good frames

We made it 10 1/2 months before Zoe did anything horrifying to her frames.  Made it through the first couple months of her ripping them off and throwing them at the first sign of getting upset.  Made it through the next few months of her taking them off when she was bored in the car and carefully removing the nose piece.  Made it through her being in the infant room at daycare, and then going into the toddler room.  But today, on our drive home, she was upset about something and took them off to wipe her eyes.  I turned back and saw she had them off, and asked her to hand them to me, but she refused.  At the next stop sign, I turned to look and saw that she had carefully folded them and put them in her cup holder.  And then I realized that she had carefully folded one of the ear pieces at a 45° angle down from her glasses.  I pulled over, took her glasses, tried to explain why I was taking them, and why I was upset.  Tried to stay positive that maybe they could be fixed.  But it looked bad.  They didn’t even fit in a case they were so bent out of shape – as was I.

We went straight to the eye glasses shop.  I handed the misshapen frames to the optician saying I was guessing that we were out of luck.  She took them quietly and went into the back for a long time.  Another toddler and her mom came in to pick up a pair of glasses – very cute, dark plastic frames.  I bet those don’t bend like that.  But then the optician came back out.  Handed me Zoe’s frames back – perfectly shaped.  “This,” she said, “is why you want to buy good frames.”  We may yet make it to the end of the year and have to buy new frames because Zoe outgrew them, rather than destroying them.

encouragement

I ran across this post this weekend:

The frustrated princess, the gracious mother and the good eye doctor

and I had to share it with everyone.  The post is written from the perspective of someone who had glasses at a very young age, she talks about having cataract surgery at age three, and having to patch and wear glasses.  As a young child, she found it so terribly frustrating, and often took her frustration out on her glasses.  The part that got me was her gratitude at learning just how much of a difference it made to her vision that through all of it, her mother insisted that she wear the patch and glasses.  As she wrote: “Thank you for watching me suffer and never letting me see how much it hurt you, too.  Thank you for trying so hard to make it fun – with the doggie cloth eye patch, with the fun stickers, with the colorful glasses cords — even though it still wasn’t fun.  It really did make a difference.”

Her mom made her a special eye patch for her princess costume one Halloween (the picture is on her blog, here).  Did anyone incorporate patches or glasses into their kid’s costume this year (or in prior years)?  Back when Zoe first got her glasses, I thought she’d make a great Harry Potter as a young child, since her hair always stood up in crazy directions, but it had grown out by the time October rolled around this year.

100!

I’m very excited that little four eyes just passed the 100 posts mark today! I started this blog in mid-March, 3 months after Zoe started wearing glasses, because I just wanted to find other parents of young kids in glasses to talk with, and exchange ideas and tips and just generally connect.  Since then we’ve had 8 authors join the blog, not to mention posts sent to me via email that have been posted.  I’ve learned so much about children’s vision, and the many different struggles that we’ve faced. This blog has had over 16,000 visits since March, and should top 4,000 visits this month alone.

There are 334 comments on the blog so far.  The comments are probably my favorite part (well, the photo gallery might really be my favorite, but they’re a very close second).  I like the feedback, I like hearing other people’s thoughts on different topics.  If you all don’t mind, would you leave a comment to just say hi, and if you’re looking for a reason to comment, I’d love to know what you like about little four eyes, and what else you’d like to see.

To commemorate the milestone, I’m going to share some more photos of kids in glasses.  Sometimes I get more than one picture of a child for the photo gallery, and it’s one of the most difficult things to decide which to use, so I’m happy to get to share a few more.  The pictures are behind the jump.

Continue reading “100!”

Post-Op Update on Teagan

I am long overdue to update everyone on Teagan’s post-op strabismus surgery follow-up.  I am happy to report that Teagan is out of her bi-focals!  The glasses are still needed but we know nothing would change there.  Her crossing is now very minor and within normal range.  We will need to keep following up on it and look for any signs that the crossing is getting worse again, or over correcting.  We are not out of the woods with the possibility for another surgery but so far it looks good!  Phew!!

