Four Eyes? Nah, We're Sixteen Eyes!

Little Miss started saying at the end of the last school year that things were fuzzy.  As she admired both my glasses and the ones that Mister Man now wore all the time instead of just for board work, I wasn't surprised.  Don't tell anyone, but when I was a kid, I faked an eye exam just so I could have glasses.  And I could totally see Little Miss doing the same thing.

So I blew her off.

Great mom moment, yes?  Then came June when Venus made a transit across the sun.  Mister Man was beyond thrilled that he had made a special viewer in school.  That afternoon, our whole family trooped outside to take turns with Mister Man's cardboard tube of wonder where we could see the little black dot moving across the sun.

Well, most of us could see it.  Little Miss couldn't find it.  Neither could I, but then I got smart and grabbed my prescription sunglasses, and voila there was Venus!  Little Miss still couldn't find it.  And so I offered her my sunglasses, with one eye nearsighted and the other eye farsighted.  She looked goofy with them on, but she closed one eye and gasped.  Mom!  I can see it!

So apparently she really is nearsighted.  Oops.

So yes, I took her to see an optometrist.  It may have been a month later, but she was busy with summer school and then went out of town for two weeks - I get a pass on that, right?  And she officially needs glasses, just like the rest of us.  The whole family is four-eyed now.

But I think she looks the cutest in her glasses.

Meet The Professor

Quick reminder of three giveaways here, here, and here.

***

When Mister Man was going to kindergarten this year, he had to have a vision exam before the school year started. We went to a developmental optometrist who doesn't just look at whether you can see or not but focuses also on how well your eyes work.

Just like that, we had an answer as to why t-ball was so painful and frustrating for him last year. And things we should have noticed as parents but didn't became clear. Mister Man had no depth perception, and his visual spatial acuity was severely underdeveloped - meaning that he couldn't see and track things the way you or I can. It made reading interesting, as he read by context without seeing the individual words - which explained why he would skip words when reading aloud or add words that weren't there.

Vision therapy started soon after, and it's made a world of difference. He can actually catch things now because he's been able to get his eyes to work together and develop the fine motor skill in his eyes. Ditto with reading and tracking items in dense and random places. Phew. Fingers crossed he'll finish up with this soon, especially as my insurance started denying claims at the end of January (and yes, I do have an exemption letter covering this exact service and I'm still fighting it, but grrr).

Point being, we have update appointments with the doctor every eight weeks or so to measure his progress and ensure that he's getting where he needs to be. So far we're on track, and it's possible we'll even end the therapy early given how well he's going.

In late January, we had a checkup and the doctor noticed that Mister Man's right eye was at 20/40. His left was fine, so we went on our merry way. When we went back for our next check-in a couple weeks ago, his right eye had deteriorated again and was now 20/70 with an astigmatism. Bummer.

The good news the doctor gave us was that he only needed to wear glasses when doing board work at school, so we don't have to worry about getting sport glasses and sunglasses and all sorts of things that basically just look like giant dollar signs to me.

We shopped around to find some glasses that he really liked and could wear comfortably. Mission accomplished, I then started to drill the rules into him - they go on and off with two hands, don't touch the clear part, keep them on whenever you're seated in school, they either live on your head or in their case, etc. I'm hoping that this sinks in, as I'm not too interested in replacing these anytime soon.

Regardless, he's pretty proud of his new look. And I'm wondering how long before Little Miss also needs glasses. Apparently Daddy passed on his eye genes - maybe that's why no one has my blue eyes?

And of course, so is Little Miss who can't bear the thought of being left out.

So was it smart or paranoid to buy the second backup pair?