purple and pink

are the two bestest colors when you are a little girl!

We had Emma Kate's appointment with the opthamologist yesterday.  It was for 9am, so I left with Emma while Jim stayed home to get Anna and Luke off to school after us.  I was worried about how she would do leaving with me while the three amigos were still home.  I didn't need to.  We said our goodbyes and off she trotted to the car.

I declare, if I just spent the entire day in the car she would think it was wonderous!  Getting into that big white van puts a sparkle in her eye everytime!  Never mind the time I had to pull over in great haste later in the day as she laughingly and very proudly...STOOD UP and showed me she could take the seatbelt off herself!  Oh, my stars.  She was very proud.  I was totally taken aback!  Smart little cookie.

I used the most wonderous of devices, the translator on my iphone, to explain we were going to get her glasses.  She just glowed with excitement, and I gave her my huge sunglasses to wear just for fun.

M&Ms and the translator got us through the rough parts of the exam (the stinging eye drops...and when you have beautiful dark eyes they need to use more drops, ugh!), and EK was so brave.  So very brave is our girl.

She is near sighted and has an astygmatism in one eye.  I refrained from mentioning to the doctor that her astygmatism is in the same eye as her father.  I'm sure you are proud of me for using my thought bubble. :)  I had a good internal laugh at our family silliness and how much we love using that old line from our beloved, Papa.  We love it in the best sense, because we really do mean it.  Folded in by adoption or by birth, all our children are ours.  They are all the same to us.  And they should be, because that is what they are: our children.  God's first, ours second.

So, back to the eyes.  EK gets glasses!  Have I told you the story of me trying to fail the eye exam on purpose in 7th grade because I longed for glasses...to go with my short permed hair and my corduroy shorts, argyle knee socks and fairisle sweater vest.  How's that for a word picture?  Feel free to laugh.  At me.

Picking out glasses for Emmacakes was so fun, because she loves glasses and thinks getting them was great fun.  She gets that trait from me. :)

In a week, she will be donning adorable purple spectacles that make her vision clear and only add to her winsome and sweet nature.  She was so darling in them, it brought tears to my eyes.

Check one box off our medical list.  I found myself quite giddy thinking about all the things we will have accomplished when this month is done.  We will have completed all the initial medical visits and will have a solid plan in place for the next months to help our sweetest girl.  I'm jubilant.

I have something to share that I have had to sit on for a few days to decide if it was right to post or not.  Emma has some differences with her toes.  That isn't a secret or anything to be quiet about.  One of her toes, however, had a black part on it that we thought was possibly dead tissue.  I was so worried that a part of her toe would need to be removed.  It is on her foot that has all the toes, they just need a little TLC.

Well, the other day I painted her finger nails and toenails.  She was enchanted.  And it was the first time she's really let me hold her hands and feet and look at them intentionally.  As I was looking at the foot that had the black part on it, I touched that part of that toe, and realized....it was not her toe.  The black was her toenail that had not been trimmed and had grown up and over her sweet little toe and down back again.  This is weird, but I had the image of the Empress of China who grew her nails so long she needed those nail sheaths to protect them.

We don't have the appointment with the orthopedist for two weeks.  I was not going to leave that nail like that if I could easily correct it.  So I ended up gingerly trimming part of it away.  There is no more black nail on her dear toe!  It is all gone!  In two snips it was off.  I was in total shock.  The nail is still way too long, but I'll let one of the doctors take care of that.  I still just cannot believe it!  How amazing is that to think we were facing one thing, only to find all we needed was a nail clipper, some gentle time with Momma and a little pink polish.  I'm still in awe.

I told Jim and we both had a quiet moment on the phone.  I don't know why her toe was left like that, and I don't know that we can ever speculate on that.  But I do know that it won't ever happen again.  Never.  And for that, I hold my Emma Kate a bit tighter and send a prayer of thanksgiving to the Lord.

Happy Saturday from our home to yours.  It is leaf day here, and we will be in the yard all together glorying in the beauty of fall's November in Minnesota, and the wonder of being a family of seven, all at home.  Forever.  Family.