The other update to give is that Teagan is also out of the cast she had from her tibia fracture.  She is a little unsure of her leg right now, it must feel weak, but she is doing great… and smelling better since being able to take a proper bath!

things

I’d been thinking recently about the extra little things we keep around now that Zoe has glasses that have made our lives just a bit better.

The current miscellany of eye parts are pictured. You can see the break in the frames which is what we experience most often...due to the repetitive stress of straightening bent frames by hand.
GeorgeB's tools: Top Left: Flat Nose Plier and Wide Jaws Angling Pliers purchased on EBay. Bottom Left: Mini Plier and Screwdriver, and a straight probe from my high school dissection kit. Right: The current miscellany of eye parts are pictured. You can see the break in the frames which is what we experience most often...due to the repetitive stress of straightening bent frames by hand.

Then GeorgeB left a comment on the Collected Wisdom page about the home repair shop that he’s set up:

“… after many a face plant, an encounter with a coffee table, couple of invincible-two-year-old-leaps-of-faith…we’re now the proud owners of several pairs (or parts) of broken or otherwise beat up glasses. (not to mention spare lens or two). My suggestion…become your own optician…at least for those minor tweaks, bends, etc.

“So far I’ve managed to salvage cable temples, nose pads, replace a lens, and even bend, unfold, or otherwise straighted folds that were not, should not, be present…

“Couple of peeks at our optometrists tools…couple of visits to ebay…presto…home-repair-shop.”

. . .

Frog holder for Zoe's glasses
Frog holder for Zoe

When Zoe first got her glasses, we got 4 cases.  One for each car, one for the house, and one for daycare.  We don’t use any except the daycare one now, but they were nice back when the glasses came off a couple times an hour.  My parents picked up a cute frog glasses holder that we keep in Zoe’s room.  She know that that’s where her glasses go, so they’re easy to find after naps and in the mornings.  I keep thinking I should get something like that for myself since I can never find my glasses in the mornings.

We recently bought a couple of big packs of microfiber cloths from the Target automotive department. Not only are they awesome for all sorts of cleaning around the house (I no longer hate cleaning the stove top), but I love having so many microfiber cloths around to grab whenever Zoe’s glasses need a wipe. Which is often.

So what other items have you found helpful to have around the house?

how did you even know…

I wrote a guest post for our local newspaper’s (Minneapolis Star Tribune) parenting blog, Cribsheet.  The post talked about how we learned that Zoe needed glasses, and signs for parents to watch out for that could indicate a vision problem.  I wanted to thank everyone for sharing all their experiences here on little four eyes, as I drew from everyone’s stories.  Also a warm welcome to anyone stopping by from Cribsheet!

Children’s Eye Foundation

After getting a response to a blog I posted about McKenna’s Pediatric Ophthalmologist I followed thier link to The Children’s Eye Foundation webpage. This is what I found…

About The Children’s Eye Foundation
Originally founded in 1970 as the National Children’s Eye Care Foundation (NCECF), the Children’s Eye Foundation (CEF) is the official foundation of the American Association for Pediatric Ophthalmology and Strabismus (AAPOS).  The foundation was founded by the late Dr. Marshall Parks, who is also the acknowledged founder of the pediatric ophthalmology discipline. The mission of the CEF is to develop and implement programs that optimize the quality of life of children by eliminating preventable vision loss and eye disease.

CEF most directly combats Amblyopia, a condition caused when one eye receives inadequate use during early childhood, resulting in reduced vision or even blindness. The child’s brain suppresses the poorer quality image, essentially “turning on blindness”. Amblyopia can be caused by several vision disorders, such as:

  • Strabismus: misaligned or “cross-eye”
  • Anisometropia: uneven vision
  • Cataracts: one or both eyes are cloudy
  • Ptosis: or drooping eyelids.

Each year, close to four million children are born in the United States. Research suggests that 5%, or 1 in 20, of the preschool aged population suffer from a vision disorder that could eventually result in permanent vision impairment. Vision disorders have tremendous consequences for both the children afflicted by them and for society as a whole.

