Let's just add this to the list.

A couple of weeks ago, I decided since Tanya's glasses were getting too small for her, I would take the older girls to the eye doctors for another check up. The ladies did so great (as usual), and we got Tanya's new prescription and went looking for new glasses for her. It was a long, drawn out process, I wanted her to be happy with them because I know that's the only way any 10 year old will actually wear them. After going to 4 stores looking at all of the possibilities we had success! She was so excited and in this adventure we also figured that Tanya looked beautiful in every pair she tried on.

I decided to ask the girls eye doctor about getting Eden eyes checked out. He did suggest that I get them checked and told me to schedule a morning appointment in his small office (Small is an understatement but we like small). He also asked if she could sit for any length of time and I explained because she has never been to the eye doctors before so we will take it slow. He told me that if we couldn't get an exam done he was going to be patient and would refer her to a specialist for kids (they have more experience and more "tools" for younger kids). She's going to be in kindergarten in the fall and I want to make sure that we have her vision checked off the list of things that could go wrong and we'll try anything once.

Her appointment was this morning, I decided to tell her this morning we were going to the eye doctor's office and they were going to check her eyes. She then asked, "Is there blood?" That's her asking if she is going to have needles. The poor kid asks this every time I mention the word doctor. I told her no, but they have silly glasses and were going to shine lights into her eyes. I kind of guessed they were going to put eye drops in her eyes and decided that giving her time to worry about that would NOT be beneficial. 

We got there and he was very patient with her. He started to ask me if I had any concerns with her vision. I told him not that I know of but she gets frustrated easily with fine motor skills. I wanted to make sure that the frustration was because she couldn't perform the task not that she couldn't see what she was doing. He also asked about how to proceed with certain tasks, I decided just to go with it and told him to do what he needed and I would jump in and help explain things differently if needed. (See! I'm still working on the letting go, this is where I would have gone into length on how to talk to her to get tasks done. I'm getting better.) I told him she wasn't great at letters or numbers so he put in a picture chart with a cake, phone, car, and a few other objects in it. She did wonderful. He dilated her eyes so he could do a full examination and the drops sting a little bit so she wasn't very happy about that, but I was so proud of her. 

The results of the examination were that she has "mild to moderate" far-sightedness. He also told me that it may be part of the reason why she gets frustrated while writing or doing "book work" at school or at OT. It may actually explain the reason why she constantly wants the noise reduction head phones in the classroom (she may have a headache). Honestly, I don't know how or if this will help these issues for Eden, but this weekend we are getting her glasses. She will have to wear them all day at school (just like Tanya) and during computer or reading times.

I'm sure this will give us just another thing to have to figure out. I'm already breaking down how we will convince her when the "newness" wears off to wear them or she may just know they will help her and notice she doesn't have as many headaches and it will just work (which happens most of the time when I start freaking out about these things). I'll keep you updated on how things go and will put up pictures of the girls and their new glasses.