little four eyes

It was finally warm enough to play outside today, so I took Zoe to the park. As she was climbing around the playground, a boy about 5 or 6 called out to his dad, “hey dad, want to hear something silly? There’s a baby wearing glasses!” My heart sank. His dad asked him why that was silly, and I told him she needed the glasses to see, and he seemed to think that made sense. He later noticed that I wore glasses and asked if Zoe’s dad wore glasses, too.

I don’t remember being made fun of for wearing glasses, or getting any comments about them much at all, but I didn’t get them until I was 8 or 10 (I can’t quite remember exactly). Before today, Zoe had generally just gotten curious or nice comments about her glasses, this is the first time I’d heard a less kind comment. I know that the kid was just surprised and curious, not trying to be mean at all, but I’m a bit worried about Zoe hearing that her glasses are silly, especially from other kids. Anyone else dealt with other kids making comments about your child’s glasses? How do you respond? Or how have you taught your kid to respond?

You know, I do call her a “silly girl” from time to time, but not because of her glasses.

I called the eyeglasses place and Zoe’s lenses are under warranty, so her scratched lens will be replaced at no cost to us. I expect though, that she’ll be without glasses for a bit while they’re fixing them. I’ll probably ask about getting the measurements for her glasses and look at ordering a second pair online for times like this.

Setting: dinner with friends at a neighborhood pizza joint

Zoe started getting a bit restless at dinner, so Chris agreed to take her home early to let me hang out a bit longer with my friends. As we were getting her coat on, I remember hearing something fall to the floor, but when I looked around, I didn’t see anything and I kind of forgot about it (I’m sure you can see where this is going). A bit later one of the waitresses came up to the table and asked me if this was mine, and handed me Zoe’s lens.

We got the lens back in the frames with no problem, but now that we’ve cleaned the glasses up, it’s clear (or not, as you’ll soon see) that the lens had been stepped on and is pretty scratched up. According to the website of the place where we got her glasses, the lenses are warranted against scratches for a year, so we’ll see if that holds on Friday when I bring her in.

This is the second time that a lens has popped out of her frames, and there have been other times where the screws were coming loose but we caught it before the lens fell out. Is that normal? Is it a function of the glasses going on and off so many times? I seem to remember that when I had glasses as a kid, the screws came loose a lot more often than they do now, but I could easily be misremembering.

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In other news, check out the great new page on children’s books for kids with glasses that annfelicia put together!

I was thinking the other day about some of the advantages to having a small child with glasses – beyond the obvious reason that it helps them to see. Here’s what I’ve come up with so far.

• When pinkeye starts going around daycare, she doesn’t catch it or spread it around, because she can’t rub her eyes as easily.
• When learning to use a fork, she’s less likely to poke herself in the eye.
• Cute glasses mean strangers fail to notice the stains on her shirt.

OK, I’m sure there’s more. Please add any that you come up with.

MyFranklin

Originally uploaded by Ann Felicia

I deleted this picture of my son from my “Glasses Wars” blog entry because it was just too big! I have a flickr account I use for work, so I’m trying to connect the photo through there. For anyone like me trying to get a handle on Web 2.0, some of these things are such a pain in the bum!

A big welcome to anyone stopping by from preemie blog moms! And of course to anyone else who’s happened to find this blog. I hope you’ll find something of interest, and / or share some of your own thoughts. Leave a comment to introduce yourself and let us know you’re reading. I’ve also recently added more links to the resources page. Please take a look and let me know what else should go there.

Ann Z, good post. Why is it so hard for us? It made me think of some of the initial feelings I had too, beyond the heart sinking part. The worst for me was thinking that, in some way (and this is hard to admit), Franklin wasn’t perfect anymore. How horrible is that? As if glasses diminished anything else awesome about him, what an idiot I am! And me being someone who wears glasses too, GOOD LORD. My other initial feeling was being sad that Franklin would now be dependent on glasses his whole life like I am . . . I am so blind that I have seriously dropped my glasses next to my bed and spent a good 10 minutes on all fours patting around until I found them (in the early morning light, but still). I’m afraid of heights partly because as a kid, I was afraid my glasses would fall off my face and I wouldn’t be able to see. I guess my feelings about Franklin wearing glasses were tied to my own “therapy issues” about them, and that was hard to admit and move past. However, like Ann Z, I, too, think my baby looks adorable in his glasses and feel pretty good that his vision can be corrected. Plus, Franklin’s a character to begin with, so it sort of ads to his geeky-chic persona.