This is very reassurring to me as a mother, that there are people out there who care enough to devote their time and career to educating themselves and the public about the causes, treatments and cures of childhood eye disorders.

www.childrenseyefoundation.org

cross-generational eye surgery

the eye surgery gals
the eye surgery gals

Right around the time that we learned that Zoe would need strabismus surgery, my grandma learned that she had put off cataract surgery for as long as was possible, and, as the ophthalmologist put it, her choice was to schedule the surgery now, or by her next eye exam, it would be too late.  The two surgeries are not at all similar, and recovery from surgery at 88 is far different from the recovery when you’re not yet 2.  But still, I like to think there’s a common bond between my two eye surgery gals.  And it was after learning that Zoe would have her own eye surgery that grandma finally agreed to schedule her own.  A totally unexpected, unintended, but wonderful consequence.  Grandma’s first cataract surgery is tomorrow (Thursday) morning.

Our Pediatric Ophthalmologist

Although my husband disliked the doctor he is actually very acheived in his field. He is a Pediatric Ophthalmologist and specialized in children with developmental disorders. Our daughter has a Hypoplastic Cerebellum-detected while I was pregnant; this causes problems with balance and coordination. While researching about Esotropia- I found information that said that many children with gross motor developmental defects end up having some form of Strabismus and even more likely to have Esotropia.

Dr. Stephen Glaser has a website with a lot of good information on it www.kidseyecare.com He also participates in and support studies with the Pediatric Eye Disease Investigator Group (PEDIG – a division of National Institute of Health) that further advance the ability to diagnose and treat children with childhood eye disorders.

He also created “Glaser vision” which is a preschool sight screening system. That information is at www.kidseyetest.com

Although I am still processing all of the steps that we may have to take to help my daughters vision, I feel very confident in the doctor that we have in our area.

My husband on the other hand just didn’t like that he made our baby girl cry.

Dear Doctors of our Children’s Eyes

tjmtoms’ post about their first eye exam got me thinking again about how tough these eye exams can be, not just for our kids, but for us, as well.  And I’m wondering if there are things that could make it easier for us.  What suggestions would you give an eye doctor who was going to specialize in pediatrics?  These could be things that your current clinic does really well, or things that you think would make it work better.

But first, I have to start be saying that I can only imagine how difficult it must be to work with such small kids, who really can’t tell you what’s going on, and don’t understand why they are having these exams.  I know I really appreciate the kindness and patience of Zoe’s ophthalmologist.

So here are a few things I can think of that have helped (or would help) with eye exams:

  1. It’s really, really hard to focus and absorb what we’re being told when our child is crying.  And unfortunately, eye exams are often upsetting to our kids.  Give us 5 minutes to quiet our child down before trying to explain what’s going on with their eyes, or if that’s not possible, give us a phone number and time that we could call and discuss it when we’re not so distracted.
  2. Related to that.  This is often a whole lot for us to absorb, especially at our first exams when we probably weren’t expecting to find out that our child had a vision problem.  Most of these problems aren’t in family health books, and we probably don’t know anyone who’s children had these problems, and the information on the Internet can be pretty contradictory and frankly, frightening.  Giving us as much detail as we can understand, using the correct terminology is so helpful.  In fact, having a sheet or brochure with explanations of various terms and aspects that we could look over later would be extremely helpful.
  3. Have a list of local or trusted online glasses providers.  Again, we probably don’t have friends that we can turn to for a referral for glasses for babies.  And our preferred optical shop may not have the frames or the expertise.
  4. (This one is a little less serious…)  If you’re going to give our kids small toys as favors after the exam, can they be age appropriate?  Being told to cut out the bead eyes off of the finger puppet is, well, I given that we’re at an eye clinic, I guess it’s fitting, but it still feels a little weird.

So what other suggestions would you have?  And what about for parents taking their child to their first eye exam – any suggestions for parents to make it easier?

Our first Eye appointment- Eek!

I am so happy that I found this site! I need to vent.

My daughter’s pediatrician first noticed a crossed eye at her 9 month check up. But, she only saw it once and thought maybe it was pseudo strabismus. Of course then I started to notice it more and more-then at her 12 month check up they referred us to several Ophthalmologists. We chose the only Pediatric Ophthalmologist in the area and it took over 2 months to be seen.

