Sympathetic Shiners

There's light at the end of the tunnel, so to speak. Tomorrow marks six weeks and that's been a magic number for Nick - when he's allowed to open his jaw to get his teeth seen to; when they can take the pins out of his hand; when he turns the corner toward normalcy.

This weekend Nicolas was outside without sunglasses on - a first. Even with the bandage he'd have found a way to block the light from his good eye if it were still as bad as it's been. If you click on this photo to make it bigger and look in between the Rovers, you'll see that Acacia has cleared a path to her fort, the wheelbarrow full of supplies found in the woods. I believe she's cutting steps into the hill now because she asked me for tiles to line them with. We're going to have to call this hole-in-the-trees her Diva Kiva.

We'd been expecting Nick's good eye to take at least a week to register it didn't need to sympathise with the other anymore but it's already happening... However, it seems we're not quite done yet with sympathetic eyes!

Acacia got walloped by her piano keyboard thing; still can't figure out how it got her eye, but there you go. Matching shiners.

Nick's shiner is still painful but nothing like it was those first couple of days. The lid is stitched closed and he's looking forward to having those removed this Thursday, if enough swelling has dissipated. I guess if the eye area is too big it can pop out the conformer, the "marble" they've stuck in there to keep the shape of the socket for now.

So although these are not normal things to be chatting about, life around here is regaining little pieces of normal all the time. Nick and the girls came and watched my hockey game today in which we beat a very good team 6-1.Whoop Whoop! I got to play twice this weekend and am now less tired than I have been in a couple of weeks. Before my neighbour talked me into joining a hockey team five years ago, I thought the late night games were crazy. But really, they're perfect. By the time I leave, the kitchen is clean, the girls tucked in and sleeping, and Nick gets some quiet time for a few hours. But as I was loading my stick into the car last Friday night I heard a squeaky noise that sounded an awful lot like a recorder...

"Bye Nick!"