I really miss this boy.  Jack left for school camp yesterday.  He’s only 8!

I’m sure he’s having the BEST FUN EVER but I miss him.   More than I thought I would.  I hope he’s warm enough.  They are doing all kinds of fun activities like archery, cooking their own dinner outside, rock climbing and probably the best activity of all - having a sleepover with 90 of your closest friends!  For the first time, the Year 3 - 6’s are all going to camp together (it’s a small school) and I say, good luck to the teachers! 

For a bit of light relief, here is Jack being silly. Yes, it’s another scrapbooking layout.  I swear I will get time to do more of these soon.  I did this over at Rebecca’s house on Sunday - we had such a great time hanging out and making art and I got to cuddle baby Ben lots.  Here, I present Jack’s BIG EYE: 

The journalling reads:  “Ever since the day you were born you have been doing your big eye, first by mistake and then (once you worked it out) as often as you could!”  And it’s true, he would be breastfeeding away as a newborn, and one eye would just open really big then back to normal then really big, over and over in rhythm with the sucking.  We didn’t know what it was but we were assured it was nothing, by people who didn’t really know what they were talking about, as it turns out. 

He worked out a long time ago that he could make it happen by sucking on a straw or sticking his tongue out, but we had no idea why this happens or what it is about.  He thinks it’s hilarious and we call it his “party trick”.   Every now and then we would get an eye doctor to have a look or tell a GP or some other medical person and they all dismissed it as nothing.  Then one day a few months ago, Jack was getting a few headaches so we called into a glasses shop for a quick checkup…

Jack looking like such a big dork - getting his eyes checked

So while we were there, I again told the story of “Jack’s big eye” and this time the young guy, triumphantly said Yes!  I know exactly what that is! and grabbed a huge big book and started flicking through the pages til he found what he was looking for.  I could not believe it when I saw pages and pages of kids with just the same thing as Jack!  There was even a name for it - Marcus Gunn Jaw Winking Syndrome.  It turns out that the nerve that should go to the jaw is miswired and instead goes to the eye so that a jaw movement will make the eyelid open and close.  I nearly fell over!  

It had only taken EIGHT YEARS to find this out!  Luckily it’s not a big deal and really nothing to worry about, but it’s so nice to have a name for it and know that there are other people with this same condition.

Did I mention I am missing him???

Related Posts

• Tuesday, October 14, 2008 -- talk talk talk (1)
• Friday, December 8, 2006 -- lots of layouts (3)
• Saturday, October 7, 2006 -- hooking up (4)
• Tuesday, June 20, 2006 -- silk painting and other things… (3)
• Saturday, May 6, 2006 -- destiny (3)

tags: camp, jack, jaw winking, layout, marcus gunn, marcus gunn jaw winking syndrome, school, scrapbooking, scrapping