Mommy Ever After » glasses

The little feather that could.

mommyeverafter — Tue, 02 Dec 2014 19:22:29 +0000

This morning was a morning like most others.

We watched an episode of My Little Pony, found the “Tuesday” underwear from my daughter’s drawer, hurried her off to school, as my son and I stayed in our pajamas.

My son and I snuggled up in bed for a good two hours and napped together, as I fell asleep to the rhythmic sounds of his breathing.

And then we went to the eye doctor. And we got some unexpected news. My son had to get glasses at 11 months to correct his farsightedness, just like his sister before him. He also had to have a minor surgical procedure to unblock a clogged tear duct, and I feel so fortunate to say that it went very well.

Today, we learned that my son’s eye crossing is not exactly like my daughters, and my sister’s before her, and my mother before her ; he not only is extremely farsighted, but he also has a weak eye muscle. This will require a surgery, and it is a much more extensive surgery than the little tear duct probing. And my heart stopped beating.

Let me stop right now.

I realize that my son is getting eye surgery.

In the scheme of life, this is a blip. It is a slightly large blip, but I recognize that parents, every hour, are given far worse news about far worse procedures and prognoses, so please do not think for one second that I do not have perspective. I do. I send all of the love I can muster to those parents and those children and those families.

But I also have the knowledge that my son will have to go under general anesthesia, be intubated, and face some pain afterwards. And, this surgery will not do anything to correct his vision.

The eye doctor said, “Boy, this one can’t catch a break, can he?” and I replied with, “None of us can this year!”

And I was thinking about my son’s first year;

He had a mother who went a little crazy and then was later hospitalized. He has been to the Emergency Room FIVE times now: once in utero, twice for RSV (which lead him to a most depressing Christmas week stay in the children’s ward of the local hospital), once for Carbon Monoxide poisoning and then, finally, for slicing his wrist on my mirrored coffee table, requiring seven stitches. He hasn’t had it so easy.

But just like the realization that I had a week ago, when it occurred to me that my sweet son is the best thing to have ever happened to me,

I had another epiphany today.

He is my strength symbol.

Right before we left for the Ophthalmologist, I found this tiny, stray feather stuck to the inside of the wrist of my sweater.

It gave me the feeling that I always get when I see feathers, which is that I can be strong and that there are people watching over us to guide and protect us, even through the darkest of days.

And then I got this crappy news from the eye doctor and I looked back down at my feather and tried to figure it out. What was it telling me?

And I got it:

My son is my strength symbol.

He has shown me bravery, fortitude and resilience like nothing I have ever seen.

He has had a tough year with some tough circumstances, and wakes up with a smile on his face every single day, showing seven little teeth, gapped and perfect.

So, my tiny feather, you are my inspiration. You show me what it means to be courageous. You have faced so much in such a short time and I am so, so, proud to be your mother.

You are my little hero.

And we will just keep chugging along.

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I mean, why settle for four eyes

mommyeverafter — Tue, 14 Oct 2014 17:45:55 +0000

when you can have eight?
So, yeah,
this morning we found out that our baby boy, 10 days shy of his first birthday, will need glasses,
just like his big sister.
Evidently, though, he is an overachiever, because whereas she didn’t need them until she was 13 months old, he is getting them before 12. Atta boy!
And though he isn’t quite as farsighted as his sister, he will need to undergo a surgical procedure to scope a blocked tear duct in his right eye. So there’s that, too.
Part of me is brought right back to three and a half years ago, when I felt so discouraged by my daughter’s diagnosis. But this time it didn’t come as a surprise to me; I saw his eye turning in and I knew. I just knew.
And I am still seeing things through my own four eyes, except mine are metaphorical, as I only wear my recently prescribed glasses about 25% of the time,
but I am seeing them differently, because now I have perspective.
There’s still my scared eye. The eye that worries about the impact this will have on his self confidence, his athletic ease, the hindrances he might face and the insults he might endure. But now I know that they make goggles with prescriptions, and that my daughter was able to swim underwater this summer, farsightedness be damned. I know that her very best friend wears a pair of lense-less glasses to school every day, claiming to need them (he says that without them, she “looks like a necklace” to him…which is just about the cutest thing ever) when we really know he is just trying to be like his oldest and dearest girlfriend.
Then there is my shallow eye. This eye sees my son, strong and handsome, with an angelic face, and strong cleft chin, and worries about the glasses masking these features. He has beautiful crystal blue eyes. I don’t like the idea of having them hidden.
And yes, I still have my ashamed eye. The eye who really wants to say (and pardon my language here, but) “who gives a shit? They are glasses. Who cares if he is deemed different. We celebrate differences here in these parts.
But, finally there is, as there was, my grateful eye. As I wrote three years ago, “this is the eye that sees, so vividly, how lucky we are. We have a problem that has a solution. So what. They’re glasses.” We have a great doctor, and wonderful friends, and the resources to buy him whatever glasses we choose. He has a tiny problem. His problem has a cure. For that, I feel so very blessed.
So now all four of us have four eyes;
My husband’s for moderate nearsightedness,
mine for insight,
and my children, for strabismus associated with extreme farsightedness.
And remember that shallow eye up there? That eye thinks that it will be pretty darn cute to have two adorable little kids in matching glasses. I think the cuteness factor of kids with glasses increases exponentially with each additionally glasses-clad-child. I’m sure that I read that statistic somewhere.
So, just as I did with my daughter years ago,
I cuddled up with my son this afternoon, after lunch. He had completely dirtied his shirt after manhandling an avocado, so I held him, kissing his bare chest, and telling him that he would not be bespectacled,
but rather, to be spectacular.
And we slow danced in the living room, four ears listening to music,
two hearts beating together
and four eyes
taking in the changing world around us,
a world that is only going to get more beautiful.

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