Glasses

Gracie will be getting her first pair of glasses later this afternoon. I really wasn't expecting that she would need glasses when I took her for her eye exam this morning.

She has been getting her eyes checked ever since she was six months old, when I took her to the eye doctor for a blocked tear duct. Her tear duct cleared up without surgery, but the eye doctor discovered at that time that she was farsighted. I guess most young children are farsighted, but the eye doctor told us that Gracie is more farsighted than most, and she wanted to keep a close watch on her eyes to make sure that she did not start crossing them. I thought today would just be another routine check-up and we would be set for another year. Instead, this time the doctor told us that Gracie's left eye is more farsighted than her right eye, and that although this was also true last year, it is now starting to affect her vision because she can't see quite as well with her left eye as she can her right eye. The eye doctor wanted her to start wearing glasses so that the vision in both eyes will be the same. (I don't know much about children's vision, so I probably will spend some time on the Internet in the next few days learning more about it.)

The eye exam seemed to be easier this year (or at least easier for me to follow) since Gracie knows her letters now. They showed her one letter at a time, and after she identified it, they would show her another letter. The letters got progressively smaller. Any time she didn't identify one or asked, "What is it?" they would show her a different one in a bigger size and then reduce the size again for the next letter. After they reached a small size several times without her being able to identify the letter, when she had said all the letters at larger sizes, I guess they decided she really couldn't see them.

I let Gracie pick the frames she wanted ... pink, of course! I'm a little bit worried that she won't want to wear them all the time. Gracie has already said that she is afraid Drew will pull them off. She's probably right about that. I guess we'll see.