Photos (all pre-op)

If I tried, I'm sure I could look cuter!
Trucks and books, what more could a girl want?
Wattle plant ... in New Orleans!!
Helping Mummy unpack

End of November ...

It's been two weeks since Matilda's surgery, and she's doing very well. We see the surgeon for a follow-up appointment tomorrow, and we're hoping that will mean ... no more eye drops. It's taken almost two weeks, but Matilda's just realised in the last day or so that if she thrashes around while we're trying to hold her down, the eye drops end up on her face or Daddy's fingers, rather than in her eyes. Little Monkey.
We also discovered just what a party animal she's going to become last Sat night at a wine and cheese (and election results) party with friends. M stayed up until about 9:30pm ... 2 1/2 hours past her usual bedtime!!! As the night wore on, she walked more and more ... oh, and there's some other news, since last Wednesday, M has been walking more and more. She started with a metre or so, and now she can pretty much cross rooms with something in her hand, no worries at all. At about 9:30 she finally hit the wall, and went to bed fairly well without too much objection, and didn't stir much when we left L & R's house. She woke when we were almost home, and it took a lot of cuddles to get her back to sleep. M and I ended up sleeping on the couch for 30 mins or so until she was really asleep. It's certainly much harder to sleep on the couch with a toddler lying on me than it used to be with a newborn all wrapped up in my arms!!
The good news was that M slept in until 8:30am on Sunday ... bliss!

Surgery update

Matilda had her three muscle bilateral squint surgery this morning at the Queensland Eye Hospital. It went quite well, we managed with the no foods after 3am (woke her up and gave her a bottle at 2:30am, lucky Mummy!), and the no water/juice after 7am. M was getting grizzly at home, probably due to the breakfast routine being interrupted, but picked up when we arrived at the hospital (it does day surgery procedures only) when she had new places to investigate. She also behaved in her usual completely shy manner (not) and sat on a complete stranger's lap to watch her portable DVD player with her son!
Waiting for the surgery was not fun, but a bit after 9am I went through with her to the theatre (only one of us could go in) and stayed til she was asleep from the gas. That took a minute of not much happiness, and then John and I spent the next 1 1/2 -2 hours waiting outside ...
At about 11, we were called into recovery and spent the next while with her, giving her oxygen, cuddles, dummy, and a bit of food. M fell asleep on me in the kids recovery room, and we stayed there til almost 1pm I guess. Then we came home, had some lunch, and M had a BIG afternoon sleep. She's playing now, and we'll be getting into the usual dinner routine soon.
Matilda's eyes are red, as we were told, but they've been getting redder as the time passes. She's got two sets of eye drops to be taken 4 times a day for the next two weeks, and her pain/discomfort should be able to be managed by panadol and nurofen. If all goes well tonight, we won't see the opthamologist again for two weeks ... so we'll see what he says about her response to the surgery then!