Like my use of British English spelling? I’ve already switched over to saying “takeaway” instead of “to go,” “mobile” instead of “cell” and “kilometers” instead of “miles.” If this continues, I’ll be off having tea with the Queen (or Princess Kate and baby George) by next year!
Last week was a rough week. Non-stop, in the car, a bazillion appointments, just as hot as always, roadblocks (life ones, not literal ones) constantly appearing in front of me . . . battles to fight, things to be aggravated about, and no time to myself.
So far this week the 4 month heat wave has broken, the house is quiet, dinner is in the oven, and there’s only one item left on my TO DO list for today. Much better.
If I were going to guess what this post was going to be about, based on the title, I would imagine some stirring prose about how my children are surrounded by kids from other cultures, how they are getting a diverse eduction both in the classroom and in the lunchroom; how beautiful it is that we can give them a foundation that exposes them to such a wide variety of experiences . . . yeah, not quite. It turns out my boys are somewhat colorblind. Color deficient, to be exact.
Calvin has been asking to go to the eye doctor to get his eyes checked because last spring he had a teacher who wrote on the white board in red pen and he said it was hard to read it sometimes. Good mom that I am told him to sit up closer so he 1) wouldn’t be distracted and 2) didn’t have to strain to make out the words. I knew there was a possibility that any of the kids could inherit Josh’s less than perfect vision (no longer true thanks to laser eye surgery) and since Josh was about 13 when that happened, when I made my eye appointment, I also made one for the 2 older boys.
I mentioned to the tech that Calvin had trouble reading red on the white board and he dismissed it saying, “That’s not likely.” So we were both stunned when he pulled out his color book and instead of seeing a brown 47 inside the green circle, Calvin stared at it for a few seconds and said, “Um . . . hmm . . . 21?” The next one was 7, but he couldn’t see anything in that circle. The technician raised his eyebrows at me and I laughed and said, “I guess he couldn’t see red very well on the white board!” Then Carter walked over and said, “There’s supposed to be numbers inside those circles?” Oh gosh.
Both boys appear to have similar red/green color deficiencies, but not enough to impact their daily lives (one of the reasons it has gone undetected for so long). As far as we can tell, it’s very mild and there isn’t anything to do for it. Except to make jokes like, “I hope you like the red peppers on your sandwich” when they are actually green and watch them do a double-take. Yes, I’m mean.
As far as regular vision, Calvin has one pretty good eye and one bad eye so it will be interesting to see how glasses/contacts help him. I couldn’t believe when he went to read the eye chart and had to go 2 lines bigger than normal to read back the letters. Poor kid. Carter has a very mild prescription and doesn’t need glasses, but he wants them for reading so we’re getting him a pair (inexpensive at Zennioptical.com) to try and see if it helps him to focus.
They are certainly a mix of Josh and I — the colorblindness from me (it’s genetically passed down from the mother) and the less than 20/20 vision from Josh. Our next medical adventure: sports physicals.
