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Ophthalmologist visit.
Sep. 5th, 2007 12:00 pmWe took Alex to the ophthalmologist this morning. She's being checked annually for strabismus, because I had surgery for it as a child, and Michael probably needed surgery for it but didn't get it. This time last year, we had a pretty stressful trip to the opthalmologist - as I recall, she fussed the whole time, and was pretty much hysterical all through the dilated eye exam. Today's visit went much better.
We did a little preparation beforehand. Several times over the past few weeks, I told her that soon we would be going to the eye doctor and rehearsed what the eye doctor would do. This morning, I got out her toy otoscope and a flashlight and gave an eye exam to a teddy bear and then to Alex, and then Alex gave me one. That got her very excited about the whole trip, and she went to the exam room eagerly.
In my job before grad school, I gave vision tests to infant monkeys. So I knew that it was possible, if not easy, to test the visual acuity of someone who can't read an eye chart. I was interested to see how they tested Alex. ( Read more... )
The upshot of it all: Alex's eyes are perfectly fine. So fine that we can skip next year's exam and just follow up again when she's four. Yay.
I did notice one thing today. Alex decided that she wanted to wear a dress, so I put her in a pretty but practical plaid cotton sundress. All through our trip to the opthalmologist, she got much, much more of a particular kind of attention than usual: syrupy, fawning comments from the office staff and from strangers in the elevator about "Aren't you beauuuutiful. You look sooooo pretty in that dress, but I bet you aaaallllways look beautiful."
It seems as though just putting her in a dress instead of shorts - and it's not that fancy a dress - is enough to trigger a huge explosion of hyperfeminine assumptions. I hated it. Alex seemed embarrassed by it, but also pleased. I swear it's almost enough to make me want to permanently dress her in shapeless gender-neutral coveralls.
We did a little preparation beforehand. Several times over the past few weeks, I told her that soon we would be going to the eye doctor and rehearsed what the eye doctor would do. This morning, I got out her toy otoscope and a flashlight and gave an eye exam to a teddy bear and then to Alex, and then Alex gave me one. That got her very excited about the whole trip, and she went to the exam room eagerly.
In my job before grad school, I gave vision tests to infant monkeys. So I knew that it was possible, if not easy, to test the visual acuity of someone who can't read an eye chart. I was interested to see how they tested Alex. ( Read more... )
The upshot of it all: Alex's eyes are perfectly fine. So fine that we can skip next year's exam and just follow up again when she's four. Yay.
I did notice one thing today. Alex decided that she wanted to wear a dress, so I put her in a pretty but practical plaid cotton sundress. All through our trip to the opthalmologist, she got much, much more of a particular kind of attention than usual: syrupy, fawning comments from the office staff and from strangers in the elevator about "Aren't you beauuuutiful. You look sooooo pretty in that dress, but I bet you aaaallllways look beautiful."
It seems as though just putting her in a dress instead of shorts - and it's not that fancy a dress - is enough to trigger a huge explosion of hyperfeminine assumptions. I hated it. Alex seemed embarrassed by it, but also pleased. I swear it's almost enough to make me want to permanently dress her in shapeless gender-neutral coveralls.
