Eye Doctor

Yesterday was one of those days that after 9 years of parenting I should've known better…but even the best of us have momentary lapses in judgment. For whatever reason I scheduled Cade's annual eye appointment at the same time Jay was gone to Columbia for State Convention. Then on top of that horror, I had a lot (and I mean a whole lot) of errands to run after the appointment. What was I thinking?

With Cade's heredity eye issue (which did not come from my side by the way) we've spent a lot of time in the eye doctor the last 8 years. But yesterday Dr. A said we could wait 2 years to come back (yea!), unless Cade has symptoms of eye strain because he does have an astigmatism (which did come from me unfortunately). The bad news was that Dr. A needed to dilate his eyes. Cade hates having his eyes dilated – which I don't blame him. I've only had it done once and I didn't care for it. Then on top of that the Dr. mentioned that Cade has weird looking nerves….Ok, that was the first time this was mentioned. Because of these funky nerves we need to test him for glaucoma every couple of years. I about fell out of the chair….He's 9 and he behaved horribly with the eye drops from just that day. Could you imagine giving him eye drops every day for glaucoma? They had to put in numbing drops so they could test his pressure, which came out totally fine, but Cade did not like it one bit. I asked the Dr. If his pressure was normal and he said yes, that actually it was below normal. Then somewhat to him he says "with nerves like that you want the pressure to be below normal". Nice.

After that hour long visit we were finally on our way to tackle the other errands…I needed to go to a couple of fabric stores and then I had to make several stops for a wedding shower we are having at church Saturday and a couple other stops for some Icebox business. It was rough, especially when you glance in the rearview mirror and see the geriatric 9 year old ticked off in the backseat. They gave him some of those disposable huge sunglasses to help with the dilation. He didn't want to wear them outside of the car so he'd close his eyes and I'd help him into the stores. I did feel sorry for him because I know that hurts and yesterday was pretty sunny. But that did not help his mood…and either did driving, stopping, getting out, running into a store, getting back in the car and driving some more. You know those days…you are just exhausted from the getting in and out. Then twice my water bottle tipped over after I got out of the car and soaked my seat. Luckily at one of the fabric stores they put my material in a small garbage bag so I used that to cover my seat…but I missed one area and had to walk around with a wet rear for part of yesterday. I asked Cade if it was very noticeable and he said "well, we've all had wet pants at some point in our lives". That was helpful.

Our last stop was Starbucks. As Cade put it "we were pooped" so I felt like I deserved a coffee for the drive home. Apparently the lady working at Starbucks wasn't having a great day and she probably wished I didn't stop by and make her day worse. I got my coffee and was adding the cream, which I almost dropped and did one of those things where you just can't get your hands on it. Finally it hit my coffee and spilt the whole thing everywhere then my purse fell off my arm and landed right in the middle of the whole mess. The poor girl had to pull out the mop and move the counter. It was a huge mess and I felt horrible about it.

When I got back in the car after that disaster Cade said "what a day – we are pooped aren't we." I said "You have no idea…." Jay will now be accompanying us on any future eye appointments. It's not fair for me to have all the fun.