vision screening in young children

Neither Lee nor I have ever had problems with our eyes. I wore glasses for about ten minutes in high school. They were supposed to be for reading. I think I wore them as an accessory until I got bored with them and I never saw them again. Other than that, I’ve never even been to an eye doctor and Lee’s only been once.

So imagine my surprise two weeks ago when a letter came in the mail telling us Tia failed her vision screening at preschool. Poor kid. Genetics are definately not on her side. She’s got the wonky ear issues from her father and now she has vision issues that were apparently passed down from a grandparent (ahem…thanks mom).

At first I assumed that perhaps she was just having an off day. For those who know my gregarious daughter, you know that when she wants to do something she usually excels. *When she doesn’t want to do something, however…ahem.*

So out of parental duty I made her an eye exam. They plopped her up in the chair and I learned two very important things:

1.) My child is not seeing well out of her right eye. She has an astigmatism and couldn’t distiguish the pictures one from another. Her left eye is fine and is overcompensating a bit, which puts her at risk for lazy eye. Who knew?!

2.) My child does not know her ABC’s. They originally tried to have her read letters, but it quickly became apparent that that wouldn’t be effective when she simply said the russian sounds of the letters that were familiar and she had no idea what G, V, Q and U were. She did know A, B, C and H, though…except she called them Ah, Veh, Seh and Nuh because those are russian letters.

I hang my head in shame.

She knows her russian alphabet forwards and backwards so, you know, kudos to me for that one. I’m going to get right on familiarizing her with her own alphabet, though.

So out we walked with a glasses order form in hand and the promise that in a few short days she would be seeing much more clearly.

A little frame disclaimer. When we were picking out her glasses, I tried several really trendy, square shaped frames on her. She was like a little Sarah Palin, all sassy and au courant. But she would have nothing to do with the hip styles I picked out. (*see above note). She has definate sensory sensitivities in that if something doesn’t feel exactly right the first time she puts it on, she wants nothing to do with it.

Do you know how complicated that can make life sometimes?

Instead she picked out these purple and green frames. But wait…there’s more! On one side is a purple and green flowered pattern, but you can actually flip that bad boy around to reveal:

Solid green! Yes, the bands on the side are reversible, a feature that she thought was the coolest. thing. ever! She’s decided to wear one side patterend and the other side solid. And I love her for it. 🙂

So I swallowed my mom pride and placed the trendy glasses back in the case. I did manage to talk her out of the first pair she picked out which were a metallic purple and were hideous. They also looked like they would break the first time she came tearing through the house.

But the glasses ladies (what do you call them…technicians?) encouraged me to let her pick out what she liked so that she would be more prone to keeping them on at all times.

And so I did.

When the glasses lady technician fitted them to her face today she told Tia to “make sure and let mommy tell you all about how to take care of glasses.” To which I replied, “Absolutely. And listen right now as Miss Bridgette tells mommy how to take care of glasses.”

Truth be told, it wouldn’t matter what we put on her tiny little face, she’s so dang cute. And the glasses make her look a little bit older, which I’m not sure I like. But most of all she’s proud of them and she’s excited that she has them.