The eye exam was torture!

Continue reading “Our first Eye appointment- Eek!”

Poll time!

WordPress now lets us make polls.  So here’s one to get started…

Any other polls you’d like to see?

Pre-School

Hello!  It’s been a long time since my last post here on Little Four Eyes, but I guess that’s a good thing because it means nothing new has happened with Franklin’s glasses.  Neither pair of glasses has been in need of care in the past few months, we haven’t had any meaningful conversations about wearing glasses, and life has gone on normally.

However, I did want to mention something I’ve noticed since Franklin has been in pre-school.  This is his second year at his pre-school, and in both years, he’s made friends with the other kids with glasses in his class FIRST.  And yes, both years, there have been two other kids (different kids both years, I might add) who wear glasses in his class.  (OK Ann, that’s 3 in 20 both years, what’s the %?)  On his first day this year, I saw another little boy walk into the class with glasses, and sure enough, when I came to pick Franklin up, he was sitting by that little boy and I was told he was Franklin’s new friend.

What does this mean?  I don’t really know.  I do know that Franklin is very outgoing (sometimes a little too outgoing) and doesn’t have any problems making friends with kids without glasses.  I’ve never had reason to think he has

any self-confidence issues related to his glasses, but maybe he feels just different enough that he notices glasses on other kids and is naturally drawn to them.  Would this be true if he had red hair?  Or big freckles?  Or curly hair?  Or WHATEVER it is that makes children different?  Actually, probably.  But at this point, I’m not worried.  I’m just glad Franklin has “His People”.  🙂

Your stories – Jesse (amblyopia and hyperopia)

This post comes from Jomama at You Can’t Go Back Again.  Her son Jesse is the newest addition to our photo gallery page, and wears glasses for amblyopia and hyperopia (farsightedness).  This story of Jesse’s diagnosis is copied with permission from this post at You Can’t Go Back Again.  -Ann Z

Hey there, Four Eyes!


I love my little guy in his glasses. I hope he doesn’t get made fun of when he’s older. I don’t know if he will or not. But I know he needs them and he looks sweet in them. He’s pretty good about keeping them on though he is rough on them. He’s a boy though. I wouldn’t expect him not to be rough on them.

Jesse was diagnosed with hyperopia and amblyopia shortly after his second birthday. Common treatment for amblyopia includes patching. Jesse’s eye straightened out when Dr. T (Joseph Terravecchia of Pediatric and Adult Vision Care, who Jesse adores) put the prescription in front of him so we went with lenses. He will need them for at least 5 years. If they stop working we will try patching and surgery is always an option for more severe cases.

Jesse had an InfantSEE exam when he was 9 months old. He took to Dr. T immediately. He also got a clean bill of health. We never noticed anything wrong with his vision and his pediatrician never picked up on anything. I first noticed something when Jesse was about 22 months old. I took a picture with my phone and it looked like his eyes were crossed in it.

Continue reading “Your stories – Jesse (amblyopia and hyperopia)”

Update on Zoe

I was looking at a picture of Zoe that we took Monday evening, and I think it was the first time I really internalized just how straight her eyes are now.  And I felt the need to share.

July 27, 2008 - just after we made the decision to go ahead with the surgery.
July 27, 2008 - just after we made the decision to go ahead with the surgery.
Oct. 5, 2008 - 6 weeks after the surgery.
Oct. 5, 2008 - 6 weeks after the surgery. (the real miracle in this picture may be that daycare got a ponytail in her hair)

To say I’m relieved and pleased would be such an understatement as borders on ridiculous.   Just seeing her eyes so straight, and seeing her look at me through both of them is enough to get me teared up.  It was actually pretty hard to find a comparison photo from before the surgery because I never took pictures of her straight on because I knew her eyes would be crossed and I didn’t like how that looked.  I still believe that surgery should be a last option, and if her eyes had been straightened with glasses, we would have been very happy to continue with just glasses.  Since that wasn’t the case, I’m very, very happy that we did the surgery.