Wednesday 20 June 2012

The Spectacular Unveiling: Top 5 Things I Have Learnt About Children and Glasses

Edie got her glasses today (it's only taken a month.  Geesh!) and so far, she's only pulled them off and biffed them across the room a couple of dozen times.  Not too bad.  She's yanked them off and bent them at odd angles another few dozen times, smeared banana on the lenses, and possibly made her first scratch in the 'scratch resistant' lenses, but what do expect from a one year old?

In positive news, she has also tried to put them back on herself at least twice.  Once she almost garroted herself but the other time she got them over her eyes.  They were just upside down.  Still, you could see she felt pretty pleased with her bad self.
Lesson to be taken from all this:

1. Glasses only make you look smart.

I am already having to do some deep breaths so I also don't hiff the glasses across the room.  Phil reckons we're going for the "do it so many times til it bores the shit out of her" approach.  She takes glasses off, we put glasses back on.  She takes glasses off, we put glasses back on.  And repeat.  Ad infinitum.
Lesson to be taken from this:

2. All advice about "never enter a battle of wills with your child" applies to everything except eyewear.

I caught myself saying, "Come here, Goggy" after she'd had the glasses for less than an hour.  Clearly this practice will have to cease if I am to have any hope of building my child's positive self-image.  Calling her or her glasses 'gogs' or 'goggy' may not be entirely constructive behaviour.  Also, other people may give me The Look that strangers give to people they believe are unfit parents.  I hate this look and wish to avoid the judgement of strangers where possible.
Lesson learnt from this:

3. Refer to glasses as... well... glasses.

In order to not only make neutral glasses references, but positive ones, I seem to be employing the "Awww... Pretty" Parenting Technique.  This is used when you are making your child wear something they don't want to.  If you have a boy, you may call it the "Awww... Handsome" Technique but either or.  I'm sure that if I tell her often enough, she will agree that her glasses are indeed pretty.  It would be helpful though if I stopped following this affirmation with snickering.  I know, you're all giving me The Look right now down your internet connections.  I'm not actually laughing at her because I think she doesn't look pretty with glasses, it's just that she looks so damn comically cute that I can't help myself.  But she doesn't understand this nuance so I shall have to be more careful with my reactions.
Lesson learnt from this:

4.  Be sincere in all positive affirmations and do not follow with guffaws, snickers, or any other behaviour that could be construed as undermining the positive feeling you just tried to engender.

Glasses cost a lot of money.  Did you know this?  I was vaguely aware of this but as I don't, nor ever have worn glasses (and the same can be said for Phil), I have never truly appreciated just how freakin' expensive they are.  Until today.  Also, I assumed there'd be some sort of tiered costing system.  Edie is approximately an eight of the size of an average adult, therefore her glasses would be an eighth of the cost, give or take a fraction or two.  Oh no, my fine friends, not so!  Being small is of no advantage when it comes to discounting glasses.  And if it is, Edie will be getting a part time job when she's 5 to start saving for the glasses she may need when she's 15.  So just how much were these little masterpieces of visual correction?  I won't give you the exact figure, but it was over $400 for these fine spec-imens.  The optometrist (who is lovely and in no way seems like a rip off artist, just in case you think we were had) assures me that these glasses should last her for a couple of years and they darn well better!  Given the treatment they have received today, I am nervous to say the least.
Lesson learnt from this:

5. Make sure my uterus forms the eyeballs of any subsequent children a lot better than it did last time round.  You're on notice, uterus.  There's a nasty alternative for malfunctioning uterus' (interesting plural...): it begins with 'h' and ends with 'ysterectomy'.  I'm sure as you seem to have done a fine job in all other aspects it won't come to this, but just so you know...


So apart from my 5 swiftly-learnt life lessons today, I'm feeling quite positive about the glasses.  The magnification is pretty big like we expected (having to seriously restrain myself from making Furby jokes here), and there will definitely be some struggles keeping them on, but she doesn't seem to hate them and neither do I.
She's my baby anyway - she'd make even the dorkiest gogs look cool.
Love you Edie xxxooo
Taken with Papa's iPhone at lunchtime


2 comments:

  1. ngaaaaaaaaaaw how cute ... I commend your choice of glasses.

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  2. Cute! Yes, glasses are expensive. However, I got my last pair for $48 (lenses included) and the pair before that were free. The website is clearlycontacts.co.nz and I see they have kids' frames, too!
    Great post :-)

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