Glasses in Sight?

Back in January, at Joey's 5-year check-up, he was asked to don an eye patch, squint, and read some letters on a wall twenty feet away. As a bonus, he had already been asked to remove his shirt. Hilarity ensued. Pirate Joe thought this was just about the most cockeyed thing he'd ever been asked to do... although peeing in a cup five minutes before that came in a close second.

It was all fun and games until it became clear that our little pirate really wasn't seeing those letters on the wall that well. Asked to tell which way the "E" was pointing -- up, down, left or right -- he started faltering around the 20/50 point, and my heart was racing for him as he randomly hazarded guesses. Once you've flunked a vision test yourself, and murky, blobby letters seem just out of your grasp, you never forget that tense, vulnerable, stomach-in-knots sensation of feeling outmatched and under-equipped.

Joey's pediatrician chalked up his low score to "squirreliness" (yes, that's a direct quote), which can be pretty normal for five year-old boys, but we were packed off to a pediatric optometrist just in case, especially given that one of Joey's parents was legally blind until about two years ago.

We finally made it the eye doctor on Wednesday, and on the drive there, Joey was in a grim, pensive mood. The idea of wearing glasses did not sit well with him, and when I asked why, he would only respond, "Because."

Fortunately for Joey, he got a reprieve of at least a year. He took three different vision tests, two of which asked him to identify pictures. He tested 20/35 and 20/40 on those, and then the eye doctor decided to do a more "grown-up" screening using letters, explaining that that kind of assessment isn't normally used until kids turn six, but it's generally considered the most accurate. With that method, his vision was 20/25.

With three different results, we decided glasses are definitely not a necessity this year, but, because he has astigmatism in both eyes, they likely will be perched on his little nose at some point in the next few years. I'm not sure who's more traumatized by this news -- me, because I wore glasses for so many of my school years, or Tim, because Joey's batting eye may be forever compromised ;)