little four eyes

Hello!  It’s been a long time since my last post here on Little Four Eyes, but I guess that’s a good thing because it means nothing new has happened with Franklin’s glasses.  Neither pair of glasses has been in need of care in the past few months, we haven’t had any meaningful conversations about wearing glasses, and life has gone on normally.

However, I did want to mention something I’ve noticed since Franklin has been in pre-school.  This is his second year at his pre-school, and in both years, he’s made friends with the other kids with glasses in his class FIRST.  And yes, both years, there have been two other kids (different kids both years, I might add) who wear glasses in his class.  (OK Ann, that’s 3 in 20 both years, what’s the %?)  On his first day this year, I saw another little boy walk into the class with glasses, and sure enough, when I came to pick Franklin up, he was sitting by that little boy and I was told he was Franklin’s new friend.

What does this mean?  I don’t really know.  I do know that Franklin is very outgoing (sometimes a little too outgoing) and doesn’t have any problems making friends with kids without glasses.  I’ve never had reason to think he has

any self-confidence issues related to his glasses, but maybe he feels just different enough that he notices glasses on other kids and is naturally drawn to them.  Would this be true if he had red hair?  Or big freckles?  Or curly hair?  Or WHATEVER it is that makes children different?  Actually, probably.  But at this point, I’m not worried.  I’m just glad Franklin has “His People”. 

Happy last day of June!  I’m back from picking up Franklin’s SpongeBob glasses at Costco and have a report:  Costco is gearing up for the school year (as I’m sure many places are), so their selection of children’s glasses is really good right now.  I saw many styles to choose from and many more smaller sized frames than I’ve seen before.  You know the frame measurement, like 45, 46, 50, etc?  (If you don’t, that means the mm’s measured from corner to corner.)  Franklin’s two frames are 45 and 47…the 47′s are a bit big, but they’re the SpongeBob ones.  Anyway, I didn’t see many 45′s before but today they had several … even some 43′s and 44′s!  So, if you’re thinking about trying for that cheap second pair, now *might* be the time!  (and you know, I do shop other places, people must think Costco is paying me or something.  HA!)

About a week ago now, Franklin came home with the weirdest glasses-related wound I’ve ever seen (look under his left eye).  Apparently, one of the girls at daycare somehow hit his glasses with her shoulder and jammed them right up into his cheek.  Details are fuzzy, but the resulting cut was very strange.  Has anyone else seen anything like this?  It was like the bottom part of his glasses cut into his cheek and left several slices or crack-like cuts.  The lenses don’t feel sharp, but I don’t know how else this could have happened.  We actually thought it would bruise worse than it did, it was mostly this little ridge of crease-cuts.  In all my years of glasses, I’ve never seen anything like it.  Maybe the glass created the cuts by rug-burn?  I’m not sure, it’s just weird.

And in another glasses-related incident, I congratulated myself this morning for having the foresight to purchase Franklin two pairs of frames.  He was outside in our back yard, took off his glasses (despite the nerd strap, errrrrr), set them on the concrete patio lens-side down, and then sat on them.  They weren’t just surface scratched, they had canyons of scratches dug into them.  I was so mad I just about lost it, but hey, what can you do?  LUCKY FOR ME, these were the SpongeBob frames we bought at Costco, so I marched them right over and they’re getting new lenses (for FREE) in about 2 weeks.  It made Franklin sad that he couldn’t see SpongeBob for TWO WHOLE WEEKS, so maybe this will be a good lesson for him.  We’re back to Jimmy Neutron in the meantime, and again, Thank You Costco. 

Well, I’ve been reading everyone’s posts lately and enjoying the new look and picture gallery (nicely done, Ann Z!), and I have to admit, I feel like such a poseur.  As in, “What am I doing on this site?”, I can’t even imagine what it must be like to deal with what most of you have gone through with your little ones.  Franklin didn’t need glasses until he was 3 and at that point, you can reason with a child and talk to them about glasses and why they need them.  I’m just amazed at the smart ideas you all have about dealing with your babies and their eyewear!  WOW.  You guys are my heroes, way to be good moms!

But then it occurred to me today that maybe there’s hope in my feelings of inadequacy.  As in “Hey, it’s such a non-issue in my family now, maybe this is what you all can look forward to!” (and I certainly hope so)  Franklin has 2 friends with glasses, and working with kids as I do, I see little kids with glasses all the time.  I have at least 3 kids who come to my storytimes at the library with glasses, and they’re all under 4.  In fact, I have this one little girl named Lucia who comes into my library with her hot pink frames w/ rhinestones, and I heard another little girl comment to her one day, “I wish I could wear your glasses, they are so pretty!”  The good thing is kids are getting diagnosed earlier and earlier with vision issues, so more and more kids are wearing glasses.  Especially with computer games and TV exposure (not that I would ever let Franklin play a video game or watch TV….HA, not), glasses are pretty much mainstream now.

My wish for all you guys with little Little Four Eyes is that these early years go well with minimal emotional stress, and that all our kids learn to appreciate how amazing it is that they can wear something as simple as glasses to fix something as major as vision.   But until then, GOOD LUCK and Thank God for warranties.

