Glasses

Thursday was a special day for Caitlin, she got her first pair of glasses. Caitlin is now officially a glasses wearer.

I remember the kids health records saying that children should have their eyes tested before starting school. When Neil was getting ready to enter P1 two years ago I did just that, and it was a bit of a waste of time. He didn't fully recognise all of the letters being shown, and the optician advised to come back at the end of the school year. With Caitlin, I made the decision to wait until she had finished first year so she could read all of the letters with ease.

We didn't know there was any problems with her eyesight. It was picked up during a routine checkup with the school nurse, who advised that she would refer Caitlin to the hospital for further testing. I asked if we should make an appointment with the local optician, but we were told the hospital appointment would be more thorough, and that we should wait for that.

On Monday it was time for her appointment. Her daddy picked her up early from school, and they headed up to the hospital. I really wanted to go with her but unfortunately I was working. I sat by my phone, eager to hear the outcome. I even became quite worried when I hadn't heard from them after an hour! Eventually my husband phoned to say that they had finished at the hospital, and that Caitlin needed glasses.

The test showed that Caitlin has a severe astigmatism, and would need to wear glasses all of the time. She was given a prescription for two pairs of glasses, so she always has a spare pair available.

I was shocked, and felt awful that I hadn't noticed that she was having trouble with her eyes. She has struggled with her reading during the school year, and I had just assumed that she was a slow reader, but now I'm wondering if it was her vision that was causing her to struggle? I started questioning her, do things look blurry, can you see this clearly? She looked at me like I had gone nuts, 'of course I can see clearly mum' was her reply. I read up a little on astigmatisms, and found that they are often present from birth, so what she see's is just normal to her, she doesn't realise it's blurry!

I took her to pick her glasses, which she was very excited about. She's indecisive, which I think she gets from me, so we spent about half an hour trying on the different glasses the opticians had to offer. After plenty of pouting at herself and posing in the mirror, she eventually decided on two pairs in different shades of pink.

Doesn't she look fabulous in them? I know, I'm biased, but she does!

I don't think she has quite grasped the idea that she has to wear them all of the time, she keeps asking me when will she be finished with them, bless her! I got glasses when I was quite young, but I only had to wear them for watching tv and looking at the board at school, so I'm sure it must be quite tough for her to suddenly go from not wearing glasses, to wearing them all day. It will take some getting used to for her! I'm kind of glad she has started wearing them at the beginning of the summer holidays, because now she has 9 weeks to get used to them before going back to school.

Does your child have to wear glasses? How did you find they adjusted to the change?