It’s been a busy winter so far in the Saunders household. In December, I wrapped up my piano concerto just in time for us to drive to Oklahoma to pick up our new baby girl, Melia Noelle. She’s doing wonderfully, and it’s great to have a baby in the house again. This is my second time becoming a father, of course, and fatherhood has been the second greatest adventure of my life so far (with marriage being the first). I’ve been learning by watching Noah the last three-and-a-half years, and now I can learn by watching Melia, too. It’s yet another change in perspective for me, because I’ve never lived with a little girl before–I only have one brother. The next eighteen years or so should prove very educational. Six months ago, we thought that Noah was it, and our household would max out at three, but having a sibling is going to bring a balance to Noah’s life that I think is critical–not that single children can’t grow up to be good people, of course, but my life has been profoundly different–and better–because I had to learn to live with my brother (who now lives in Germany, and who I miss horrendously every day!). As much as Becky’s life and my life changed on December 6, Noah’s life changed even more, because Melia will probably be the one who he knows the longest.
Noah has a change in perception coming up. At preschool, he failed an eye exam a couple of months back, so we followed up with a pediatric opthamologist. He seems to have the same astigmatism that both his parents have, but is apparently hyperopic, or far-sighted, where Becky and I are both near-sighted. We didn’t suspect that he had vision problems, but it explains some things that we chalked up to his personality–namely, that he won’t sit still to learn letters and words (I backed way off of that this summer when it was frustrating us to the point that it seemed to be doing more harm than good). If he is, in fact, hyperopic (which we will determine at a follow-up appointment), the kid can only see the flashcards with a lot of strain and concentration, which is tiring and taxing to the three-year-old attention span. It probably means glasses, and many kids have a degree of hyperopia.
What struck me, though, is how his world will change when he got those glasses. Like the souls in Plato’s cave, Noah has no idea that the world can look any differently than it does–and frankly, those of us with corrected vision have no assurance that we see things as they are, either. Descartes held that only an evil demon of a God would make reality an illusion, but to an extent it is–we only perceive a tiny fraction of the electromagnetic and sonic spectra, and most of the Universe is beyond our ability to detect because of the finite speed of light. We are limited to three dimensions and time flows in a single direction from our experience. Yet, when Noah gets his glasses, everything will change. Meanwhile, I’m planning to buy one of those sets of letters that you see in classrooms above the blackboard for Noah’s playroom wall. And I have no idea how you keep glasses on a three-year-old’s face…
Matt,
I enjoyed your blog (and its allusions), so I thought I might give you a little reassurance regarding your son’s diagnosis. I, too, have an astigmatism along with being far-sighted. In addition, I have a lazy eye which required surgery to correct. And, yes, the fam has pictures of me at 3 1/2 with my first pair of glasses — thick lenses with dramatic wings. Imagine what they looked like on a child in the early 50’s! The day may be one of my earliest memories because it was cold and snowy, and when I entered our house, my glasses steamed up, rendering me temporarily blind. I began crying.
But those glasses changed my life in countless ways: I became a reader, I got teased throughout junior high, I begged for contact lenses but had to wait until the technology arrived to put my correction in a small [glass] lens. When it did, I was first in line, and at age sixteen, I got my contacts AND my first boyfriend, all in the same week. After that, no one saw me in glasses unless I was about to take a shower or go swimming. 🙂 So predictable, isn’t it? Now, as I am retired and moving toward Medicare, I don’t give a damn at all about having my contacts [now gas-permeable] in. In fact, I have several styles of glasses and love the fact that I see better with them on. The may, in fact, cover up my pillowy eyes. Yesterday a young hipster sort stopped me in a theater to ask where I got my glasses. Made my day!
You have many adventures ahead. Plus, by the time your son enters middle school, there will be a simple surgery or implant to correct his vision. You have no worries! 🙂
Glad you liked it! The blog is really about my artistic journey in every sense, and what is more germane to that journey than what I can learn from the larger journey that is life (the artistic journey would be cold and sterile without the larger one!). The old line about “Boys don’t make passes about girls who wear glasses” is unfortunately true, although I always thought a girl in a fashionable, clean pair of spectacles could look great! I’m not worried about Noah–he has enough charm and bouyancy in his personality that friends and (eventually) girlfriends won’t be a problem–in fact, I anticipate him having girl problems that I was never able to imagine. He will definitely be the 4’8″ seventh-grade boy with the 5’8″ “girlfriend!” My wife and I have both had corrective lenses (and in Becky’s case, surgery) our entire lives, and we’re both readers. We’re both just very glad that we’re figuring this out when Noah still has a year of preschool left–kindergarten is hardcore these days, and we don’t want him to fall behind! Good to hear from you!