Kid Health Report

Rachel went to the eye doctor this morning.  She was very nervous that they would put drops in her eyes, but they didn't.    Her eyes are fine -- the glasses have actually improved her vision.  I guess the doctor was worried about a "lazy eye" before, but wearing the glasses has helped focus her eyes and made the optic nerve in the lazier eye stronger.  She will keep the same prescription for now.  And her next appointment is next year.

Meanwhile, Ben will be getting braces soon!  We went on Monday afternoon for an appointment where they reviewed his models and x-rays with us, and told us what his treatment plan would be.  He has three appointments in the next two weeks, during which they will put in one of those palate expander things.  (I think the first appointment is where they put little rubber bands between his molars to separate them a bit; the second appointment is to put the metal bands around his molars; and the third is to insert the palate expander thingy.)  The palate expansion sounds totally excruciating, but Dr. S says it's not (and he's usually candid about these sorts of things. It's nice to be working with an orthodontist whom one already knows well).  Also, apparently the palate-expanding part is over in as little as three weeks.  Then Ben will have braces for a couple of years.  He's actually looking forward to it.  I don't think he realizes yet how uncomfortable it will be -- but on the other hand, it may not be as uncomfortable for him as it was for me.  There was no one in his first grade class last year who had braces.  We'll see if he's the first person in his second grade class to get them. 

flickr is so wonderful.  I'm in love with it.  I want to marry it.

Just f'rinstance... Charles has a bunch of photos of theatre people that I know up on his flickr page.  I didn't know they were there, or even that he had an account.  I found them by searching for the tag "lamplighters".  How cool is that?  And now that I know about them, I can flag them as Favorites of mine -- and then they have a whole separate page all their own, on MY account.  Awesome.

Okay, I'll stop hyperventilating with the wonderfulness of it all now, and go do some work.

(P.S.  Thanks to Cyn for mentioning flickr and her cat in the same sentence, and getting my brain to thinking that I should go investigate.  Cyn, you rock.  But we knew that.  Now that you're going to be on the left coast, I may have to come stalk you next time I head down to the southern part of the state.)

As an internet addict, I tend to expect the web to amuse me at all times.  There is an endless amount of stuff out there -- there should always be something going on that I want to surf or try or read about, right? 

And yet, the fact is that I frequently go through long periods where the web bores me senseless.  That's how it's been lately.  I check Bloglines and nobody has posted (because I don't actually subscribe to that many sites); I check here to see if anyone has commented, and no one has; I read a news blurb or two, or not; and then I'm done.  And five minutes later I do the exact same thing.

It's irritating.  And yet, of all the information available out there, not that much of it seems terribly interesting, most of the time.

So it's refreshing when, every now and then, the internet becomes fascinating again.  Usually it's about some cool new web service that I can subscribe to and play around with.  In just the last few days, I have discovered (and established identities on):

43things
43places
Yahoo 360°
and
flickr

All of which are way cool applications, to varying degrees.

I think I'm hooked.  Again.

And so, you know -- come link to me!