I can SEE!!!

We got a message several weeks ago from the school nurse that Mary did not do well on the school’s eye test (and she was tested TWICE) and that she might need glasses. I found this interesting since when Mary first started having headaches/migraines in 4th grade, the first thing we did was take her to the eye doctor to get her eyes checked, and they were fine. Well, anyway, Mary’s teacher had already moved her to the front of the class, but we noticed just at random times over the last several weeks that Mary was most definitely near-sighted and was having problems reading/seeing things at a distance (including the squinty-eyed school photo). We put off an appointment until after the holidays/her birthday because Mary, being too smart for her own good, and really a very good eaves-dropper, caught on to the fact that she probably needed glasses and was quite upset about it.



Two of Mary’s closest friends have glasses, and are just gosh-darn cute in them! But Mary, for whatever reason, had it stuck in her head that glasses would look HIDEOUS on her. In fact, she was telling us that she was trying on her friends’ glasses to see—and she definitely felt she looked horrible in them.

Many, many stalling-for-bed discussions were had over the last couple of weeks about glasses and how it was INEVITABLE with two near-sighted parents (plus grandparents and cousins and Aunts and Uncles) that she (AND her siblings) would need glasses. And how glasses were MUCH, much more fashionable now-a-days (ask your grandmother about the horrible horn-rimmed nasty things she had to wear when she was THREE!). And how CUTE Mary’s friends look in their glasses. And how ONE friend got a pair of COSMETIC glasses to wear just because she liked the way they looked! Exhausting….

Well, we got her in to the mall one-hour place yesterday (we thought that getting the glasses immediately instead of the impending two-week wait from our typical eye doctor would be best). She was a brave little soul and went through her eye exam just fine. (We forgot to remind her about the air-puff glaucoma test—she was pretty traumatized by that. Our eye doctor doesn’t do that torturous test, he uses these funky yellow eye drops instead. But oh! Eye drops are the work of the devil to Mary, so perhaps it was just as well!) Yes, she had a slight prescription. Yes, she could use some glasses. No (as we’d hoped) she did not have to wear them all the time—only when she needed to see at a distance, not when reading or doing her artwork.


Mary enjoyed finding a pair of glasses (although she would catch herself every now and then and complain, “I HATE glasses!”). She found a pair she liked (“Oh, but I don’t—REALLY”), and we spent our hour waiting eating dinner and getting some ice cream.

We told her, but I don’t think she believed us. The very second she put her new glasses on, she was just FASCINATED. “I can SEE! I can READ THAT SIGN! WOW!” All the way home, she was smiling so big, her dimples were showing! (Oh, how I love those dimples, and I wish we saw them more often!) A whole new world of sight opened up!


I’m sure we’ll have some stepped on/lost/dog-chewed glasses to contend with in the next few months, but I’m happy that my baby can see now. (And happy that Swistle has already told me about a place to get CHEAP replacement glasses!)


…Now we just have BRACES to look forward to—since we’ve already been told Mary will probably need them. SHHHHH!!!!!