We're on the bus heading uptown after our visit to the ophthalmologist for our toddler, learning that our fears have been confirmed. The doctor examination told us that our 2 1/2-year-old has strabismus. Strabismus is a weakening of the eye muscles that results in an individual being farsighted and cross-eyed.

We pass my grandmother's old apartment and I suddenly remember being there when we found out that my sister, then 18 months old, had inherited the condition from my mother. I fast-forward in my mind to when my sister was 7 and had surgery to snip the muscles that cause the eyes to turn. I wonder if Julian, too, will need surgery. My immediate concern, however, is the glasses.

Diagnosis Brings Out Parents' Issues

"Will he have to wear them all the time?" asks my husband, Josh, exhibiting sings of parent stress.

"It's not like he can just put them on to do the crossword puzzle," I answer, more sharply than I intend. I'm annoyed Julian's diagnosis appears to be such a surprise to him. Maybe it's because the condition came from my side of the family, but as soon as Julian's eyes began turning, I began checking out little kids in glasses.

"Do you want to help us pick them out?" I ask, more gently this time. "They really have cute things for kids these days."

"I'm coming along," Josh says solemnly. "We have to both agree. It's like choosing a name."

When Toddler Parenting Brings Heartbreak

Picking out glasses is difficult. All week long, Julian has been excited about getting glasses, but now he wants nothing to do with them. The doctor has suggested we get the kind with ear wires so they'll stay on. But they pinch and we reject them after Julian tries them on and screams in pain. We manage to wrestle two other pairs onto his little face. We choose tiny, elliptical tortoise-shell frames, with optional ear wires if he can't keep them on otherwise.

Ready in a week.

Worry Centers on Adolescent Problems from Teasing

I find myself trying to memorize Julian's face without glasses, as if I'll never see it again. Of course, he'll take them off for baths and bed, but it's not quite the same thing. I look at his lovely, long eyelashes. They will annoy him when they brush against the glass. Will the lenses wear them down? And what on earth will make him keep the glasses on? How will they rest on his smooth little nose?

I wonder how his friends will treat him. My sister still thinks of herself as a person who wears glasses, a person who gets teased, even though she hasn't worn hers in public for years. I hope we're raising our children to be more tolerant than our parents did. Then again, children can still be cruel.

Toddler Family Pulls Together

The glasses arrive. Getting Julian to keep them on is a challenge at first and I wear my own glasses for a week to show my support.

"All he needs is a three-piece suit and a briefcase," I joke. "Do you think this will get him into a better preschool?" Even Josh laughs. We both agree that Julian actually looks extremely cute.

"My eyes are cwossing. I need my gyasses," he lisps proudly.

Two months have passed. I'm so used to Julian's glasses now that he almost looks naked without them. And it's a relief not to squirm as his beautiful eyes turn in and lose focus. The truth is, the glasses haven't changed him one bit. He's every bit as active and rambunctious as he was before he got glasses.

His glasses have become just one more thing about him to love.

 

Joanne Sydney Lessner lives, mothers and writes in New York, New York.