She's Growing Up Right Before Our Eyes

Sunday, September 14th was a very busy day for us. It was the day we celebrated the birth of our 4th child, Victoria. She turned 4 years old! She enjoyed herself thoroughly and so did her siblings as each of them presented her with their own handmade gifts they made for her. She was celebrated as the Princess she is. It was beautiful.

I'd like to share with you a little bit about our beautiful princess. It's been 2½ years now since she's worn glasses. She was diagnosed with condition called Strabismus which is a dysfunction of the direction and power of the muscle in the eye. When she was 1½ we started to notice her crossing her eyes and were amazed that she knew how to do that at her age. It took Grandma and all of her wisdom to point it out to us that she’s a bit young and shouldn’t know how to do that at her age. Immediately we made an appointment with the ophthalmologist to have her eyes looked at.

I can remember that day coming home and carrying the weight of what we had just learned on my shoulders and throughout my entire body. Our baby, who’s not even 2 as yet, has to start wearing glasses and has to keep them on at all times in order for her eyes to stay straight and not permanently cross. As I sat on the living room couch holding her in my arms the tears flowed down my face uncontrollably. My heart ached. My stomach turned. I wasn't prepared to hear this kind of news. I didn’t want to accept it. I looked over at my husband and wanted him to make it go away. I wanted someone to fix this. Then the questions started rolling around in my head. How are we going to successfully persuade our baby girl to keep her glasses on at all times? She's still wearing diapers for gods sake. Will they irritate  her face? Will she grow up and have a complex?

Then, I calmed down. Steadied myself and began to think about...her.

A few days later we took her to pick up her new glasses. Glasses that will be (according to the doctors) a permanent dressing. The day leading up to this our focus was on her and trying to convey to our one year old the importance of keeping her glasses on at all times, and being very careful with them.  We did our best.
She was excited because we were. She didn't really understand all that was going on and that was okay, she didn't need to but feeling our happiness for her was what we thought she needed. (My husband kept me strong through it all. I was still weeping on the inside.)

How does a one year old understand that the face she once knew was going to be graced by a beautiful pair of glasses indefinitely? As I said, we did our best. She put them on and wore them for about 10 minutes (which was pretty good, actually) and then decided that she had had enough. Before leaving the Doctors office we were reminded once again of the importance of her keeping them on at all times. The thought of our baby loosing her eye site was unfathomable. We had to obey his advice. What were we going to do to get her to keep them on?

That question plagued us... 

And then our miracle showed up in the form of a beautiful little lady. Our oldest daughter, Tanisha, also wears glasses. She's near-sided and at the time this was happening with Victoria, Tanisha was seven. She began wearing her glasses the year before. She was to be the perfect example and partner for our little Victoria. All we had to do was keep encouraging her to wear them like her big sister which she eventually did just  fine.

At four years old she's wearing her glasses like a pro. She enjoys her visits to the Ophthalmologist which is a relief because her eyes have to be diluted every visit. She does take them off every now and then but has realized that she's sees clearly when wearing them, so back on they go. We haven't had any major problems, I'm grateful for that. We have had to increase the prescription by a little just recently. It's a process that everyone in our home is experiencing and with that it takes times, love, and patience to get through. This was a major crisis for us and we pulled together, as a family, each one helping the other.