The Daily Hailey

Dekkers glasses broke yesterday. Its not the best thing in the world, nor the worst. Broken glasses + no insurance = new glasses + lots of money spent out of pocket. There sure aren’t a lot of options for buying off the rack for kids, if any, and his glasses broke right before every optical shop in the city was closed for the day. So I gave up for the night and I planned to bring the kids to the city at the end of Brady’s work day and we could go figure everything out together.

This morning, a few things changed. Firstly, the house that Brady is working on is a house that he’s more so repairing after someone couldn’t complete it to the home builders standards, and as it tends to happen, Brady found additional work there that we hadn’t bargained for. Knowing he’d have to work later than expected, we decided I would come in with the kids sooner rather than later, we would get lunch and break up his day with the glasses fiasco, and then he could go back to work for a few hours. So our timeline changed. The other change was in the ease of the day. Last night, when the glasses broke, we realized we had no copy of Dekker’s prescription, and Brady had called his optometrists office to ask for a copy. They had emailed him one and we figured we were clear. However, upon closer inspection, we saw we had a problem. We had originally takes Dekker to see this optometrist, and she had prescribed him a fairly high strength lens. We were referred to his paediatric ophthalmologist soon after, Dr. Rubab, and she prescribed something we were much happier with. When we went back to the optometrists office to purchase glasses, we gave them the new prescription and asked to use that one. They agreed and updated it in their computer, but what actually happened was they made a tiny little fine printed note at the bottom of their prescription for him. I didn’t ask to keep the hard copy, as I figured it had all happened pretty thoroughly, but what we were given when we asked for our prescription was not a valid prescription at all. Sorry if none of that made sense! Lots of info to work with here. So after that was kind of a bust, I figured I’d call Dr. Rubabs office and ask them to email me Dekker’s prescription. I spoke to Dr. Rubabs personal secretary, and she told me that every other clerical staff member had called in sick and she was manning the desk on her own, and I know how crazy that line up can get! Poor her 🙁 She still went into his file for me, though, and told me his most recent prescription was dated in 2013. I told her that we were just in the office not two weeks ago, and that Dr. Rubab had checked for a prescription change, but there hadn’t been one really at all. She said that was not uncommon for it to not be updated until numbers actually changed. However, I know lots of optical shops won’t deal with a prescription that is over a year old. However, the woman on the phone could only help so much, so I offered to come pick up the prescription in person and she jumped at that. Even though it was an old script, I hoped someone would understand my tale of woes and help me out. The last place I called was one optical shop, right downtown, that I know is usually pretty quiet and had wide open spaces. Sounds silly, but that counts for something when you’re bringing three kids somewhere! The woman I spoke to listened to my story and said that she totally understood and that lots of ophthalmologists did things that way, and she would have no problem filling a bit of an older prescription. Yay! I told her I’d see her in a few hours. Thrilled!!

Just getting the kids out to the van was a bit of a challenge. With the beautiful weather, we get this glassy icy patch from our sidewalk out into our driveway, and it is way to big to be salted away. I can barely make it to the van, much less help the kids. So four trips to and from the house got all three kids and the diaper bag into the van. Once that was all done, the drive was completely clear, and we picked Brady up from work so we could all go together. And I am pleased to report that our day ran so nice and smooth and in order! We grabbed some drive thru lunch and the kids ate while we drove to our stops. First, the hospital. I ran in and grabbed the prescription from Dr. Rubabs office. Completely seamless, except that woman in the elevator. You know those people who just outright stare at you, shamelessly and unceasingly? Who does that?! I had to laugh a little bit, because I would make eye contact with her and try to smile and be friendly, but she would just keep staring. Weird. But I got the script, so onto the next place, which was the optometrists office. I went in to get Dekker’s glasses tack welded back together so he has something while we wait to find new ones, or while they’re on order. There was no line, so I could go right back. They hemmed and hawed a little bit, since they were past their warranty, and agreed to tack them together, with no guarantee, while melting the front of the frames quite a bit, and still charged me $40 for it. Kind of a merp moment, but it needed to be done. The kid needs glasses. It was done in less than five minutes and I was back out in the van.