At any rate, with this post I wanted to talk a bit about when we bought Franklin’s first pair of glasses. Our optometrist had a glasses boutique in his office, and given my own recent trauma buying my glasses at Lenscrafters (love the frames, wish I didn’t have to go back 4 TIMES until they got the lenses right! ACK!), I assumed he would have the best selection, customer service, return policies, etc. However, when he brought us to the wall of children’s frames, I was actually disappointed in the selection. Franklin’s size was the smallest they carried, (nothing for toddlers at all) and they had maybe 4 frames total for him to choose from. Lucky for Franklin, they were either SpongeBob SquarePants or Jimmy Neutron, so he only had to pick which character he wanted. We eventually settled on Jimmy Neutron because a) they had a space ship on the side and b) they had an actual picture of Jimmy Neutron on the bows and c) they fit his face. See photos to gaze upon the true glory of Franklin’s glasses.

Anyway, picking out the frames was the easy part. When we started talking about lenses, the optometrist started talking about how scratch-free coating was extra, glare-free coating was extra, poly-thin glass was extra (or whatever they call that stuff) . . . basically everything was extra. I will say that he recommended we not get all the bells and whistles for Franklin anyway because he’d outgrow the frame/prescription too soon to make it worth it, but still. I mumbled OK like a good little drone and went along with whatever the doctor told me Franklin needed (I was still in shock), and ended up paying $250 for the Jimmy Neutron frames and lenses.

Basically, they’re fine. Franklin loves them and loves showing people the little picture of Jimmy Neutron on the bows. However, the first weekend we had them, the screw fell out on one side. We put it back in and the next day it fell out again. Hmmm. We called the doctor, and they said they’d just replace the frames on warrenty, no problem. Three days later, Franklin had a new pair of Jimmy Neutron frames. Everyone was happy until about 4 weeks later when, somehow, a stuffed animal hit Franklin in the face at daycare (“MOM, it came out of nowhere!”) and the frames broke. A weld came unwelded and one lens popped out. Thus begins another chapter in this story, which I’m going to have to finish in my next post because Franklin needs to go to bed. He’s actually watching Jimmy Neutron now and thinks he needs to finish the show because his glasses miss their friends. Seriously. Damn you Nickelodeon Marketing People!!!!

Annfelicia’s post about her heart sinking when she heard the news that Franklin needed glasses reminded me so much of my reaction. Even though I’ve had glasses since I was 10, and as an adult, I’ve really embraced how fun it can be to choose glasses, I have to admit to being upset that Zoe needed glasses, though I couldn’t really put my finger on what it was that bothered me. I felt similarly ambivalent once she actually got the glasses and we started trying to get her to wear them. I was really surprised by how unhappy I was about it.

I wrote the following on my other blog the night that she got her glasses:

I’m trying really hard to stay positive about all of this. It helps that there are a lot of cute choices for glasses and that they can make the lenses thin so you don’t get the super magnified eye distortion. I feel shallow for being caught up in Zoe’s appearance in the glasses – especially since I wear glasses and even enjoy shopping for them – so I’m not entirely sure what my problem is. Maybe I’m worried that everyone will focus on the glasses rather than on her, I just don’t know. And part of it (and this is the terribly embarrassing shallow part) is that I had set aside flex money to splurge on a new pair of glasses for myself, and her glasses ate up 2/3 of that money. Of course, if it corrects the crossed eyes and keeps her from needing surgery (the next step if glasses don’t work), then I’m all for it. Maybe once she’s bigger we can shop for frames together.

Gah, what’s wrong with me? I just keep looking at all the pictures we took today of her in her glasses (most of which only show her side or top of her head – she just doesn’t hold still or pose for pictures). It’s like I need to keep looking at them to convince myself that it’s her. Ridiculous. She’s still the same girl. Just with a slightly more bookish air to her.

I wonder what it is that caused this reaction, and whether others have had similar feelings when their child got glasses. For me, it was partly the change in her appearance with glasses, partly the fear that the glasses wouldn’t help, and partly a fear that she would forever be identified as the kid with glasses, but even those reasons just don’t totally explain everything I was feeling.

For what it’s worth, I got over it pretty quickly, and now think she looks adorable in her glasses (see picture below for evidence), and strange without them. She does get a lot of attention because of her glasses, but it’s almost all positive attention, and I’ve learned to have quick answers on hand for questions of how they knew she needed glasses, and how we got her to keep them on. I also ended up still splurging on glasses for myself.

Our ophthalmologist recommended that we go to an eyeglasses shop specifically for kids, but as we were leaving her assistant came and found us as we were leaving and told us it’d be cheaper to go somewhere like Sam’s Club. That’s probably true, but we decided that since Zoe was only 14 months, we really wanted at least the first set of glasses to come from a place that really understood what small kids need in eye glasses.

