Whose idea was it?

I had an eye appointment today. With big eye machines that need you to sit very still. With expensive equipment. With shelves of products that say Prada, Fendi, and (keep naming the big names)…

Whose idea was it to bring a one-year old?

Oh yeah, mine. And for several reasons.

We’re down to one car right now. I drove Du to work today, so for him to be able to take off work to watch the kids would entail another 40 minutes in the car, 40 miles on the truck and about $100 in gas.

Also, it seems that I’ve given up preplanning and all it’s benefits. Therefore, finding a babysitter in the middle of the day is out of the question. Which leads to,

I’m too cheap to hire a babysitter anyway for a 30 minute appointment. SO LET THE FUN BEGIN!

All is going well in the waiting room. There’s actually a space for tots to play. It’s literally a 3 feet x 3 feet area with a small opening. Obviously this place doesn’t expect too many kids. Normal people don’t bring their kids to eye appointments.

To the left of the play area, without any barrier what-so-ever are the display cases of eye and sun glasses. Open display cases that start from the floor and go up. Did I mention that they were open? Because, to a crawling baby expensive glasses look a whole lot like a cool toy.

I fill out “the paperwork” (which means eyes must be focused on paper, not on kids) and we are called back for the exam. I don’t know if this tech has ever experienced a crawling, nosy baby and a talkative, nosy 5 year-old before. So, I give her kudos for not even giving a dirty look.

In the first room I have to look into these machines that require you to be very still. I start out with Ashlyn on my lap because I don’t want her crawling around amongst the big, expensive equipment. The first eye goes well apparently. I have to set her down for the second eye because she is now head butting the table that this machine is sitting on…and nothing is still at that point.

I set her on the floor by Reagan, who is asking questions like “what are they doing to your eyes, Mommy?” “What are you looking at?” “Can I see in that?” ad nauseam. The only thing I can get out quickly is “feed her.” I turn back around to get the second eye done. After that test the tech asks us to follow her out the door to who-knows-where. It is now obvious to me that she never has dealt with a mother and her balistic children because she immediately begins to walk down the hall. I’m still gathering two kids, a purse, a diaper bag, a can of baby snacks….and pretty much the whole contents of the can of puffs strewn on the floor. Reagan thought my command to “feed her” meant Ashlyn should get a pile of puffs on the floor, not the one or two hand fed ones I was thinking.

So I’m throwing puffs into my purse so as not to mix them up with clean puffs still in the can. The tech has realized we’re not following her as requested and comes back to wait on us. Once upright I regain my composure and follow her to the next eye exam room.

In here we’re left to wait on the doctor. Before the tech leaves us she’s busy messing with more eye machines and the doctor’s computer. And here’s why. When she leaves, the computer magically comes on and starts playing eye commercials about the different products and procedures they offer! Pretty clever, really. It does keep Ashlyn occupied too because she’s not used to seeing tv. This is when I explain to Reagan that a puff or two falling on our floor at home is WAY different than feeding Ashlyn off the floor of a public carpet. She doesn’t seem to get it.

Once the doctor comes in he dims the lights to do more eye tests and Ashlyn takes this as her cue to begin nighttime exploration. While the doctor’s shining various lights in my eyes and having me look through different lenses I’m hearing in the background, “ASHLYN!! AAsshhhllyyynn.” This is Reagan’s mother hen voice she gets when she’s trying to correct little sis and stop her from destroying something.

The doctor somehow is not disturbed by this at all. He’s able to finish blinding me and then show me pictures of the inside of my eyeball on the computer. That was probably the coolest part of the whole experience. (And I have a scar on my left retina where it was torn away from my eye when I was a baby and then healed. No big deal he says, I probably just have a bigger blind spot).

All in all, I walk away from the experience with better than 20/20 vision (thank you to God for giving me good vision and to my mother for making me eat carrots), a minor case of dry eyes, and the knowledge that babies do not belong in eye doctor offices.

You live and learn.