farewell, old frames. You served Zoe well.
We took Zoe in to get new frames today. She has a new (slightly weaker) prescription and has really outgrown her current frames. The optician told us she’s grown 3 mm over the year – I assume that’s the spacing between her eyes, but I’m not sure if that’s really a large amount or not. In any case, it was clear that it was time for new frames.
The good news is that Zoe is bigger now, so we had a larger selection of frames. The bad news is that a larger selection of frames means more time subjecting my daughter to the torture of trying on every singe pair that fit, in every color available. We’re nothing if not thorough.
If I ever doubted that her glasses help her see, that doubt is gone. After about 15 minutes of trying on different frames, she’d ask to just put her own glasses on and we’d let her take a break. She seemed so relieved to be able to see. And so confused to be putting on glasses that didn’t help her see.
Even though we love how she looks in wire frames, we ended up ruling out wire frames right now since they would have the nose piece which just looked like it was begging to be snapped off, or at least bent enough to bother her. So we’re moving to plastic frames. The eye glasses store had a buy one, get one half off sale, so we even ordered two frames. What a luxury! If she scratches a lens or breaks a pair – she’ll have a back up! We got one round, red pair and one more rectangular blue pair. I figure she’s starting to develop a sense of style, so we’ll let her pick each day which she wants to wear.
And this leads me to my final question. What do I do with the old pair? Given how small they’ve gotten, and how much her prescription has changed, and the fact that we’ll have 2 pair, it doesn’t seem worth it to keep them as back up. Can I donate them? Even though they’ve been beat up, scratched, thrown, stepped on, and bent nearly beyond recognition?
For Little Eyes 
I would suggest donating them. I’m betting that someone that could benefit from a donated pair of glasses wouldn’t mind a pair that have just been loved a little bit. 🙂
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Most eyeglasses places will accept any pair of old glasses for donation. They spend a little time cleaning them up and repairing any damage, and then at some point, they’ll hopefully make some other kid really happy. (Remind me to tell you about the 6-year-old girl in Mexico and the blue glasses sometime.)
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I love that you have more than one pair for Zoe to choose from. Great idea!
When you mention wire frames and nose pieces, do you mean that the frames (that you didn’t choose) did not have the “bridge” anymore?
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Yep, the wire frames in Zoe’s new size no longer have the flexible nose-piece that goes over the bridge. Instead, they have nose pads connected to the bridge by a wire (the same thing that my glasses have). I don’t know if I’m explaining this well. In any case, the new plastic frames will sit directly on her nose – and hopefully look really cute.
Zoe brings up getting new glasses and saying bye-bye to her old glasses every day, even though the new frames haven’t come in yet. I hope that’s a good sign that she’ll take to the new glasses without a fit.
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Yep, makes sense. I was wondering because C switched to wire frames (with a nose bridge) since her bifocal prescription made her old plastic glasses unusable for her. (She couldn’t blink – the lenses were so thick!) I assumed that nose bridges would fit almost any child glasses.
That’s great that Zoe is excited.
(I was at the Sesame Street website today and came across a video about one of the characters named Zoe who was singing about spelling her name. I thought of your Zoe.)
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