Eye Exercises

This post could also be titled "ways to torture your children"!  Once we were into the full swing of school and our fall schedule I started having concerns about Elizabeth.  She was complaining of a lot of headaches.  I had ruled out some basic things it could be (dehydration, allergies, etc...) but it was time to go to the eye doctor.  Good news, she has great vision!  Nothing wrong with what her eyes see.  Bad news, her eyes don't move the way they should.  We were sent to a specialist for testing and it was concluded that her eyes were not tracking or hitting targets the way that they should.  Apparently, this is typically not something diagnosed at her age so we were lucky to have figured it out so early because we could start correcting it.  And that was the best news, it was correctable!  However, the way to correct it is to strengthen the eye muscles through muscle memory.  In this day of advanced medicine and technology the exercise to hold two popsicle sticks (only one shown above!) and varying distances/points and move your focus back and fourth between the two.  Seems simple enough, but try doing it for 15 minutes solid.  We did that for a few weeks and went back for a check and they really weren't seeing the results that they wanted so the time was increased to 30 minutes, broken into two - 15 minutes periods.  We would try to get one in before school and then the other after school.  After a few weeks of this we went back for another check and I was really hoping that we would be released from this eye exercise hell, but no! Since it was working and they were seeing results they wanted us to continue for 3 more weeks.  My dad was ready to write an app with jumping images or something, because it had to be better than these darn sticks with a sticker on them and trust me we had many sticks with lots of different types of stickers on them to keep it fun! (it was never fun...except for when we would sing a song together and let me just say we sing T.Swift's This Love beautifully! I mean our harmony is amazing, I don't know why Grant would always leave the room?).  The first week of December we went back for another check and she was released from her eye exercise!! We had breakfast burritos to celebrate!  Her eyes can now hit the targets the way they should and after a few days the headaches seem to have gone away too.  Eyes Sticks...a very special time in our life that we would like to all forget!! I know you might be thinking I am being dramatic but her eye exercises were painful for all involved!  But we persevered as a team and she worked hard and she kept her eye on the prize - no more sticks!!!