Crossed Eyes

When Baby J was born, we noticed that she was crossed eyed. At that time, we thought it funny and that it would go away but it didn't and the doctor picked it up at one of her monthly check ups. He said it was a convergent eye squint and mentioned something about it needing surgery or at the very least a patch. I was heartbroken to hear that and did not sleep for 2 days after hearing about it. I mean, what mother would be able to laugh off the fact that her child needs to go through any sort of medical procedure. I now know what I put my parents through living at the sprts medicine and physiotherapy clinic with a litany of injuries sustained during my running days.

Anyway, we went yesterday to see the paediatric opthamologist. And let me just say, while it is much cheaper to seek specialist attention at a public hospital, waiting four hours for the entire consult to be over is just not funny, especially with a not yet 6 month infant, who on a good day is already a little testy.

To her credit, she was pretty good most of the time. It had alot to do with the fact that Packrat had her strapped to his front so she had every opportunity to interact with the world. On top of her voice, she commented on how crowded and noisy the waiting room were and how irritating it was that there were all these kids running amok and why they could run amok and all she could do was flail her arms and legs.












When she truly got bored, we discovered blowing air at her entertained her too so her she is shuddering with every fresh breath, not realising that it was the same thing again and again. We only gave up because our cheek muscles got tired and we didn't want to spit on her face.











Anyway, she didn't mind the doctor too much since he had a bright shiny torch that he kept shining all over the place and she kept trying to chase it with her eyes. She also didn't mind the optopist, whoever that is and whatever it is she does, because she had pencils with toys at the end that sprung all over the place. She was particularly partial to Minnie Mouse in pink. And Mommy liked the optopist too because she only had good things to say about Baby J, like she being very alert for her age and she taking a long interest in the optopist and responding to her more than to her own boring parents, what I remember as habituation and dishabituation.

What Baby J had great issue with and made no qualms sharing it with the whole world was her new found abhorence for eye drops and any one who was going to go near her eyes with that strange bottle with the red tip at the end that dispensed smarting drops of liquid into her eyes. The first drop, because she didn't know what was coming was received with bright eyes staring at the nurse with bright red lipstick. The minute it entered her eye, however, was a totally different story. The screams were almost bloodcurdlingly angry and dismayed. Once again, my little girl showed that she learnt very quickly because she squeezed her eyes shut even though there was to be other drops to follow. And if the nurse actually managed to pry her eye open a milimetre to drop another drop in, she would scream even louder. The poor nurse kept apologising to this 5 1/2 month old infant and begging her to open her eyes and stop crying. I think she also feared that if she cried some more, her tears would wash out the eye drops and we or rather she would have to start from square one and I don't think she relished that thought since Baby J has one very powerful set of lungs.

I was more nervous about the fact that after the first dose, we had to wait ten minutes for the second dose (Round 2) and then wait a half hour for the drops to work before seeing the doctor. How was I supposed to placate an increasingly restless, tired and now angry baby?

Thankfully, her milk feed took up the whole ten minutes and after Round 2 of screaming, the workout her lungs got left her so exhausted she napped through the half hour, as did Mommy because I was exhausted from the activities of the night before and the morning.

The verdict? For now, we don't need for Baby J to become Baby Pirate J with the patch but we'll have to go back and check on her again and go through the whole ringmarole again. Next time, I bring toys. But for now, I shall ignore the fact that her eyes are crossed, because even then, she is mighty pixie cute and her crossed eyes just make her look all the more intense.



I think with those eyes, there is great potential for her to inherit Mommy's evil eye and with that personality of hers, I have no doubt she will learn how to use it very quickly and very effectively.

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