King of Geekdom

Picture courtesy Google pics

It’s official. The son is set to rule geekdom. I’d suspected all was not well with his eyes for almost a month now. I’d find him frowning at the telly or watching it sideways. However, I dismissed it as another one of his vagaries. Taking him to the doc just wasn’t priority, what with the over load of work after the maid absconded. Finally, a few days back we visited the ophthalmologist. And sure enough… specs it is!

He has cylindrical power caused by the cornea changing shape from round to spoon due to eyelid pressure. Whew! He’s just four and a half.. was my first thought. How will he handle it in school, in the bus, during play? Then came the worry 'What if the other boys bother him? How will he handle it?’

The optimist in me (normally in hiding) showed up for a change. One, lots of kids wear specs and handle them wonderfully. On the teasing issue .. well he’s just too small.. other kids might treat the whole thing as a great novelty factor. Even as I say that my fingers are crossed. The only thing I should really worry about is the constant nagging I’ll have to do.. but then (thus spoke Ms Optimist), I anyway need to nag him for a hundred things.. what’s hundred one?

Selling the idea
The tough part was selling the idea to him. “Not everyone gets glasses, it’s ‘special’ (Ah the magic of that word!)”, “It’s a very grown up thing, Papa wears them and so does Mama”.
Such are my marketing skills that not only was he sold on the idea.. his sister was too. She got majorly envious and went into thoughtful mode then pronounced, “From now I’m also going to watch the telly from close, so I get specs too.” Kill a monster give birth to another one. The irony of two .

The test
I’ve had specs for nearly two decades and never did I give the eye test a thought. With Hrit however it was quite a test.. a test of patience for the doctor. He’s often such a good boy but when he really needs to be good.. he just won't. Remember the photo shoot ? At the docs he refused to sit still, refused to look where she asked him to and kept blinking when she tried to test him with the comp. When she asked him to read the alphabets he deigned to read one or two and then launched off into a musical rendition of ABCD…
The doc gave up after a while and allotted him a number by tempering the computer reading.

The fitting
The fitting of specs was another issue. First we couldn’t find the right size.. they kept slipping off his nose. “His nose is too flat,” said the frustrated optometirist. Well well well… so the Japanese don’t wear specs, protested I silently, taking umbrage at this insult of the flat-nose heirloom my genes had passed onto my son. Finally we found the right size and Hrit, who’d sat through the trials patiently and become quite adept at them, shook his head vigorously, looked up and down and jumped over and over again.. “Look mama they aren’t slipping”, said he happily. “Can we please now take them home?” Not yet, said I to his total disappointment. I tried to explain the process of making the lens … then gave up. The lady said it would take three days and Hrit was ready to wait it out right their at Vision Express.

Another day to go before we finally get the specs. I so hope Hrit’s enthusiasm remains and Naisha’s dampens.