usually cataracts either need to come out or they don't, and he said she was in the gray area, meaning let's not do surgery because it's not necessary at this point. The longer we can delay the better, really. Her eye is still growing (and will until she is 9-10 years old). If they were to put a new lens in her eye, it would be a total guess as to what strength, size, etc. at this point. The closer she is to finishing her growth, the better idea they will have on what lens to put in there.

He said he would send the pictures to a pediatric ophthalmologist in Memphis to get a second opinion, but really didn't see a fire that needed to be put out. Yay yay yay! We had been praying that God would just take the cataract away, but this diagnosis was fine w/ us!

In other news, the day of our appointment we continued our tradition of checking out any local state parks before we saw the doctor. We had a picnic at Cumberland Mountain State Park and played on the playground. It wasn't as nice as Burgess Falls, but Noah and Claire loved the swingset. When Noah was 7 months old we took him to Glen Rock Park up in NJ (the park Doug used to play at when he was little). That was his first encounter w/ a swing, and he loved it. But since then, he has not liked them at all. Claire was a little weird about them at first, but that's definitely her favorite now, and Noah's too.

Here is a cute recent picture. Claire's hair is long enough to put in proper pigtails as long as it is not freshly washed.