Saturday, September 13, 2008

Discovering my contacts

About a week ago, Kid 3, the 6 year old, watched me change my contact lenses. He was interested in them and wanted to see them. I showed them to him and said that I would be changing them on 8 Septemeber and that he could touch them and do anything he wanted with them.

He was very excited to be able to "discover" (a euphemism for explore, I guess) my contacts. He had plans of cutting them into parts with scissors. With the kids school and swimming, he was already in bed when I changed my contacts that day.

Being a good Dad, I kept the lenses for him! I put some water (why use solution when I wasn't going to use them again) in a small candlestick holder and dropped both lenses in there (didn't need to keep track of right and left anymore, either). After they dried out and I refilled the water a few times, we finally got around to discovery this morning!

He got his scissors and we went up to my bath room for the discovery process. He held them in his hand, saw how thin they were and tried to strecth them. I was surprised by how stretchy (O2 Optics, evidently they are primarily made of silicone) they were and with his little, wet fingers, he was unable to break them.

So, snip, snip went the scissors.

"Can you put them in your eyes if they're cut up?"

"Nope, that would really hurt."

"Do your contacts dry out?"

"Yup."

"Can you put them in your eyes if they're dried out?"

"Nope, that would really hurt."

So, we stretched and cut the other lens and finally threw them away. I added the small PSA that we handle contacts for your eyes with clean hands, "because an eye infection really hurts."

As he was putting his scissors away, he asked, "Can you wear contacts if you can already see okay?" I explained how they were like glasses and would make your vision funny when I remembered designer lenses.

"But there are lenses that make your eyes all black, like a cats, red, silver and don't affect your vision."

"Oh, I want some of those," he said.

So, someday if you see my son with all black eyes (to match his black nails), think back to this post!

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

That's a really cute story. It's sweet how little guys always want to do everything the same as their dad.

I wear contacts too. Considering Lasik when my vision has been stable for two years.

Unknown said...

I remember you mentioned you were saving your contacts a while ago. Good for you for remembering. Li'l Man probably had a blast.

Li'l Man's lucky to have you.

Beau said...

SH - Li'l Man did have fun. Me, too.

Ameilia - I've been considering corrective surgery for a while, but I'm wary of it. Replacement eyes, if something goes wrong, are hard to come by. I've had some other friends do it over the past few years and have been pretty happy with it. Another of my concerns, being that man of mystery that I am, is the loss or degredation of night vision.