spectacles!

Today, with much excitement, Eldest got his first pair of glasses. Given that both my husband and I, and all his grandparents wear glasses, he was pretty happy to become one of the club. It's still early days, but he seems to really enjoy them for reading books with me and playing video games. And they are totally adorable.

When I left this space, I was busy angsting over whether to continue with Eldest homeschooling. We decided to continue, but with the awareness that some things needed to change. Some of those things still haven't changed, but are improving slowly (I am making friends but it is a slow process), and some things did change. We have started working with an occupational therapist, mostly on a hunch. It's helping us understand some of Eldest's sensory-seeking behaviour, and helping accommodate his needs, which makes for considerably more peace. The first thing she suggested was getting his vision tested, because apparently binocular vision problems have symptoms that overlap with ADHD and ADD (although we had no concerns about those disorders for Eldest). We had to wait a long time for the test, but we had it a few weeks ago. Although he tested 20/20 when they put the drops in that dilate the pupils and relax the focusing muscles, it turns out he's far-sighted. This may explain some of his resistance to printing and sounding out words, and why he's amazing at sight recognition, especially on (faraway) signs he reads while we're driving.

When I found this out, my first response was happiness that we'd continued homeschooling. Because he's young and his muscles are so elastic, he can see fine up close when he really focuses, but his eyes probably tire out really quickly doing it. But I'm quite certain that if he'd continued in school with its mandatory desk work and printing, I think he would have miserable. At home, we've been able to keep all the pressure off, so he reads when he wants and writes letters to friends and family when he wants. I do often ask if he wants to try out a word or phrase, but if he doesn't want to I never push it. And he has on several occasions spontaneously started reading one of Youngest's board books to Youngest, which is just the most adorable sight I think I've ever seen.