"I can do it!"

"I can do it" was kinda Etta's theme today.

This morning she had a follow-up appointment with the Opthamologist.  The appointment was at 10:00, but of course, we didn't get called back until 10:45.  So, for 45 minutes I chased Etta around the waiting room.  It was EXHAUSTING!  She tired of that bead table thing quickly, then she walked circles around it, then bigger circles around the island of waiting room chairs, then drawing with the pen on the back of the piece of paper they always ask you to fill out... even though none of your information has changed. Then she dug through my purse and played with my sunglasses and eventually found my camera.  I turned it on and showed her which button to push and here's what she snapped:

(I helped her with that first one)

and I took this one... 

We saw the tech and then the Dr.  We were there to follow-up.  There weren't any drops involved, no dilation.  We spent most of the time discussing her eye-crossing.  I told him what I had observed and he told me that he saw it too.  There was a really long name for what this is, but I didn't write it down.  Basically, it's an intermittent eye-crossing that happens when she is changing focus.  Like when she's looking down, playing with a toy in her lap, her eyes are focused on that toy.  If she looks up at something/someone across the room, her eyes will temporarily cross and then they will correct themselves when she focuses on the object that is further away.  There are a few things that are done to correct this (bifocals, surgery), but for now, he just wants to keep an eye (haha. no pun intended) on this.  If her eyes start to turn in and stay there, then I am to get her in to see him.  He feels that she will probably (mostly) grow out of this.  He acted like we'd know more when she's about 7 or 8 (unless it seems to get worse, then we'd address it of course).  We talked about her glasses again, and he said that her far-sightedness is so slight that she doesn't really need to wear them.  Which is good, cause she won't. 

At dinner tonight, I let Etta feed chocolate pudding to herself.  I tend to spoon feed her most of the time still because it is SOOOOoooo messy when she feeds herself.  Not tonight.  Tonight I was cooking dinner and I knew she was about to have a bath.  I also knew that if I let her feed this to herself she would MILK it and I would have time to cook and run the vacuum cleaner.  :)

and this is a perfect example of her eye-crossing.  She was looking down at her pudding cup (focused on it) and then she looked up in my direction to take the bite and her eyes crosed for a couple of seconds.