Day 221: Eye Exams, Eye Glasses, School Fees, Dining, and Groceries

Ugh.  I had a busy, expen­sive day today.

School Fees — $75.00
The Son and I finally got around to dri­ving up to the main cam­pus of the county-supported home­school co-op pro­gram that he’ll be attend­ing next year.  We had to turn in his reg­is­tra­tion mate­ri­als, his class requests for next year, and some fees.  The break­down of the fees I paid is as fol­lows:  $15 for next year’s year­book (dis­counted price for early sign-up); $35 book deposit (enroll­ment enti­tles par­ents to check out cur­ricu­lum mate­ri­als from the program’s library — this fee will be returned when The Son with­draws or grad­u­ates as long as we’ve returned any books we check out); $20 for the first semester’s activ­ity fees (a sec­ond $20 will be due in the sec­ond part of the next school year); and $5 “teacher appre­ci­a­tion” dona­tion to the program.

Eye Doc­tor — $508.00
I knew that the kids and I all needed to have eye exams.  And I knew I needed new glasses since I lost my pair of read­ing glasses dur­ing our move about 5 years ago.

I’d already made today’s appoint­ments for The Son and I when I received a let­ter from the school dis­trict inform­ing me that The Son’s vision test results were con­cern­ing (30/40 — isn’t that almost legally blind?).  The Son’s not very com­mu­nica­tive but you’d think the silly boy would have informed me that every­thing was fuzzy, wouldn’t you?  Well, he didn’t.

The Son has worn read­ing glasses for years and, believe it or not, I walked in today expect­ing The Son to get a clean bill of health and sent on his merry way.  After all, I’d paid an out-of-pocket for­tune for his glasses and tita­nium frames just a few years ago.  Imag­ine my sur­prise and dis­may, then, this after­noon when they informed me that he not only needed a new pre­scrip­tion, but he needed bifo­cals.  I could have gone the cheap route and got­ten stan­dard two-prescription bifo­cals with a line across the lens.  But that would have left him with­out the needed mid-range pre­scrip­tion.  So, I signed up for a pair of pro­gres­sive bifo­cal lenses.  The good news is that the new lenses can be made to fit into the old tita­nium frames.  Some­times it’s really handy that The Son isn’t a fan of change.

There’s still an expen­sive unknown hang­ing over my head — it might turn out that The Son’s base­ball per­for­mance might be greatly improved by his dis­tance pre­scrip­tion.  Once we get the new glasses (lenses) back and he’s had a chance to get used to them and try them while play­ing, we’ll know whether we need to decide to get him a spe­cial pair of glasses for sports wear.  If so, we’d prob­a­bly opt to get a pair of spe­cial pro­tec­tive lenses in gog­gle frames.  That would end up cost­ing another sep­a­rate small for­tune.  C’est la vie — just another poten­tial expense of hav­ing kids.  Thank good­ness nei­ther of our kids needed braces.

The other part of today’s bad news is that not only I need new glasses (I was pre­pared for that) but I, too, need bifo­cals.  I need read­ing glasses but I also need mid-range com­puter lenses.  As much as I’d like to pre­tend that I can live with­out the glasses — after all, things aren’t actu­ally fuzzy — the amount of eye strain and headaches I expe­ri­ence tells me that I should just bite the bul­let and get the darned things.  But this time I can’t lose them.  That’s some­thing you’d expect a kid to do, isn’t it?

That awful total above does not include the cost for my glasses.  Why?  Because, as the mother of a 16yo daugh­ter, I knew bet­ter than to pick out frames with­out her advice.

And now we come to the worst part of the news — The Daugh­ter has her eye exam sched­uled for Fri­day.  All of my naivete has been stripped away and I know, with­out a doubt, that she too will need new glasses.  And I know that there’s no way she’ll dupli­cate The Son’s sit­u­a­tion and spare me the expense of new frames and require only new lenses.  Why?  Because she hates her cur­rent frames.  And the van­ity fac­tor in this par­tic­u­lar 16yo female is way too high to even con­sider wear­ing frames she hates for the sake of sav­ing me some dough.  Sure, I could put my foot down but I won’t.  What’s the point in spend­ing money on glasses I know she won’t wear?  I’ll buy her new frames and then I’ll expect 100% com­pli­ance as far as wear­ing them.

Nat­ural Gro­cers — $22.95

• gal­lon of Hori­zon 2% milk — $5.15
• bag of Bob’s Red Mill flour — $3.15
• sliced roast beef — $4.75
• sliced roast turkey — $5.15
• loaf of Rudi’s organic honey whole wheat bread — $4.19

Wendy’s — $6.54
Din­ner for The Son — he ate a Bacona­tor and a medium vanilla Frosty.

Related posts:

1. Day 223: More Eye Exams, Per­sonal Train­ing, & Food
2. Day 238: More Car Mats & Trip Preparation
3. $$: New Jeans
4. Day 211: Din­ing, Church, School
5. Back-to-School Shop­ping