On Wednesday August 25th my dad, mom, Blake and I headed up to Portland to surprise Michelle and Tristan at the airport. This was the first time Michelle and Tristan met Blake. It was great to surprise them at the airport!
From there, the next day we headed north to Seattle for a family friends Memorial Service. Tom had been battling terminal cancer for a year and finally went home to be with the Lord. The service was a beautiful celebration of Tom's life and it was great to reconnect with friends that we had not seen for 12+ years!
Anne and Ashely were our neighbors in Seattle. Ashley had a little girl two months after Blake was born. It was great to see them and meet little Ava Grace!
From Seattle we headed to Black Butte. We were in Black Butte till Labor Day, for about 10 days. We enjoyed a lot of relaxing and of course great food, but by the end of the trip we all agreed that vacation has a different feel now that there are babies. We can't just lay by the pool all day long any more :) or go shopping all day long... there are now naps to be taken and mouths to be fed! Here are some pictures form our trip...
Blake and Tristan playing. Blake isn't so sure about his big cousin yet.
Tristan checking out the fish at the Metolius Fish Hatchery.
The Family
First time in the pool!
Sleepy boy
After Black Butte we came home and Blake and I were home for 4 days and then headed down to Medford to spend more time with the Stevenson family before they headed back east. While we were in Medford, Blake came down with dacryocystitis. Dacryocystitis is essentially a clogged tear duct that has become infected. This began the next week of craziness!
Sunday the 12th, the day after we arrived in Medford Blake's right eye started looking infected. He was born with a clogged tear duct in that eye, so it was normal for it to ooze and water, but things started looking a lot worse. On Monday I called his pediatrician and he prescribed eye drops. I started the drops that evening and by Tuesday evening his eye was not looking any better. I made a call to the on call doctor that night (thankfully it was his doctor!) and he didn't like the what I was describing and wanted to see Blake the next day. We were planning on coming home that day so we didn't have to cut our trip short but headed straight to the doctor's office when we arrived to town. At the appointment Dr. McQuillan diagnosed Blake with dacryocystitis and gave us a prescription for an antibiotic but wanted to see Blake again the next day. When we saw Dr. McQuillan the next day (Thursday) he told us that he wanted Blake to see an opthamologist at the Casey Eye Institute at OHSU in Portland. We couldn't get an appointment at CEI until Monday morning. That was hard to wait over the weekend because I just wanted his poor little eye to get better but instead it was slowly getting worse!
8am Monday morning (thankfully we were able to stay Sunday night at my Aunt and Uncle's) we had an appointment with the Opthamologist. I knew going into this whole thing that there was a possibility he would need to have a minor surgery on his little tear duct to open it up and get things flowing, so I had been preparing myself for that. Sure enough the Opthamologist felt the only way to clear up his eye was to have the procedure done. Russ and I were both fine with this, we knew it would be best to just get it done and over with.
Wednesday we headed back up to Portland and at 11:15 we checked into surgery. Blake did a great job, he was a trooper through it all. I would say he did better then me. I thought it was going to be a rough morning because he had to fast for hours before checkin which meant by the time he actually went back to surgery he had gone almost 6 hours without eating! 6 hours without eating for a little guy who eats at least every 3 was a long time. He didn't hardly fuss or cry. Like I said, I think it was harder on me then him.
Surgery went well and was a success! The doctor said when she started to put pressure on it it started oozing. Then once they got all the puss out they probed the tear duct to make sure there was not blockage. It has now been over a week and his little eye looks great! We are so glad to have this behind us. We didn't realize how much his eye must have been bothering him because now he seems to be a much happier boy! Here are some pictures...
My poor baby he looks so sad and he should be happy because this picture was taken when we were tailgating for the first OSU home football game.
Right before surgery
The morning after surgery. He was a much happier baby!
So it has been one busy month for the Bartlett household and I've started working again, but just part time. I am watching a little boy who I have watched since he was 18 months old and he is now in kindergarden. It is perfect for now because Blake can be with me and it gives us something to do during the week but I don't feel overwhelmed. And Michael loves Blake!
Wow, September went by in a whirlwind! It is hard for me to believe tomorrow is October. Christmas will be here before we know it!
