Life: Idiotropic

September 2006

A letter from the school nurse recommends that Arianna be seen for her vision. I called to schedule an appointment, but there is only an optometrist here at this base every quarter, so she was put on the waiting list.

November 2006

The lady from the base calls one day to make an appointment for Aria. They had all her information, age, etc at the original phone call I made in September. Now I had a real appointment - lucky me since the wait list was long. The very next day I got a call back cancelling the appointment - she is too young (why couldn't they tell me that in September and save me the time?). So, I got a number of a place in Sittard-Geleen (why couldn't they have given me that info in Sept as well?). I called and made an appointment for just a couple weeks later! Yeah!

December 2006

Arianna has an appointment in this tiny old house with horribly dangerous steep windy stairs that should not be used by the vision impaired. The first part of the appointment was downstairs where a very nice woman looked at her eyes first, then had her sit in a chair and have Aria tell what pictures she saw on the poster. One of the pictures was of a skeleton key and Aria didn't know what it was, so they just skipped that one. It was hard for me to watch her struggle with some of the pictures squinting so hard trying to decipher them. I'd never had an eye test like that done, so it was interesting to watch the lady slip different lenses into the frames that Aria wore and have Aria go from squinting to instant recognition and excitement that she could now see the pictures. After that she had more tests done with several big machine things (sorry - don't know the lingo - it's all new), then we went upstairs to see the doctor who dilated her eyes, made us wait 45 minutes, then checked them again. Arianna is nearsighted in one eye and has astigmatism in the other. We have a prescription to get glasses.

1/15/07
Tonight I took Arianna with me when I took Tiara to ballet. She and I walked over to Pearle to get her glasses where she tried on a lot just to laugh at herself in the mirror really only taking the pink ones seriously. We ordered two pairs. She asked a lot of questions and is very excited. The nice Dutch man had to stop and think a couple times to answer her in English, but he was very friendly and listened to her.

2/2/07

Now, two weeks later, it's time to pick up Arianna's glasses and she's so excited!

I took her to Pearle tonight to get them. She stood at the magnifying mirror making silly faces while I waited in line. The kind Dutch lady put both pairs on Arianna in turn and then let her watch as she heated up the frames and bent them a little to make them fit her better. Arianna instantly put one on, then started moving her head all around and made herself dizzy. In the first 30 minutes of wearing her glasses, she fell down four times. I walked with her and held her hand until I knew she was stable.

There's a difference - she can tell and she's so happy.

The markt was beautiful tonight almost completely decorated for carnival with large red, green, and yellow flags hanging from the buildings, streamers, and big masks. Arianna ran around and played while I took a few photos and discovered a new setting on my camera that should make the evening shots a bit better.
In celebration of her new pink fashion statements, we went into a toy store to look around and then I set her loose in the Jamin candy store with a Euro that she could spend. She picked out little candies for herself and her sisters and paid the lady. The cashier asked, "English?" Arianna answered "yes" and was very polite.

On a totally unrelated note: This morning was Spanish morning. I saw photos of Mallorca where we'll most likely go in September and we ended up talking about movies and tv. Daffy Duck is called Pato Lukas in Spain. And, our Hill Street Blues, was translated into "Las Canciones Tristes de Hill Street," meaning "The Sad Songs of Hill Street." Whoever did that one didn't get the connection with the police wearing blues. So silly.