A girl in glasses

August 19, 2015

to Read (

Words)

I don't believe I've talked about this much on the blog before. When Amelia was very little, two or so, we started working on the alphabet with her. She picked up a few letters here and there, mainly the ones in her name, but she just didn't "get it". Obviously I wasn't too concerned when she was that little, but as she got a bit older and closer to kindergarten I began to worry. We would play alphabet games, watch alphabet shows and used alphabet flashcards. She would sit with me for just a short time before losing all interest. It didn't make any sense to me. She had been doing math problems in her head since she was three. We could say "Amelia, what's 5+3" and in a matter of seconds she'd say 8. No fingers. No looking at the numbers. Just in her head. I did not want her to start kindergarten without at least knowing her alphabet (I had given up hope on her knowing the letter sounds prior to her first day of school), but I was at a loss about what to do. Mark reassured me that she'd get it once she was in the school setting. Something in me just felt there was something preventing her from learning them, but I had no clue what it was.

The April after her fifth birthday she went into her annual check up. The doctor checked her over and, as usual, said she was as healthy as could be. They did their little vision test and said she might have a slight issue with one of her eyes and recommended we see our optometrist. I went home and scheduled her an appointment. I really didn't think there was a major issue. I never saw her squint to try and see something and she never sat too close to the television or held stuff up close to her eyes. She had never complained about her vision and seemed to be just fine. Ha... was I ever wrong!

Our eye doctor told me that her vision is very very poor. The reason she couldn't focus on the letters was because she couldn't see them. He told me that with vision as bad as hers she would have more than likely ended up with a lazy eye. One of her eyes is quite a bit worse than the other, and the compensating the good eye has to do has put so much strain on it. I am so glad we took her in! Her glasses are thick. Really thick. They even ordered a special lens to make them thinner, but she rocks the magnified eye look. It took a while for Amelia to get used to her new glasses and watching her realize she could see things she couldn't before was amazing. She is now on her second pair of glasses. Her prescription changed quite a bit from last year to this year, but the eye doctor said it's no better or worse... just different. If she were to try and go without her glasses now, she is basically blind. She says she can't see a thing.

Her newest pair of glasses. So cute!!!!!

and this was her very first pair...

Amelia was slightly behind going into kindergarten because up until three months before she started she couldn't see. Thankfully she was able to catch up rather quickly and will be starting first grade right on track in two weeks from today!