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’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!

Check out the Little Four Eyes facebook group!

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.

(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!)

First, Amomofelly sent me three more coloring pages!  They’re very sweet.  I’ve put them up on the Gear page, check them out.  As I mentioned in my previous post, I’d love to have some of these pages after they’ve been colored.  Send photos or scans to me (ann @ shinypebble . com) to help celebrate our 3rd birthday.

Second, the Children’s Eye Foundation just announced the start of their third annual “I Care for Eye Care” photo contest.  The theme this year is “visions of home.”  The 12 photos with the most votes receive a digital camera, but more exciting for me is that photos are also chosen to be published in their 2012 calendar.  I feel strongly that this calendar should include pictures of kids in glasses.  And I also strongly believe that we have a lot of beautiful kids here. The last two years, we’ve had a lot of photos end up in the calendars.  If you do submit a photo, let me know, and once voting starts, I’ll post links to our submissions, so we can support each other.  Full rules for the contest are here.

If you’ll indulge me, I’d love your help in celebrating the past three years.  What I’d really like is some more artwork for the blog, and thought perhaps I could enlist the talents of your kids.  Scan or take a picture of any of the coloring that your kids have done with our coloring pages, or any of their own drawings / paintings /what have you, that have something to do with glasses, and I’ll feature them on the blog.  (By the way, I’ve added 2 new coloring pages by Meagan Nishi, but I’d love to see any of our pages colored.)  Send me any artwork to ann@shinypebble.com – by sending them to me, you’re giving me permission to post the pictures on Little Four Eyes.

I would be happy to try to help facilitate communication for other get togethers if people are interested.  You’re welcome to comment here to see if there’s anyone in the area, or to propose a local park or other place to try to meet.  Or I can pass along email addresses so people can plan things that way, too.  I’ve really enjoyed meeting Amomofelly – and of course, Elly, herself – in person.

illustration copyright Megan Nishi, 2009

So a big thank you to everyone who has read, written, submitted photos, commented, passed along links…  You all have made this a great community that I have really come to love.  And my apologies for not getting photos uploaded recently, I have a bunch of great ones that I hope to get up soon.