Sophie needs eye surgery. We just got back from Sophie's checkup at the eye doctor's and the verdict is that she needs surgery before she's a year old - that gives us just 4 months to work with. (For those who might not remember, Sophie has a ptosis - the muscle that opens her right eyelid never developed, and she has a difficult time seeing out of her right eye.) Paul and I had discussed earlier that if she needed the surgery we wanted it done during the summer, but it looks like the decision's being made for us. It's not that her eyesight is so horrible, it's just that the patch isn't doing as good of a job as it should for her, and rather than make her go in a cycle of increasing and decreasing patch times, the doctor felt it would be best to take care of her eyelid as soon as possible. We can't say we're all that surprised. We have the names of two cosmetic surgeons to check out - we have to see who's in our group and who's available - and meet them and set up a date for her surgery. The good thing is that it's an outpatient surgery, they aren't going to touch her eye (just her eyelid), and our doctor says that many kids are up and playing that afternoon after surgery. There's even a possibility they will let one of us in the operating room with her. So - please keep us in your prayers to find the right doctor and the right solution for Sophie. It seems like God's putting an awful lot on our plates right now, but somehow we'll get through it. :) I'll finish with some good Sophie news - Sophie just turned 8 months old this weekend; she says "Mama" and "Daddy" (in general, although she has called us Mama and Dada a few times to our faces); if you say "boing" to her she bounces up and down; she crawls all over the place; and she just started clapping her hands, she applauds herself for everything - finishing her lunch, getting her diaper changed, when you sing her a song - she claps for it all! I also have some more news to share - but that's going to have to wait for another day... this is about all I can handle for now.