New Glasses!

Last month, Sarah lost her glasses.

More truthfully, I probably lost her glasses.  Either way, they're gone.  They are nowhere to be found, and believe me, I TRIED.

I had always wondered, upon seeing eyeglasses in lost-and-found bins, how someone could actually LOSE their glasses.  Now I know.  Just another way that having kids opens your eyes to how the world really works.

This has been a drama of epic proportions.  With the exception of a brief break while we were on vacation (cousins are a wonderful distraction), Sarah has mourned the loss of her glasses with a passion that (I can only imagine) rivals the loss of a beloved family pet or close friend.  Several times a day, every day, we revisit the issue.

She seems to have difficulty with the definition of "lost".  "Sarah, I can't tell you where they are, because I don't know where they are.  That's what 'lost' means!"  This explanation is almost always followed by weeping (hers), wailing (mine), and eventually a commandment to go find them.  Then the loop starts again.

It's been miserable for both of us.

Patience growing thin, I finally admitted to myself that the glasses were not going to reappear.  I needed to bite the bullet and get new ones.  It had been almost a year since her last exam, so I made an appointment with the eye doctor.  She did NOT want to go.  She did NOT want new glasses.  She wanted the same frames which were, of course, discontinued at the time she selected them 4 years ago.  We had been living on borrowed time anyway, since the optician had told us that the frames were no longer strong enough to survive yet another set of lenses.  I knew that I needed to tackle this problem.

Remarkably, even while declaring that she did NOT want new glasses, on the day of the exam she went into the optical shop and started trying on frames.  When she said she liked the ones pictured below, I breathed a HUGE sigh of relief.

Here's a closeup of the temple.  (The white band is the price tag.)

So cute!  There was definitely Divine Intervention involved, because really, it was too easy.  She did break down once while I was handling the paperwork and purchasing details, but I was able to keep her reasonably calm with the help of the wonderfully distracting iPad.

Thankfully, the doctor was quite firm with her that she needed to wear them ALL THE TIME, not just when she's in school.  That should help with keeping track of them; she's always been very good about putting them on her nightstand before bed.  The trouble came when she would take them off midday, in someplace other than her room.

Of course, it will take about a week to get the new glasses made, but hopefully, knowing that glasses are on the way will help in her grieving cycle.

postscript:  it's been about a week since her exam, and she really hasn't mentioned much about her glasses, except to ask when they will be in.  !!!  :)