Eye can C U now.

A couple of years ago i got some new glasses, but didn’t really find they helped all that much after the initial “oooh, that’s a bit better” and after a while i gave up wearing them. (Josie also tore the arm off them and i sat on a pair, neither of which helped.) Today i had my eyes tested again and before she started, i asked her to please listen while i explained that i was finding certain elements of my eyesight a bit disquieting and that although i knew my prescription was still slight, the fact that i’d recently had a car accident made me want to get someone to listen. She did, which was very good of her, and i explained that one eye felt constantly physically tired and like it was working too hard and that i felt very unbalanced a lot of the time because my eyes seem to focus at a slightly different rate. I’ve always had slightly different eye prescription ( i assume most people do) and a slight astigmatism in one eye.

She did various extra tests that i haven’t had done before and spent a bit of time working out what eye does what and it turns out that my left eye (the one that always feels tired and like it does all the work) is 80% dominant and my right eye is doing almost nothing at all, virtually a passenger on my face. My brain is only using my left eye. Now as i’m left anded, she says, this isn’t too bad because my body is set up to be coordinated on that side; if i had been right handed someone would probably have noticed earlier as my eyes would have struggled.

UNFORTUNATELY, it is my left eye that is 3/4 of a point out with the astigmatism, while my right eye is almost perfect. I snuffled and said all the people i know/live with/was brought up by with 6 or 7 point prescriptions laugh at this pissy little amount of wrong-eyed-ness to which she said “yes, well, they’d soon notice if someone altered their prescription by 3/4 of a point!” And so now i have specs that i’m supposed to wear all the time, not just for driving, as my poor old left eye is all worn out. FORTUNATELY, i found some rather lovely ones that make me feel positively sassy, they were made in an hour and when i put them on i actually gasped because the writing on the wall in front of me instantly went from fuzzy grey to sharp black! Even more fortunately, the prescription itself is slight enough that i wasn’t actually driving without when i should have had them but i can tell that everything is a damn sight (boom boom) better now.

Even better, this nice optician is going to see Maddy this week and prescribe her plain glass glasses. She been wearing a black plastic pair constantly for months now and they seem to really help her sense of well being; i don’t know if it is the weight on her face or the sense of the world being framed and under control, but the affect has been noticeable and for the sake of a pair of specs, i’m prepared to try it as she’s been finding the world tough lately. If i can just rid them of nits, my work is done. I say THEM as Fran now has them too; she didn’t, on Wednesday, when i combed her thoroughly and then went to work requesting she and Maddy please both tie up their hair and avoided wrestling – but they both chose to ignore me and now she has them too. 🙄 Mumma does know best, you see. (As an aside, i made our Polish Cleaner laugh this week by saying that St Nicholas came 3 days late this year sue to untidy bedrooms! She was horrified!)

On Friday i went out to work and left them with the usual EC, music, tidy your room, brush your hair, pack for the weekend list – when i got home they hadn’t done any of that but Fran had learned to do piecharts in Excel – she had one of how she had spent her day, which unfortunately for the girl who “hadn’t had time” to complete my list, showed 32% watching TV!!!! 😆 Still, the piechart was educational 😆

Sob story of the week is that i took them to see Father Christmas, conveniently located in a Tesco near us.. Josie wouldn’t speak to him as she “hadn’t realised he was actually REAL!!!!” 😆 However, i did nearly cry when he asked the older ones what they wanted and they all said “nothing really, we just want mummy to be at home….” 😥 On Monday this week they staged a mutiny and refused to eat dinner until i came home to eat it with them 🙁 It has been hard. Still, while we were walking round town today we were thinking that if we were a shop and 600 individual sales rang through the tills each day when there were only ever 3 people serving in the shop at a time, you’d think you were pretty busy, which puts into perspective just how many people we have sent items to this Christmas – only 2 making me cry isn’t so bad.

The kids are away and we’ve finished work (nearly, 2 people made me cry yesterday) and all that remains in the last stuff on Monday which MF is in for; we’ve had the house cleaned, we’ve actually bought the kids (and ourselves) some presents and we’re almost ready for the end. I’m over the moon because in a flash of brilliance, i have thought of (and got) the most perfect present for Amelie 🙂 Amazingly 150 people have placed orders since i finished last night 🙄 I’m still not sure how to respond to the email i had today from someone who placed an order on the 18th, chose Special Delivery postage, had the item by 9am the next day and then emailed me to complain that she was disgusted to have to pay p&p and i should be ashamed of myself for making a profit out of selling toys that are for children. That would be me the charity then?