Glasses

A Chapter by Lu Schneider

This is pretty short, but it really didn't fit with the last chapter or the next one after it.

Glasses

Once again our family found itself in a routine as we faced our third winter in Alaska. I was working at the school for 2 ½ hours in the morning, and then I would go and work the afternoon at the post office. I enjoyed working in the K-2 classroom, and was getting to know the teachers better. Micah and I even started to have some of the teachers over for dinner, so we could get to know them outside of work. Even though we did not see eye to eye with them on politics and religion, we did not let that hinder us from forging friendships. It was actually nice to be social and still be able to be ourselves.

Our church life was pretty stagnant. We were pretty much the “outcast” there and it was obvious by the way we were regarded all the time. One of our highlights at church was when we would have a weeklong Bible course with a visiting pastor and his wife. I felt I could be myself, a little, and get into the discussions more without feeling hindered. I was also feeling a little more stressed during church since starting to work at the school, because now all I was hearing about was the “evil school”. It was making it to where I was having a hard time relaxing during church or church functions.

As winter was coming to an end, Micah and I noticed Erik was beginning to show extreme emotional ups and downs. If Erik got into trouble or was scolded he would start to cry uncontrollably, sometimes for ten or fifteen minutes. When Micah and I would try to reason with Erik, his emotions would take over and there would be no consoling him. It was starting to cause a lot of stress in the house. I thought it was Erik starting to show he had his father’s temper. Micah would keep saying I was too soft on the children and spoiling them. There was no middle ground.

At the same time, we were noticing little improvement in Erik’s speech. Ms. Kay and I would talk at times and she would tell me how the children were doing with their speech therapy. She felt Natasha wouldn’t need it much longer, but had some concerns about Erik. It did take me back a little. I would have thought Natasha would have needed the speech therapy a lot longer than Erik.

Erik continued to excel in school. He always seemed to push himself to keep up with his friends in the second grade. I did notice he was struggling a little with his reading, usually complaining of headaches. Yet, with everything else, it seemed pretty minor and I just assumed that his reading would start showing improvement soon. Erik loved books and I would always read to the children at home. Erik began to get frustrated with himself and more emotional breakdowns were starting to take place. I would talk with his teacher frequently about what we were observing. I felt it had more to do with me being in the same classroom, but she reassured me it was not that. In fact, I was more of a distraction to Natasha than I was to Erik.

Finally spring arrived. There was a big 3-day field trip planned for the K-6 students to the Sea Life Center in Seward, Alaska. Everyone was excited. There would be almost 30 students going, with three teachers, the bus driver, and me. We would travel to Palmer and stay the night at a school. Then we would head to Anchorage to visit the Imaginarium before making it to Seward.

One the way to Seward we stopped at a rest area to have lunch. The children were all a little wiggly and needed to get some energy ran off. There was still snow on the ground and some ice, so we had to be a little careful. As the students were running around I suddenly heard Erik screaming. I turned and saw him walking blindly toward me holding his head and crying. The other students and his teacher were running towards him, at the same time I was. While we were checking him out to make sure he was all right, the other students were telling us that he fell off a 3-foot ledge. He was running so fast he did not see it in time to stop. Erik’s teacher made sure all the other students were more cautious, as I continued to check out Erik. He did not seem to have a bump on his head, but there was a scratch under his eye. I tried to get him to sit down and rest, but Erik insisted he was fine and ran to play with his friends some more.

We made it to Seward. After a small tour at the Sea Life Center and different activities for the students to participate in we settled down for the night. We would all get to sleep inside the center. The students and adults were all excited, it was hard to get everyone to sleep that night. Unfortunately, my hip paid for it in the morning and I realized that sleeping on a hard floor two nights in a row was a bad idea.

The next morning we let the students visit the gift shop and make one final round to see all the animals. Then we were on the road heading back to Anchorage. We stopped in at a Japanese restaurant for dinner, as a special treat for the students. It was one of those restaurants where they cooked the food right in front of you. We all had a good time. After the restaurant, it was time for the long 6-hour drive to Anderson.

As Easter approached, I began to notice Erik’s left eye would cross inward at times. Then as soon as I said anything, Erik would correct it. I knew we would have to look at getting him glasses, which explained the headaches he was complaining of. Erik’s teacher was starting to notice his eye; only she was noticing it was happening for longer periods of time. We were talking about one day when Ms. Kay came up to us in the hallway of the school.

“His eye’s been doing that for quite a while,” Kay interjected, “I’d just tell him his eye was crossing again and he would correct it. It’s nothing glasses won’t fix.”

“That’s true,” I replied, “My niece had to get glasses for a crossed eye too.”

We decided to keep a closer eye on Erik until I could get him in to an optometrist. I began to back off on his homework some to help relieve the strain on his eye. Erik began to complain about headaches even more, so we started to limit his television and video games. Luckily, the weather was getting warmer and he could play outside more.

I did worry that his fall during the school field trip had more to do with what was going on. Yet, Kay had said she noticed his eye crossing before we even left for the field trip. It made me feel awful as a parent that I had not picked up on it sooner. I also felt bad for loosing my patients with Erik when it came to his homework and reading.

As the school year came to an end, Erik’s eye remained crossed at all times now. I could not get him in to see the optometrist until June 18^th. Erik’s teacher offered tutoring for Erik during the summer to help get him caught up in Reading. He would ride his bike most of the time, but after a while I noticed he was swerving all over the road and seemed to loose his balance a lot more. I just knew the sooner we got his glasses the quicker things would go back to normal for Erik.

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