Not much to report about Franklin and his glasses lately, life has been moving along normally. I have been noticing a trend though; Franklin has been trying to get away with not wearing his glasses recently. Hmmm. As in, he doesn’t put them on right away in the morning until we mention it to him, and when he takes them off for a nap or whatever, he’ll ask if he can have some “glasses-free” time. I was worried that he was not wanting to wear them anymore, so I just flat out asked him what was going on. Basically, his response was “they take too long to put on, Mommy!” Heh? Apparently he just wants to play and the 25 seconds it takes him to put on the frames (including the Nerd Strap) is simply too long to wait. Sigh. Maybe we’ll have to instigate a “glasses-free time” along with “naked time” so he can really cut loose.

Also, one of the 4 yr olds who comes to my library’s storytimes recently showed up in glasses. He’d been in them about a week, and his mother said he seemed to be adjusting well. I told him my son had glasses too, and he really perked up. His mom said he doesn’t have any other friends who wear glasses, so I showed him a picture of Franklin. The good thing about Franklin being an older “Little Four Eyes” is the fact that there are more and more kids his age getting glasses. They can bond.

Franklin in his sunglasses

Originally uploaded by Ann Felicia

Today was sunny, and it sort of made me sad. I took the kids to the zoo. After we got everything from the car into the stroller, I took out my daughter’s sunglasses and put them on her face. Franklin said, “Mommy, did you bring my sunglasses?” Sigh. I had to tell him he couldn’t wear sunglasses anymore because he had to wear his SpongeBob glasses, and he was pretty upset with me right away. We talked about how it’s very important for him to see clearly and he can always wear his baseball cap to protect his eyes, but still. He told me he will miss his star sunglasses, as seen in this picture with his cousin.

It’s going to be sunny all summer, what do you think? Should I let him wear sunglasses sometimes? I just don’t know, I feel bad that he can’t be cool in his shades anymore. Maybe he won’t care after a few weeks, maybe I’m over thinking it, but I still feel bad. It’s just yet another thing to deal with!

Nerd Strap

Originally uploaded by Ann Felicia

In response to Ann Z’s question about keeping a kid’s glasses on, I’d like to share this picture of Franklin’s Nerd Strap. I’m not sure how it would work on Zoe, but for a (now) 4 year old, it really helps keep the glasses up on his nose as well as on his head when his little sister grabs them. He can still get the glasses on and off by himself, but we were really having a hard time keeping them on his face when he plays with other kids.

But does it look nerdy? There’s a huge part of me that doesn’t want him to wear it because deep down, I think it looks dorky. ACK! He’s slowly moving down the road to complete Nerd-dom! (I’m kidding, but still…) It is a daring fashion statement, but if it’s this or constantly breaking them, I’ll go nerdy any day.

Franklin’s new frames

Originally uploaded by Ann Felicia

It’s very appropriate that everyone’s talking warranties because I’ve been dealing with them myself with Franklin’s glasses. In my last post (which was a long, long time ago it seems), Franklin’s Jimmy Neutron glasses had just popped a weld and the lens had dropped out. We had already gotten a new frame from the little shop in our optometrist’s office once because the screws were falling out, so I took his glasses in a baggie to the shop the day of the drive-by-stuffed-animal incident and asked what could be done. They told me that we’d already gotten the one replacement pair that came with our warranty (?), so our options were buy another frame for $150+ or pay $20 to have them re-welded. I’m so disappointed in myself…..Did I ask to see the warranty? NO. Did they show me a warranty when I bought the frames? NO! Did I ask if it was the store’s or the manufacturer’s warranty? NO! I decided to pay for the welding and go to Costo.

WOW COSTCO! They had me at “We replace anything and everything within the first year”. OK, not stupid things you do to them like drive over them with a truck, but Todd, the very friendly manager of the Vision Dept at Costco, said he would have replaced everything for free that our eye doctor’s place made us pay for. But let me back up first . . . Costco is WAY CHEAPER than any other glasses place I’ve seen! Again, their kid selection isn’t great and they didn’t have anything for toddlers, but they had SpongeBob and Jimmy Neutron, which is about all Franklin cares about, so we decided to buy a second pair. Get this: The frames cost $49.00. The lenses, with scratch-free coating, glare-free coating, and all the other stuff, were $59.00. Total? $120.00 with taxes and stuff. That’s less than 50% what I paid at the eye doctors! PLUS, scratches, screws falling out, occasional damage from stuffed animals, etc is all covered! AND, Costco gave Franklin a neon yellow glasses case and a special cloth to clean his lenses, which we didn’t get from our eye doctor. What the h***? I’m never buying glasses there again!

The not-so-good side of Costco is it took over 2 weeks for the glasses to come in. I’m glad Franklin had other glasses to wear because otherwise that would have been a long wait. I think it’s a good thing for him to have two pairs in general, just because he seems to be hard on them. That and his little sister likes to grab them off. But, the 2 week wait did seem excessive.

The good about Costco? PRICE, WARRANTY and CUSTOMER SERVICE. I guess it comes with membership, but I couldn’t believe how cheap a pair of glasses were there. Todd, who again is the very friendly manager, said Costco provides a vision service as a service, not as a money maker for the store. They basically sell glasses at cost and make money on the other stuff. For the price, quality, and service, I think I can deal with a small selection and long wait!

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!

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!!!!