today odin went in for another eye exam at a new doctor's office in la crosse and they were so thoughtful and nice; they let him pick out his very own pair of sunglasses that he could keep after they dilated his eyes and they even had a whole wall that you could draw on while waiting for the dilation drops to do their thing. it was all very relaxed and made for the best exam yet.

we're happy to report that his eyesight might have improved again slightly since his previous exam and each eye is somewhere between -3.5 and -4.0. you might recall that 10 months ago the best guess was that his diopter was around -5.25, so that's enough of an improvement that the recommendation is to continue to hold off getting him glasses to see how much more his eyes will improve on their own.

odin was quite the charming and chatty toddler and we were both proud that his eye doctor was very impressed with his conversational skills and commented several times that she hadn't seen a "normal" two year old with such a command of language in quite some time, little less a 25 weeker.

every so often, i run across information such as "the misdiagnosis of special education costs" that re-remind me of just how fortunate we've been up to this point. the article claims that the primary cause of the increase in special education costs in recent years is due to the ever growing number of premature kids who are surviving because of advances in neonatalogy. and a full fifty percent of infants born weighing less than 3.3 pounds will have "significant cognitive difficulties" and half of those will be "metally retarded" while the remaining half will have "significant to severe learning disabilities". it's the kind of stuff that can keep (micro)preemie parents awake at night, wondering if they are missing something or glossing over some "deficiency" that needs attention.

he really has come a long way and while every day is amazing, today was just a little more amazing than usual given the micropreemie odds.