More Polly Woes

It's been a hard week. Very hard. Last Saturday Greta's glasses broke. The little wire in the cable snapped. While I was able to slide the pink piece back on and make them somewhat functional, pulling them off suddenly became easier. A game almost. And with the broken cable, I couldn't use the band to keep them on nor could I get them to stay up on her little nose. So when she had them on, she looked like a grandma, according to my kids anyway. And nose-sliding glasses seemed to make her crazy which caused her to pull them off even more. It was a *constant* battle. Picture this typical scenario: Mom gets baby settled in the high chair ready for lunch. She puts the pollies back on (which by the way, is never an easy task on a wiggly baby even when the glasses are in good repair) and immediately spoons up a little bite of fruit. The second she looks up, Greta has the pollies in her hand. The spoon goes down and the pollies get put back on. The next time Mom gets a bite in and takes one glance around the room to make sure big sister is out of mischief, looks back and this time the pollies are hanging precariously over the tile on a little finger. This time, Mom is lucky and saves the pollies in the nick of time. She puts them back in place again. If Mom is lucky she gets in two bites before she has to replace the pollies, but she isn't often lucky. . . Nor is she ever lucky if big sister's antics need intervention.

So you can see why big brothers were handed a baby as soon as they walked in from school and told their job was to keep the pollies on while I ran and did a few basic things like go to the bathroom and wash a dish or two.

The new piece finally arrived today and I drove to SLC to get them fixed. I'm so glad to have them back in working order, fitting snugly and new tighter straps to help keep them on (the straps loosen with use and lose their effectiveness). However, now she's got terrible, terrible habits of pulling them off, but hopefully things easier than this past week. (they can't be much worse, right?)

You are probably asking why I even bothered keeping her glasses on when it was such a hassle. Well, it has been impressed upon my mind how important these glasses are to her--the habits she develops in them now will influence so much of her future use of them and her proper growth and development depend on good glasses wearing habits. And since developmentally she is already slightly behind, it is my top priority to help her catch up and keep up. (Words cannot describe how THRILLED I was this week when she started patty caking on her own!) So it was important to me to be vigilant even when they were broken. And she was fussy without them.

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This post seems to be a perfectly good spot to record the challenges of having a baby in glasses. I've been going to post this because in the years ahead, I know I'll forget some of the daily little things we deal with.
1) The pollies have to come off then go back on for: rides in the car (because if she turns her head too much, they will get bent out of shape and I need to be able to trust that she'll leave them on--it's important that she doesn't think they are a toy); multiple naps and clothing changes (thankfully, though, we are mostly over the blowouts); and after most meals and snacks (for cleaning). Like I said earlier, they are not really easy to get on and off. And I really think that each time you take them off and put them back on, you are adding wear to them.
2) Putting your head on mommy's shoulder is hard. (sad, huh.)
3) When you cuddle and kiss her, you're likely to get bonked with glasses.
4) They cause a few problems when rolling over.
5) She pulls them off. And you can't reason with her. Even with a two year old you could set a timer for 20 minutes and give a reward if they are kept on. But when an 8 month old constantly pulls them off, you put them back on and there is nothing you can say to change that. Keeping her distracted is the thing we find works the best, but that doesn't always work nor is that always possible. (and like I said, hopefully this gets better this week.)

A few other notes: the pollies weigh just over 1/2 pound (9 oz.) If you look closely at the picture above, you can see how thick they really are. One lens is about 1/4" thick!

The two questions we are asked the most is "How do you know a baby needs glasses?" And "Does she keep them on?