Girls Make the Prettiest Pirates

Riley's eye doctor prescribed three hours a day of an eye patch for at least six months to strengthen her weak eye. Back when I wore one (at about the same age) I had to have a big bandage over my weak eye. It was big and brown and ugly. Worst of all it hurt coming off. I found Eyepatch.me on Etsy. I showed Riley all the wonderful choices and she picked pink and purple butterfly with jewels. I also ordered an eye patch for her cuddly friends with a blue flower pattern and a My Little Pony elastic to hold it on. I love them both! I wish I could go back in time and wear pretty patches too! Riley loves it too and I can totally see ordering some special occasion patches too. Riley was excited to wear it.

Eye patch time has become a special time because it means some serious one on one with Mommy. We play play dough, watch movies, do puzzles and all kinds of fun stuff. She only wears her patch at home because it's super important that she was it three consecutive hours. No peeking. I have to keep an eye on her. She doesn't cheat on purpose, but little Miss loves to change her clothes. She just rips her shirt off to put on dress up clothes and knocks her glasses off. We made a new rule that she can change one time before eye patch time and then again when eye patch time is over if she wants. They helped a lot.

The only thing I haven't figured out is dance nights. We don't have three hours between school and dance class or between dance and bed. It's already our rush around night. I'm just not sure how to work it in, but I figure at least for now 6 days a week isn't bad. I really hope six months is all the time her weak eye needs. She's so beautiful, glasses and an eye patches just make her more beautiful.

I'm Not a Fan of 5...

I got a phone call yesterday that Miss Roo's glasses were ready to be picked up. It was good news, but five had already proven to be an extremely difficult year. I love my kids dearly, but certain phases are painful for everyone involved. The beginning of three certainly comes to mind. I thought we were bracing for Isaac's difficult transition to middle school, but it was smooth sailing. Riley however became melodramatic, mean, dishonest and unpredictable. The world made no sense to me when the behavior started. I know now that I gave her way to much sway with the school transition and her cram packed month of birthday festivities. I just kept waiting for things to "go back to normal." Normal is not static, it is fluid and often changes as soon as you have a handle on it.

I started to feel like I didn't even know this person. I reported things she told me to her teacher only to find out they were completely untrue. So embarrassing, how could I have known when prior to now she had always been truthful? She wasn't so drastically different at home, but I started feeling the old tingling-of-the-Spidey-Senses. I was suddenly overcome with anxiety that Miss Roo was misbehaving at school. Could she be...a bad kid? After everything we went through at the beginning of the school year I thought her strange behavior was over. Wrong-O.

I soon became overwhelmed by her nightly fits at bedtime. To clarify: throwing herself to ground, screaming, kicking, saying nasty things fits, every night. I was blind-sided. I reacted badly at first, feeding into the drama (oops). After a few night I made some adjustments gave her new incentives to go to bed peacefully and enlisted Mike for back up. Once we were out of the woods (phew) at home my Spidy Sense about school grew. Sure enough I went to pick her up thinking we'd grab her glasses on the way home and had my suspicion confirmed.

I arrived as they were finishing up lunch. Roo's greeting was over-enthusiastic and I knew something was up. When I approached her teacher it was obvious something had just gone down. Miss K had an incident report for me to sign, ugh! Apparently, Riley decided she didn't want to eat anything in her lunch except the fruit snacks. Now these are the healthy natural fruit snacks, but they are still "a treat" and Miss K told her (as Mom would have) that she needed to eat a few bites of her sandwich first. Riley's response was to throw herself from her chair to the ground so hard she was injured.

I mean really! Who IS this kid? Where did my sweet, logical little problem solver go? I bit my lip and tried not to cry from frustration. Next, even though I knew the answer I asked if this had happened before. I felt sick. I told her about the bedtime issues we'd recently resolved. We agreed we needed to be in communication about the "fit issue." She'd always been such a good kid. I was so frustrated and afraid I'd caused this by putting her in the bad environment, not taking her out sooner or not reacting to it properly when it started. Nonetheless, things had changed it was time for a new strategy. It felt like three all over again, maybe worse.

We went straight home (without a stop for her glasses) and talked about her choices. I said the things I've said a hundred times "Did the fit solve the problem? Did it make things better? Did it make anybody happy?" "You have to use your words to solve problems." And so on. I made a sticker chart so we could keep track of days without fits. I devised a whole reward system with emphasis on the positive reinforcement. I was sure knowing that the teacher and I were communicating would go a long way. I knew we could nip this nasty habit right in the bud if we handled it well.

It's never linear though this growing up stuff. I dropped off her beautiful Frozen themed sticker chart this morning with high hopes, but I know this like everything else will be a process. After school today there was a note instead of a sticker and I was totally bummed. We picked up Riley's glasses on the way home. She looks gorgeous in them, but it's a tangible reminder of all the change.

There's always time to make better choices, Miss Roo. Let's do this.

Eye Doctor Adventure

I made the appointment for a day when Riley was out of school. I told her it was a check up for her eyes. I explained that Mom and Dad had done research and were bringing her to a very good eye doctor. She was tentative, but excited. She wore her Minnie Mouse witch ears and was thrilled to see they had some pumpkin decorations. It turned out the receptionists son had attended Roo's school years before. Small world.

Mike and I had been wondering how technological advances may have changed eye exams. When we arrived they had Roo sit on stool and put an eye patch over one eye. I told them not to worry Roo was a great pirate and she knew all about wearing eye patch, Arrr! Then she had to look into a large metal box. She was instructed to look at the red balloon. When she climbed down she reported it getting blurry and clear again while it moved. Then we waited a bit before we were taken back for the exam.

Riley climbed into the giant chair and I told her she was on a throne. He looked in her eyes with the otoscope and had her focus on different things. Playing Finding Nemp on the wall and looking at her eyes with different tools. They had an eye chart with symbols and boy howdy, did Miss Roo have trouble seeing that chart. It was clear that one eyes was significantly weaker and distance made a huge difference.

He tried different lenses into that cool teal apparatus (that matched her outfit) in the picture. After that came the least fun part, the eye drops. She confirmed that there would be a treasure box if she was good and then she begrudgingly received her eye drops. She didn't like it at all, but I thought she was a real trooper. If you take your kiddo for an eye exam bring their sun glasses in with you for the post eye drops wait.

She did need glasses after all. Not short term like I had them, but for the long haul. She'd also need to wear an eye patch three hours a day to strengthen her weak eye. Sigh...

While her eyes dilated we looked at frames. They had a bunch of cute ones with different colors, flowers, jewels and fun stuff like that. Unfortunately, none of our favorites were the right size. Roo's biggest concern was that they be purple. As luck would have it they had a pair of purple frames in her size. They even had multicolored stripes on the sides. They wouldn't have been my first choice, but they were cute and we talked them up. Riley was happy and a little confused that we couldn't take them home right away.

The doctor took another look in her eyes. He explained the eye patch again assuring me that three hours a day was all that was needed. He said that I could buy the bandage kind (like I wore are a kid) at any drug store, but now there were cute felt ones that slip on over the glasses. God Bless Etsy. It was comforting to know for sure what the issues are, but it's a little sad. My poor pumpkin. On the bright side I'm glad we know early and she's going to be adorable in glasses. Roo picked out that silly green fish from the treasure box and we were on our way.