My poor girl :(

Marissa had her first birthday May 2nd. She loved to squish the cake in her fingers. She was so tired that she wasn't into opening presents. Thanks to all who could come.

Marissa is crawling everywhere and stands by herself. she will hold your finger and walk with you, but won't let go. She took 4 steps towards me on her birthday. She took another 3 about a week ago and 2 today.

Brody is growing so fast. He talks so grown up and says the sweetest things that just make you forget the "bad" things he does. I fixed his big wheel yesterday and asked, how does that work? He said, "Fantastic". lol. He is still getting along great with Marissa. He does get jealous sometimes, when we tickle Marissa he comes and lays right in front of her. So then we tickle him. Silly boy!

So my poor girl... I noticed when she was about 3 or 4 months that her eyes weren't lining up together. Infants have to train their eyes to work together, so I figured they were still working at it. Well at about 11 months old I decided to go have it looked at. Her doctor didn't see it, but said I should see an opthamologist to see what the problem is. We went to Portland and the opthamologist said it looks like a cataract in her left eye and astigmatism and nearsightedness in the right eye. But she wanted to send me to a pediatric surgeon for a second opinion. Marissa did not enjoy her visit, a lot of screaming. It took 3 people to hold her down so the doc could look at her eyes. So, I saw the surgeon and he says she has a rare cataract... usually infants that get cataracts (not very common) get them on the front lens. Marissa's is on the back lens. So, they are going to remove the back lens and replace it with an artificial one. they will guesstimate the size her eye will be when it is done growing so they won't have to do the surgery ever again. There are some very rare risks in the long term such as retina detachment, glaucoma etc... and of course the anesthesia. She will be having her surgery May 28th at OHSU Casey Eye Institute. Then will where a patch for 2 days then a "shield" for 3 weeks so it doesn't get infected while it heals. Then she will have to wear glasses. :( They need to do surgery as soon as possible so her brain doesn't ignore that eye permanently and go blind in it.

I hope you are all doing well. Hope to see you all soon. Please keep us in your thoughts and prayers on May 28th and the weeks following. Dave's dad will be coming from Minnesota on the 27th so he is going to watch Brody for us that day. So Brody is so excited to hang out with grandpa.