Thursday, August 19, 2010

The eyes a mother loves

So, my friend Jane posted on her blog about her gorgeous daughter, Lucy. Well, one of her gorgeous daughters! Lucy has an eye condition, different to Matilda's, but similar. I've tried to post my comment on her blog post about five times - different browsers, on my iToy and my laptop, to no avail. :(
So here's my comment:

Oh, I know this. How I know it.
From the moment Prof Fred at church said that something was odd with Matilda’s eyes, and to mention it to our paediatrician. From the first ophthalmologist appointment, at just 3 or so months old.

The comments – “Oh, she’s got a lazy eye” as though we hadn’t noticed in the hours of adoring our daughter (and the moment of watching those open eyes and wishing they’d close and sleep!)

No, actually, it’s not lazy eye, it’s different, but it can turn into lazy eye
All the appointments, the eye patches, remembering which eye to patch. In the meantime, the comments. Our darling first godson at 6 years old noticing his god sister’s eyes, so crossing his and laughing. All the times someone, anyone, crosses their eyes to indicate stupidity, oddity, different-ness, less-ness.

And my cheeky girl figuring out how to cross her own eyes. We hadn’t thought about it much now that it doesn’t happen all the time. What a reaction she got from us!
“Don’t you dare do that! We paid so much money so that you couldn’t do that!”
Adding to her cheekiness, sitting in the chair while her ophthalmologist checked her eye just last month. Crossing her eyes, right in front of him. The main who operated on her delicate, 13 month old eyes two-and-a-half years ago. He almost wept. Said “Darling, no, don’t do that”. Incredulous, he looked at me. I told him that I just tried not to react anymore, in the hope she would stop.

1 comment:

Jane of Seagull Fountain said...

Thanks for posting this, Kirsty.

I'm glad there was an operation to take care of Matilda's eye problem, and I think it's gotta be pretty common for kids to still experiment with stuff like crossing their eyes. If nothing else, it shows how unself-conscious she is about her eyes, how unaware of their having been a serious problem, or unaffected. And that is the most important thing to me.