Our next stop was the optical shop that agreed to take our prescription. We figured we may end up at other shops, but this was a safe place to start. Before we went in, I gave Dekker the toy from his happy meal, which luckily was a Hot Wheels car. I told him he could play with it in the store if he was quiet and cooperative, and he agreed. It was nice and quiet inside, and he was completely distracted with the car, so we had no trouble getting him in and over to the kids glasses. He wasn’t particularly fond of us trying multiple frames on him over and over, but he held it together pretty well. He even let a salesperson take frames off of his face, or adjust them while they were on him. He doesn’t usually like new people so close in his space, but he was incredibly calm and cooperative! However, we learned very quickly that plastic frames don’t fit his face yet 🙁 He has no nose bridge whatsoever, and it shows. None of the frames would stay up on his face. Every time I would slide a pair onto his face, he would tip his head down, look at me overtop of them, and make a funny face. Cute, but not what we were hoping for. None of the wire frames were especially fun, or different than what he wears now. Not that I don’t like his current glasses, but we’re buying him new ones and were hoping for a new, trendier look. I was pretty disappointed that nothing we liked would fit. We finally settled on a cool frame that was similar to the ones he has now, but slightly larger lenses. They were a good price, and if we had to go with wire, these were the ones. On a whim, I tried on one more pair of plastic frames. They didn’t jump out at me at all, being that they were a weird light color, with light arms. I was definitely leaning towards the darker frames. But I slid these plastic frames on him, and they fit flawlessly. Dekker checked himself out in the mirror and seemed really happy with them too. I took them off of his face to read the specs on the side (width of lenses, distance between lenses, and arm length) and while I was looking at the numbers, Dekker slowly reached up, took them gently from my hands, and slipped them back on. Decision made. No hesitation. We headed over to the desk to order them.

The sales lady started taking down our information, and asked for the prescription. I gave it to her, and her first reaction was “Ooooh, this is an old one. We can’t use this.” I went back over my day with her, and explained that we had recently had an eye exam and that the numbers had stayed the same. Also, I told her I had called earlier and was told it would be no problem at all. She gave me a few little snarky comments, like “Well, I know the law, sooo…” and told me her manager would be so angry at her for putting the order through. She tried to call Dr. Rubabs office, but being that they’re super understaffed today, no one answered. That seemed to set her off a bit extra. Finally, she asked her manager to come talk to us and see if there was anything that count be done. I was so pleased when her response was “Oh! We talked earlier on the phone, didn’t we? Yes, thats no problem at all.” Yay! So we proceeded with the order. Dekker cooperated beautifully while the manager made him look through an instrument that measures the distance between his pupils, and even helped hold the device still. Before we had talked any specifics, we were told our price, and while it was a great price, it was only the price of the frames. All of these prescription issues, I was going to get the lenses come hell or high water! I was then informed that we would be getting the kids discount, where we somehow qualified for free lenses!! Granted, they don’t have all the coatings or thinning treatments on them, but they’re free!!I was completely thrilled, and we happily paid what then felt like a measly $139.95 for Dekker’s new glasses. Hopefully they’ll come in over the next week or so, but just knowing they’re on their way helps a lot.

When we left the store, Dekker politely asked me for his new glasses. I explained to him that we had to wait to get them in the mail. He didn’t throw a fit or scream or anything, but he was not happy. As soon as we set foot outside the shop, he raised his voice a little bit and said “I still feel mad!” Call me crazy, but I was incredibly proud of him in that moment! How we work and work for him to learn to use his words instead of just pitching a fit, and this was the first time that he opted for words first. I immediately got down to his eye level and hugged him and told him how proud of him I was, and that I was sad to leave the glasses behind too. We had a good moment of being sad together, and then the day continued. I really couldn’t have been happier with how it all turned out.

So I WISH I could tell you all about the glasses but I kind of want them to be a surprise when they come. I know if Dekker understood, he would be excited to show them off as a surprise, too 🙂 But they are PERFECT for him, and he loves them enough to be sad to leave them behind. That order cannot go through fast enough!!!

Funny how something that seems like its going to be so bad can make for a pretty smooth and exciting day.

Can’t resist adding a couple Roro pictures at the end, from when we got home and he was all dozey.

He just takes my breath away.