We got back from our cruise this Saturday and had quite the dramatic drive home, then the craziness continued with a tree falling in the yard. I tried to get things back to normal and introduced my son to the concept of a “Quiet Book” and we tried out a pair of blue light blocking glasses.

Week in Review – Nov. 10 – 18

The Drama Part One – We had amazing time on our cruise, mostly because they had a great Kids Club so we could actually enjoy some time to ourselves! It was like cruising with a built a built-in babysitter. The drama began on our drive home, when I complained to my husband about my vision getting worse and then turned to look at him. He suddenly exclaimed, “What’s wrong with your eye??” And when I looked in the mirror I saw this:

It’s called anisocoria, when one one pupil dilates and the other does not. One possible explanation was the motion sickness patch I had worn on the cruise. I had taken it off that morning and could have touched the spot then touched my eyeball. The weird thing was that it was 12 hours later from when I had removed it. So of course I freaked out and then got afraid I was having a stroke after my face started feeling weird, like my smile was lopsided. So we stopped at the nearest ER and then after a CT Scan, MRI and chest X-ray all came up clear the let me go home four hours later.

The Drama Part Two – After getting over the eyeball craziness, we awoke the next morning to a weird sound, like something had fallen in the house. When nothing seemed out of the ordinary, we figured it must be the air conditioner making noise again. Then we looked outside and something didn’t seem right…

A Live Oak tree had broken right in half and then took down part of our Magnolia tree too. It landed right on our lamp post and smashed the lantern to bits. We had a lot of rain and wind that night, so although the tree withstood a hurricane last season, it seems it just needed a little push to finally snap. I then continued the crappy day by discovering a giant nail in my tire. It was so large that it was making a really loud noise when I drove. People walking were turning around to try and figure out where the noise was coming from. The good news is now the tree has been removed and my tire got patched. The rest of the week was crisis-free.

The Not-So-Quiet Book – I thought the idea of a Quiet Book sounded pretty neat. The idea behind it is to encourage screen-free activities through play and imagination. The Quiet Book Queen offers a Calendar Quiet Book Subscription Kit where every month you get a new page/activity to make for your book. We started with October and had fun making a dress-up doll page and a finger puppet spider.

There is nothing quiet about my son, so we had fun being loud with our Quiet Book page. His favorite thing was to dress the guy up like a banana and then pretend to eat him. If you’d like to try it out, new subscribers get 50% off their first month and free shipping:
https://quietbookqueen.com/collections/quiet-book-page-kits

Something for Screen Time – If can’t manage to pull your kid away from the screen long enough to play with a Quiet Book, you can try a pair of Swannies Blue Light Blocking Glasses. They block the blue light coming from devices like your iPad, phone and TV that can keep you up at night. Also a good idea for those blogging moms trying to post before bed!

My 3-year-old is not the most gentle kid and I’m happy to report that these can take a beating and not fall apart. They’re actually made from an environmentally-friendly renewable, natural plastic derived from cotton fibers and wood pulp. They can even be shaped to your face for a perfect fit or readjusted if they do become misshappen.

Use code GEEKMAMA at check out on SwanwickSleep.com and get $10 off your order.

That’s it for all the excitement this week! Still working on catching up, doing laundry and avoiding any more falling trees. Hope you all have a very Happy Thanksgiving!