Ann Z, good post. Why is it so hard for us? It made me think of some of the initial feelings I had too, beyond the heart sinking part. The worst for me was thinking that, in some way (and this is hard to admit), Franklin wasn’t perfect anymore. How horrible is that? As if glasses diminished anything else awesome about him, what an idiot I am! And me being someone who wears glasses too, GOOD LORD. My other initial feeling was being sad that Franklin would now be dependent on glasses his whole life like I am . . . I am so blind that I have seriously dropped my glasses next to my bed and spent a good 10 minutes on all fours patting around until I found them (in the early morning light, but still). I’m afraid of heights partly because as a kid, I was afraid my glasses would fall off my face and I wouldn’t be able to see. I guess my feelings about Franklin wearing glasses were tied to my own “therapy issues” about them, and that was hard to admit and move past. However, like Ann Z, I, too, think my baby looks adorable in his glasses and feel pretty good that his vision can be corrected. Plus, Franklin’s a character to begin with, so it sort of ads to his geeky-chic persona. 🙂

At any rate, with this post I wanted to talk a bit about when we bought Franklin’s first pair of glasses. Our optometrist had a glasses boutique in his office, and given my own recent trauma buying my glasses at Lenscrafters (love the frames, wish I didn’t have to go back 4 TIMES until they got the lenses right! ACK!), I assumed he would have the best selection, customer service, return policies, etc. However, when he brought us to the wall of children’s frames, I was actually disappointed in the selection. Franklin’s size was the smallest they carried, (nothing for toddlers at all) and they had maybe 4 frames total for him to choose from. Lucky for Franklin, they were either SpongeBob SquarePants or Jimmy Neutron, so he only had to pick which character he wanted. We eventually settled on Jimmy Neutron because a) they had a space ship on the side and b) they had an actual picture of Jimmy Neutron on the bows and c) they fit his face. See photos to gaze upon the true glory of Franklin’s glasses.

Anyway, picking out the frames was the easy part. When we started talking about lenses, the optometrist started talking about how scratch-free coating was extra, glare-free coating was extra, poly-thin glass was extra (or whatever they call that stuff) . . . basically everything was extra. I will say that he recommended we not get all the bells and whistles for Franklin anyway because he’d outgrow the frame/prescription too soon to make it worth it, but still. I mumbled OK like a good little drone and went along with whatever the doctor told me Franklin needed (I was still in shock), and ended up paying $250 for the Jimmy Neutron frames and lenses.

Basically, they’re fine. Franklin loves them and loves showing people the little picture of Jimmy Neutron on the bows. However, the first weekend we had them, the screw fell out on one side. We put it back in and the next day it fell out again. Hmmm. We called the doctor, and they said they’d just replace the frames on warrenty, no problem. Three days later, Franklin had a new pair of Jimmy Neutron frames. Everyone was happy until about 4 weeks later when, somehow, a stuffed animal hit Franklin in the face at daycare (“MOM, it came out of nowhere!”) and the frames broke. A weld came unwelded and one lens popped out. Thus begins another chapter in this story, which I’m going to have to finish in my next post because Franklin needs to go to bed. He’s actually watching Jimmy Neutron now and thinks he needs to finish the show because his glasses miss their friends. Seriously. Damn you Nickelodeon Marketing People!!!!