Cheri wrote this story of her whole family getting involved to help her youngest son, Reid, a young boy with Down syndrome, start wearing glasses last summer. The story was originally published on her blog “Raising Reid” and is reprinted here with her permission.  Thank you for sharing, Cheri! – Ann Z

Well, our newest bump in the road has been that Reid’s eyes have started to drift inward…sometimes more his left and then sometimes more his right, and often both eyes at once. We went to see the eye doctor and we were told he was very farsighted, which is what we were told last time as well…except this time they said now that he is older and his attention is held longer on items and he is focusing more to see things up close his eyes are drifting. To help strengthen those muscles we were told it was time for glasses.

I was not sure how he was going to take to glasses….so we set a plan in motion. While we waited the week for the glasses to come in I sent away for some books on getting glasses. We read and read those books in preparation, we oogled and ogled over anyone and everyone we saw in public or on tv that had glasses, and we bought Luke some frames because Luke is Reid’s hero and if Luke will wear glasses chances are better Reid will follow suit. …actually this was a surprise to Luke, I could tell he secretly wanted glasses so when I went back yesterday to pick up Reid’s glasses I asked if they had any discontinued frames that did not have any prescription in the lenses..and viola they did and now Luke has glasses too.

When I walked out of the office with the glasses I quickly took Reid’s out to see just how strong the prescription was and …honestly my heart suddenly had this very sad feeling. I just sat in my car for a bit with that old familiar feeling of being hit in the gut when you realize your child will have one more struggle. When I looked through those glasses I could barely see anything…geez louise they are strong. The poor thing has been living with incredibly blurred vision all this time and it really made my heart sad.

We decided to “unveil” the glasses as if it was a present. We handed Luke his present first with prior directions to cheer and act excited when he opened his case (which truly he was excited to be getting his own glasses 😉 ) and then we handed Reid his….which he opened excitedly with all of us standing near cheering, and then we had Toby put his glasses on that we had to dig out of the archives.

Below are pictures from the big “reveal” of the glasses.

Hmnnn...can I still dance around and be silly with these???

Whoa, what's going on....I can see so much better!?!

Seriously...that's what those Backyardigans on tv look like????

Mommy loves me in my glasses!!!!

Just being cute but goofy!

As part of our “plan” we decided to watch a children’s movie after the big reveal so he would be engaged in the show and hopefully notice enough of a difference that he would not resist us in wearing them. He sat the whole hour and a half with them on…. I wonder what was going on in his little brain now that he can see so clearly!

.....and thank you big brother for indulging us by wearing "your" glasses 😉 to help your brother!