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.

Vitamin Cottage — $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.

Trackback URI | Comments RSS