More Fun With Etymology

So…if you’re not new here, you may recall that my 12yo has a lazy eye.

But if you are newish, I shall quickly catch you up.

When my now-12yo was 5 years old, we took him to the pediatrician for his Kindergarten shots; while we were there, they performed a cursory eye test…because they are awesome like that. And it was IMMEDIATELY clear to parties all involved (via his squirming from my grip because I was the one covering his eyes one at a time so he could read the chart at the end of the hall…and when I covered his good eye and he couldn’t even read the big letter “E” on the chart) that there may be a SLIGHT problem with the vision in his left eye.

So off we went to the eye doctor. After the battery of tests and the eye drops to dilate his eyes (which was THE WORST part of the entire ordeal.) Have you ever held a squirmy, resistant 5yo, pining his arms to his sides while a doctor tried to put drops (albeit drops which BURNED) into the child’s eyes? I know I’m painting quite a picture of the party that it was and if you’ve never done it, you should. Everyone should at least once in his or her lifetime. You simply have not lived.

P-A-R-T-Y.

Anyway, after the eye exam it was determined that he had lazy eye.

And not just a SLIGHT lazy eye. 20/800 lazy eye.

Oh yes. That’s kind of bad, for those of you keeping score at home.

I wonder where in the world he would get such a weird anomaly in his vision?

Oh wait…I believe his mother has 20/400 vision in her left eye also…which was never corrected, but she doesn’t blame her parents. She simply prays (as her current doctor encouraged her to do) that nothing ever happens to her right eye otherwise she will be (simply put) up a creek.

So, this potential issue for at least one of my children (and BTW the 10yo does NOT have it, thank you very much…we were a little bit more proactive with that one…ah, the benefits of NOT being the first-born, right?) probably should have been on my radar but it was not. Don’t judge.

We fixed it (through patching the good eye, then dilating the good eye daily so he was forced to use the lazy eye, eye exercises, LOTS of eye doctor appointments…all sorts of fun.)

I LOVE this picture. He's so stinkin' cute...and that's not just because I'm his mama.
This is his first day of Kindergarten, with his first pair of glasses...cute little wire-rims like Mommy wanted him to get.
I believe it was the last time I had much influence in the decision, but he does a nice job choosing them now.

And now he sees through that eye at about 20/50.

And the right eye, you may be wondering, is 20/20. So he has glasses (obviously) but the right side is not corrective.

You may be wondering where I’m going with all this.

Or if you’ve read my blog previously, you are probably not wondering this at all...you're simply along for the ride. You know I'll (probably) get to my point.

And look at that...we have arrived at the point. (Smooth transition, no?)

Anyway, the lazy eye came up in our etymology this week with the 10yo. Each week, they get a list of 6 etymology stems. They have various activities they have to do with the stems, but one of them is to write a sentence using a word made from that stem which would give a reader the context clues to discern what the word and/or stem means.

The stem was “mono”.

This was his sentence: “My brother needed a monocle but he got regular glasses instead.”

Don’t worry…he passed.

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