Took the Snickerdoodle to an opthamology appointment today. (For the record she was less than thrilled - we're dealing with some significant stranger anxiety in her these days, probably because so many of the ones she's known up until now want to poke and prod at her all the time.)  She's both cross eyed and VERY near sighted, and so is being followed on a fairly regular basis to make sure her glasses prescription is still what is should be.  She'll be seen at the eye clinic once a month until December, at which point  they'll decide if she's making acceptable progress with the eye patch mystique or if she's going to end up needing corrective surgery.  I'm hoping for the former of course - no one is thrilled with the idea of their 13 month old going under anestesia, but then on the other hand I know now how very very much Kaia's world is impacted by the ease with which she can see.

For example...she got her first set of glasses at about 9 months.  Before that I couldn't get her to crawl further than two feet away from me for anything.  Now?  She's all over the house at mach 10 (mach eleven if the dry cat food dish is in sight!) And while she may scream at the sight of doctors and physical therapists some days, (No touching with out saying hello and playing a little first) both have played a big role in getting her where she is today - still struggling some, but also on target for the larger number of her developmental milestones...

That's the balance I think, when dealing with kid who may need different types of medical intervention (especially surgery).  You want to give them time to come into their own and spare them as much pain as possible when its not absolutely necessary, but at the same time, you also don't want them to lag far to behind, or have them just give up because of fear or repeated failure based frustration.  Sometimes it's a tightrope you
can't help but teeter on and hope that they'll just forgive you in the end.