I’m really glad we did that, because the place we went (Glasses Menagerie, for those in the Twin Cities area) was great. The things that made it great are the things I’d look for when choosing a place to buy toddler glasses from:

1. It should have a space designed for children. They had a huge fish tank, and plenty of toys in the waiting area, and the place just generally seemed welcoming and a fun place for a kid to be. Zoe is always happy when we go there.
2. The staff should know how to deal with small children, and should be comfortable working with kids even when they’re crying and/or squirmy. When Zoe was crying while we were picking out frames, the person working with us must have seen how worried we were about annoying them. She very kindly told us that they’re used to young children crying, and it doesn’t bother them at all. And since all the other customers were families with kids, they seemed to understand, too.
3. The staff should be knowledgeable in fitting glasses to small children, and be able to do it quickly and accurately. I can’t imagine it’s easy to measure the distance between the eyes of a very upset little girl who wants nothing to do with anything else touching her face. But they managed.
4. Your child’s prescription will likely change in a relatively small amount of time. See if they offer any discounts on re-making the glasses when the prescription changes. Our place replaces lenses for free if the prescription changes in the first month, and charges 50% if it changes in the first 9 months. Zoe’s prescription did change after her first follow-up appointment (which happily fell within the one month time period). I’m almost certain it will change again before the 9 months are up.
5. They should offer, and be happy to provide, free adjustments to the glasses whenever you need them. Your kid will be hard on the glasses, they’ll get bent, the screws may fall out, whatever the reason, they’ll stop fitting nearly as well. You should feel comfortable stopping back in, a lot, to get them re-adjusted.

The staff there also gave us very welcome advice on how to choose glasses, and some hints on getting kids to wear their glasses:

1. Go ahead and get glasses that are brightly colored and fun. Your child will have plenty of time for understated, sophisticated, boring glasses when they’re grown. For now, go ahead and get frames that reflect their fun side. We thought that with Zoe’s coloring, she’d look good in nice tortoiseshell frames, but they just looked boring on someone so little.
2. When putting glasses on your child, do it with with a smile. While we were trying glasses on Zoe, she was crying and we were getting upset, too, and kept apologizing to her. The person we worked with recommended that instead, we show her how happy we are when we put glasses on her (even when we aren’t). It didn’t completely stop her crying, but she definitely calmed down a notch once we started acting happier.
3. When starting out with the glasses, your child will try to take them off. If they do, simply put them back on with a smile. If they don’t let you put them on, don’t make a big deal, simply set them aside and try again in a half hour. It took about 2 weeks for Zoe to get to a point where she leaves the glasses on most of the time.
4. Take off your child’s glasses when they’re in the car – at least at the beginning. It’s likely they’ll take off their glasses and throw them somewhere where they might fall out of the car or get smushed when you open the door.

My personal journey with glasses began when I was about 6 or 7. I thought my sister and brother looked super cool in their glasses, so in an effort to try and copy them, I sort of fudged on the eye exam. What The Heck was I thinking? I would have needed glasses eventually anyway, but geez, little did I know. So, when my husband brought Franklin home from his 3 yr old screen with the local school district and said they noticed a problem in his right eye, my heart sank. He told me that when they covered his eye and asked him to read the letters, he started trying to cheat and use his left eye. They thought it looked questionable and he should see an optometrist, so I immediately made an appointment. As Ann Z said, glasses aren’t the worst thing in the world for our children, but having lived a life of dependence on either glasses or contacts myself, I knew the crap he’d be in for.

The first thing our optometrist did was have Franklin look into what looks like strange binoculars and try and focus on a picture of a cartoon farm house. If you’ve ever had your eyes checked, you probably know what I’m talking about. The idea is you try and focus while the doctor purposely brings the picture in and out of focus to watch how your eyes react. He looked for about 30 seconds before putting the contraption down and telling me Franklin would need glasses. Again, my heart sank. We moved into the exam room and he went through the usual routine, then he gave me the diagnosis. Basically, Franklin’s right eye is far-sighted and his left eye is near-sighted, so his right eye was starting to atrophy and fall to the side so he could focus out of his better eye, the left. I was told Franklin would always need glasses or contacts and that Lasik probably wouldn’t help. The doctor could see I felt bad and told me again and again that there was no way either my husband or I could have noticed it ourselves, but good ol’parent guilt set in and I kicked myself in the butt for not noticing a problem. But still, thank God someone noticed something and we got Franklin in before the problem got any worse. The next step was picking out glasses…stay tuned!