Things My Momma Told Me

When I was a kid, making crazy faces and crossing my eyes at my sisters across the table, Mom would say "If you do that with your eyes, they are going to stay crossed". She also said if you eat too much sugar you'll get diabetes and if you don't wear a hat, you'll catch a cold. And of course, always wear clean underwear in case you get hit by a car.

It turns out, my mom had a lot more smarts than I gave her credit for.

In February, Gracie and Lil were crossing eyes at each other. It was worth a laugh at the time, but in the days that followed, Gracie's eyes would cross whenever she got tired, and within a few weeks were crossed most of the day. Great for watching ping pong, but lousy for depth perception. Now lots of kids have strabismus, but most have it from birth and Gracie's eyes had been on straight for over 2 years.

So we went to our local eye specialist who tested her vision to be perfect, looked at old photos to confirm the history and scratched his head in confusion. Not a vision issue, not a tumour, no obvious neuro signs...lets get a second opinion with a pediatric opthamologist and patch the good eye.

Eight weeks later we plug juniorette into a Dora DVD and drive 2 1/2 hours up the highway to the children's hospital where she gets to meet the specialist and for whatever reason, Grace decides that there is no need to cross her eyes at this particular time. Perfect vision, perfect alignment. Mother must be nuts. Maybe some weird post viral thing, it will either get better or worse was the final verdict. I think that my Mom's prediction held more water. 15 minutes away from the hospital, and during our lunch break her eyes were crossed again.

My Mom is up on a cloud with the Philadelphia cream cheese angel, laughing herself silly. Ok, Mom, it seems that if you eat too much sugar, your pancreas really does retire early. And sure, if you leave your hat at home and your body temp drops, you are more prone to a viral illness. But I've seen enough evidence in my days as an ER nurse that it doesn't matter how clean your underwear was before you got hit by a car.