Eye dr. appt

Julia had an eye dr. appointment this afternoon.

Normally I would not have taken her to the eye dr. until she was closer to starting school, but she was doing this weird blinking thing that I did not know what it was. She did not seem to be straining when playing, drawing, etc.. The blinking appeared to be a sub-conscience thing and not something she even realized she was doing. I figured it was probably either hay fever or a weird toddler quirk. But my brother had really bad eyes as a young boy and even went through a couple years of eye therapy to help correct some of his eye issues. Soooo, I thought it was better to be safe than sorry, and have her eyes checked out. We are paying for vision insurance on her anyway.

First off, her eyes are just fine. The dr. said the blinking must just be some weird quirk she recently started. He did say that she will probably have to have glasses in the future. Apparently, at Julia's age, toddlers are supposed to be far-sighted. Julia was not. You would think that was a good thing, but it is not. Luckily, she was not near-sighted either. She was right smack in the middle, not far-sighted, but also not near-sighted. He said that at her age, that is usually a good indication that she will become near-sighted in the future. Not surprising since both Jerrod and I are near-sighted and wear glasses for it.

Secondly, I am SUPER IMPRESSED with how well Julia did at the dr.'s office. I was telling her all day that she was going to the eye dr. and he was going to look in her eyes. I explained to her that he was going to shine a flashlight in her eyes, look really close into her eyes and might even stick things on her eyes. I told her how it did not hurt and how mommy and daddy has this same dr. look at our eyes. By the end of the day she seemed pretty excited to see the dr. I know she always does better at a dr.'s visit if I explain everything before hand. Well, it worked even better than I expected!! He had her identify different pictures of different sizes, covered her eyes one at a time, had her wear funny glasses, shone a flashlight in her eyes, even used the machine where you have to put your chin in the little holder while he looks deep into your eyes. She was not afraid of any of it!! She was not even hesitant about doing these things. I thought for sure some of it was scare her and she would start crying. That was not the case! I am still amazed!

So unless we start noticing her having problems seeing things far away, she does not need to go back until she is closer to starting kindergarten.