little four eyes

Update: Congratulations to Dee for winning the 12 month onesie, and to Melinda who won the 24 month shirt!

First off, congratulations to the winners of the first giveaway: Heather won the Glasses Parade card, and Andrea won the Glasses Rock card!

For the next giveaway, I have two  shirts.  Both have the text “Everyone can rock glasses!”   The first is a grey, 24 month t-shirt with a bird playing guitar:

The second is a grey, 12 month onesie, with a cat playing drums:

To enter this giveaway, leave a comment with the shirt you’d like to win, and your favorite comment you’ve received from a stranger about your child’s glasses.  Or if you don’t have a favorite comment, what would you like to hear?

I’ll use a random number generator to draw winners for the shirts on Tuesday, April 3

And here’s the promised giveaway, today it’s for two of the new glasses cards.

Glasses rock card

The first card features a stylish cat rocking out on the guitar with the words “Glasses Rock!”  The inside message reads, “…and you’re rocking your glasses!”   The card is 5″x7″ (12.7 cm x 17.8 cm).

glasses parade card

The second card is a parade of two children and a bunny, all wearing glasses.  The inside message reads, “Happy new glasses day!”  This card is smaller, 5.6″ x 4″ (14.2 cm x 10.2 cm).

(Both cards are available in both sizes from the store).

So, if you’d like a chance to win either of the cards, leave a comment here, how about, with your favorite color of glasses frames for kids, and include which card you hope to win.  I’ll do two drawings on Saturday, March 31, one for each of the cards.

After reading the comments on the poll about how long it takes kids to leave their glasses on, it sounds like people were interested in whether the prescription strength makes a difference in how well a child takes to glasses.  So I’ve decided to put together a huge survey of experiences of young children in glasses.  I’m hoping to pull together information on how quickly children take to their glasses, but also why they wear their glasses, and how strong their prescription is, and what other treatments they’ve received, and other experiences.

As far as I can tell, this would be the first such survey, and I’ll publish the results on Little Four Eyes (responses will be anonymous, of course).

But I wanted to ask all of you, are there any questions or topics you’d love to have that I could ask?

This month will be the four year anniversary of Little Four Eyes.  It’s been a great four years.  I was reading through some of the early stories and posts, and found it comforting to know that so many of our experiences are shared.  I started this site because I felt alone when Zoe first got her glasses.  I do not feel alone at all anymore.

Thank you all for sharing, for writing, for reading, and for being a part of this community.

I have some exciting news, changes and announcements that I’ll be sharing this month to celebrate.

I think blogs can be a fantastic way of sharing our struggles, and finding others that are going through similar journeys.  I had originally kept a list of blogs on the main resources page, but there are so many great blogs out there now that I wanted to give them their own page.  So I’ve created a new page for blogs about children’s vision.

The page is a work in progress.  As I hear about or stumble upon other blogs, I’ll add them.  And I’d love to hear from you if you have a blog that you’d like to have listed, or if you know of a blog that belongs on the list.  The only requirement is that the blog have some posts that related to having a child in glasses or children’s vision issues.  The list includes both personal blogs, generally written by parents, and professional blogs, written by eye care professionals or others in the industry.

I had originally written a short blurb for each blog, but the prospect of writing a blurb for each on is a bit daunting, so I’m going to settle for listing the vision topics covered in the blog (eg. amblyopia, cataracts, or optometrist).

Check it out!

I was terribly behind on the photo gallery updates, but I just added 15 (!) picture of some extremely cute kids in glasses! Check them out!

I’ve also re-organized the books page. I’ve added a section for books about patching, and I’ve put some links to help navigate the page more easily.

I would love to add more to both pages.  Send me an email (ann @ shinypebble.com) or leave a comment!

The Little Four Eyes facebook group was recently changed to the new group format.  I’m going to come right out and say that I had been resisting changing the format, because I thought the group was working well the way it was.  I was wrong, very wrong.  The group has really taken off and is even more active than ever before.  It’s been great for discussions and asking questions and getting feedback.  If you’re not already a member, I really recommend taking a look and joining us – you have to request to be added now – one of the things I really dislike about the change.  I’ll try to approve requests to join as quickly as possible.

Check out the Little Four Eyes facebook group!

Just did a massive catch-up on photos and added 13 new pictures to the photo gallery, and we now have over a hundred photos!  Take a look!  As always, let me know (ann@shinypebble.com) if you’ve sent me a photo that I somehow missed.

(this post was originally meant as a Monday morning link round up.  Life happened, and now it is neither Monday, nor is it morning.  So while I was at it, I dropped the link round up part, too, as I think it stands on its own as a regular post).

It’s likely that if you’re reading this, your child has had an eye exam, and you understand the importance of catching and treating vision problems early.  But a 2009 survey by VSP and Prevent Blindness America found that almost two thirds of American children under the age of 6 have never had an eye exam by an eye doctor.  I don’t know what the numbers are for other countries, if anyone has numbers, I’d love to see them.

Given the number of questions that I’ve fielded from complete strangers about Zoe’s vision and her glasses, I think those of us with young kids in glasses are in a great position to get the word out about the importance of eye exams and treatment for our children.   Simply talking to other parents about why our children wear glasses, and how eye exams work for young children can help others see why they’re important.

Recently, though, I’ve come across a number of examples of larger organizations helping parents to get the word out to a wider audience.

• InfantSEE, a program run by the American Optometric Association, provides free eye exams to infants age 6 – 12 months.  Suzi, whose son Emory’s cataracts were caught at an InfantSEE appointment, has given interviews to a local newspaper and news station (her segment is right after the part about car seats, about 1 minute in to the clip) about the InfantSEE program and importance of catching vision problems early.  Other parents who have experience with InfantSEE and who would like to share their story are encouraged to email JMMahoney @ aoa . org (remove the spaces) with their story.
• Children’s Eye Foundation, the foundation of the American Association for Pediatric Ophthalmology and Strabismus, is dedicated to eliminating preventable childhood blindness.  They have a “Little Ambassadors” program to help raise awareness for early detection and treatment of vision issues.   The current featured video is Jack’s story (Jack’s mother, Lindsay shared her son’s journey with us this past October, and she blogs at Jack’s Journey).  Children’s Eye Foundation is also happy to help other parents create ambassador videos to share their stories.(and I’ll pause here to take a moment to note the cuteness of both boys featured in those two links above)
• Vision First Foundation – The Vision First Foundation is committed to children’s eye and vision examinations.  They are looking for short stories (125 words or less) that they will post on their website.  Go here for more information.
• Little Four Eyes – and I’ll just do a little self promotion here.  We are always happy to publish your story about your child’s vision, in fact, I love sharing our stories here.  And I know that people find our stories here when searching the web for information about children and vision issues.

It’s been a while since we’ve had an introductions thread and I love learning more about who you all are, so this seems like an easy way to celebrate our 3 year blog-birthday. Leave a comment introducing about yourself and your kid(s) in glasses. If you feel like leaving more, I’d love to hear the one tip you’d give to someone starting out with a young child in glasses.

(and a quick note: 3 years, 452 posts, over 3100 comments, and nearly 300,000 views from all over the world. Thanks for reading and commenting and submitting stories and being part of the community!)