In the words of mothers everywhere... How did this possibly happen?
Only yesterday, she was giving me a hearty kick in the kidneys! She also had an extra special talent for kicking some mystery spot that never failed to set off contractions. Happily, the doctor assured me that they were "non-productive."
When Noah was born, there was commentary about how very sad it would be that Megan had only brothers and how this would impair her development as a fragile flower of womanhood. I replied that based on current data, Megan was most likely to punch someone on her brother's behalf.
It took ages for her hair to grow but it was worth the wait! It's the lovely chestnut curls I always hoped for when I was growing up. Her grandmother got very determined one day and pulled off pigtails shortly after she turned 3.
Megan's favorite place in the world is Myrtle Beach. Allen is part of the Hilton Honors program so every summer, we stay there. It's incredibly well set-up for families of young children with a quite nice water park on the property in addition to pools and then the beach is just down the back steps. She has plans to open a bisketti restaurant where she will offer an option of sauce or no sauce or with a meatball and salad. She will also have in-house daycare so her children can come to the restaurant with her. She plans to frequently vacation to Belfast so she can visit the W5 museum.
You may notice that she wears a patch in some pictures. She uses Patch Pals. While she would rather not wear a patch, they create as little strife as could possibly occur with patching and Megan views them as yet another fashion accessory in her arsenal. Somewhere around 2 months gestation there was a blood vessel in her left eye that should have gone away but instead hung around. It supplies too much nutrition to the cornea and caused a cataract. It's an extremely rare occurrence and is one of those "it just happens" sort of things. If we let things alone, her brain would gradually begin to pay attention to the information that eye gave less and less, pruning off neurons and nerves until the left eye simply stopped working at all. By forcing her brain to use her left eye, we are staving off "lazy eye." She'll likely always need glasses but will probably stop patching around age 8, when the brain becomes more set in it's ways.
If I were to have picked a child to handle such a thing, it would have been Megan. She handles the questions with cheerful spunk, explaining to all who ask about her cataract, her "silly eye," and how her eyes have to exercise. She meets the curious stares (and, no, it's not the children who stare) with a friendly grin. She is a child who dresses with imagination; the patches are just part of the milieu.
Megan has an exuberant curiosity that is a teacher's delight. She is determined and brave and clever and passionate and is not daunted by most any limitation be it vision, size or sex, finding a way over, through, or around any obstacle that meets her fancy.
Happy Birthday to the Princess of Books!
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