So our back to school preparations continued last Friday with eye exams.  The boys do not have any vision issues (yet… knock on wood), so it was just a girl thing this time.  We needed to update our contact lens prescriptions and the girls all needed new glasses as well.  It was going to be a very long and expensive day.

Squint and say, "Sears Optical!"

I have been seeing everything blurry and therefore wearing glasses and corrective lenses since I was about eight.  I wore the most hideous wire-framed glasses throughout most of my childhood, and they were so thick I could almost see into the future.  They were just like my dad’s, so I guess that made them less dorky (as far as I knew).  At least they weren’t the black plastic kind held together with masking tape.  I was so excited when I got contact lenses, I did not care that it was an incredibly time-consuming daily chore to care for them.  I have always worn soft lenses, but not the disposable kind back in the beginning.  I had one of those contraptions that you plugged in to boil your contacts clean each night.  I’m talking real old school stuff, like the cave people used to have.

We all learned in biology about the 23 chromosomes given to a child by the mother and an equal amount by the dad.  Vision is certainly part of the genetic crapshoot when you are making a baby.  Sheepdog has really good vision, so I was always hoping that our kids would get his eyes (and my ears – oh, please! don’t let any of them get his ears).  Having limited sight is one of those things that has been a part of my life as far back as I can remember so I’m used to it.  But it is inconvenient and disabling and really freaky to wake up each and every day not even being able to see the numbers on a clock that is right next to my face.  I just really hoped my kids wouldn’t have to deal with it too.

But that’s not how things are working out.  Kid A has one good eye and one bad eye (now complete with an astigmatism, like me) and Kid B and Kid C are both on the way to eventually being as blind as I am.  They outgrow their prescriptions and the shape and size of their glasses frames so often (usually two times a year at least) that we are at the eye doctor’s office more often than we are at the pediatrician’s office.  You don’t even want to know what kind of bill we rack up when you count the comprehensive exams, frames for school, frames for sports, lenses, contacts and the accompanying solutions and paraphernalia.  Sheepdog definitely does not want to know, so please don’t tell him.

Kid D failed one of his school vision screenings a while back, but our eye doctor said his vision is great so far.  Kid E also says he can see everything just fine, but only time will really tell what the future holds for the boys and their vision.  I’m just going to cross my fingers and hope for the best.

All I can say for now is at least they didn’t get Sheepdog’s ears!

Wish me luck for tomorrow…