Then, we got up, went to Children's Hospital, and had some quick strabismus surgery. There are about 17 doctors and nurses per patient there, and all the patients are tiny, so you feel very well taken care of.

They gave Max a very small hospital gown and a very small bed and dressed me in some tacky blue paper clothes, then led us into the OR. The OR at Children's looks like a very hip kitchen combined with a sports bar. There are fancy appliances, stainless steel surfaces, and huge flat screen monitors all over the place. I held Max while they gave him the gas mask (banana flavored). At first, he took it like a champ. Then, he fought like The Champ. The flailing, combined with the gassing and the eyes rolling back in the head, was a little hard to take, but the flat screen TVs showed that his signs were all tip top and the 17 doctors and nurses looked calm, so I tried to stay calm myself. Then they said, "Thanks so much for your help, Dad," as if there would have been no one to hold him had I not been there. I said, "Oh, you're welcome," and then there was a slightly awkward silence. I took this to mean that "thanks" meant "please go," and so I did. I could tell I had guessed right when there was a nurse ready to escort me away, as if I might try to break back in. I suppose it happens.

We were gently pushed to go downstairs and eat breakfast - we had been there since 6:15 - probably to get us out of their collective hair for a while, and by the time we came up there was only about 45 minutes to kill before they told us that Max was done with the slicing and dicing. (Actually, it was just a couple of stitches to some eye muscles.) We got to go into recovery and sit with him while he woke up.

When he woke up, sweaty, thirsty, disoriented, and bleeding slightly from the eyes, he was not at his cheeriest. But a few minutes with his mom changed all that. He thrilled to his pet rubber snake and flirted with the nurses by making his snake sounds. (Not in full control of his tongue yet, his snake sound is a little lispy, which is cute in a one year old but would not be very intimidating for a snake.) In another hour, during which he mostly nursed and sat around being dizzy and whimpered a little, the doctors sent us home.

For the next week, he can't swim. This is ok because he, um, can't swim. He also can't wear his glasses until tomorrow, which is why he doesn't have them in the photo. The surgery does not mean that his vision gets better automatically, and he will still be farsighted. He'll just hopefully be farsighted in 3 dimensions. He also doesn't really want a shirt pulled over his head right now (swollen eyes) and so we've broken out the madras. A nice post-op touch, I think.