One of those important stages in life

A couple of weeks ago, Firstborn's teacher pulled me aside from an after school program and told me that Firstborn was having problems seeing the board. So she had sent him to the nurse for a vision screening. He failed.

We made an appointment with my eye doctor and went last night.
Firstborn was quite funny. He was convinced that the eye appointment would require something (like a needle) being stuck in his eye and despite reassurances from both myself and the doctor, he had a very hard time relaxing. But he was still quite funny. He couldn't tear his eyes from his book to start the exam. Obviously, the problem could be defined at that moment as distance vision issues.

As she tried different lenses on him, he would provide a running commentary on how the letters looked. The question, can you see this better or this? didn't seem sufficient. Well the first one, the letters are smaller but clearer. On that one, the letters are in italics. She was impressed that he knew that word. Children of this generation are introduced to Microsoft Word before they are introduced to dictionaries. They know these words.

We found his commentary entertaining.

The result was that his vision is at negative 2. I have no idea what that really means, but he will need to (and want to she assures me) wear glasses all the time. I'm told this is a puberty thing. Boys can lose their vision at about 10 or 11. It came from nowhere. Neither his father or I have problems with distance vision related to anything but advanced age.

Firstborn was very sad about getting glasses before his appointment. He's already having difficulties at school with peers being mean. He saw this as yet another thing to draw negative attention. But after the exam and trying on the different lenses, his attitude has changed. He can see clearly now. I teased him that maybe the reason he doesn't like girls yet is because he can't see how pretty they really are. Of course this "grossed him out."

After the appointment, we tried on glasses. He wanted gold. The saleswoman tried to steer him to something that would blend in to his face and coloring a bit better. Right before we settled on a pair, Firstborn caught sight of some Prada plastic rimmed glasses. Fashion rims with thick arms in a butter cream and tortoise color. I think they were women's glasses, but the sales woman was having a ball with him by then. She let him try them on. He was convinced they were the glasses for him. So she asked him, "but what would your second choice be." So he chose the ones that the saleswoman and I liked.

Then we had to look into goggles (like these, but the red bits are white) since he will be playing soccer in 2 weeks. He loved this clear plastic and white trimmed pair of goggles. He wore them while we did the paperwork. Towards the end of our visit, he asked if he could wear the goggles all the time and just skip the glasses. This is a boy who didn't want to stand out earlier in the day.

So, as we are waiting for the saleswoman to swipe my card, Firstborn begins this story about what he thinks his father should make for an appraiser hat for next years Destination Imagination tournament. It is a typical Firstborn story with lots of detail interjected parenthetically into long sentences, all delivered in a stream of consciousness, without any form of punctuation, at the speed of light. Sort of like that last sentence times 10! Everyone in the office (the staff, the waiting patients, the doctors) stops what they are doing to listen. When he finishes, the sales lady sits down and says, "I can't believe you just said that whole thing without taking a single breath! That was amazing."

She takes my money and we leave. Firstborn is happy because he will be able to see soon. He finds the 1 to two week wait a bit too long. I'm glad he is happy and can see the silver lining in this. I think it helped that I pointed out that all the cool kids at school seem to have glasses. And he pointed out that his one enemy does not. So maybe glasses are cool.