My baby's "trials"

So in a previous blog, i alluded to "trials" with Christopher. First grade was a tough year. It started out easy enough with a FABULOUS teacher and right where we left off at Kindergarten. However, it wasn't long before he started getting in trouble for talking. What? My child, talking.... NO, say it ain't so!!!!! Yep, he's all mine. Then we started noticing he was having trouble reading. What was once coming so easy, was suddenly like pulling teeth. Each night ended in tears for one or both of us. We spent the whole year working with his teacher, the reading teacher, the pediatrician, etc... the words ADD, Learning Disorder, Dyslexia, etc...all floated around, but none stuck. None fit! I had been around kids with all of these and it just didn't seem right. The school nurse tested his hearing and eyes. Hearing was perfect and his eyes tested at 20/20 and 20/30. One day, while taking Halie to get her new glasses, I mentioned to our friend David Oliver, what the eye exam revealed. He said to me that it was possible that the 20/30 eye could be just enough to be causing a problem and it wouldn't hurt to do just a simple eye exam. I scheduled it right away. The last day of school saw us in the eye doctors office. He tested 20/20 in both eyes and the doc looked puzzled. Then in my explanation he caught something. It seemed when the reading teacher would cover all but one line, Christopher could read perfectly. When she uncovered it and he would see the whole page his eyes just could not focus. The wise doc, Scott Oliver, immediately ordered another instrument be brought in and saw that Christopher's muscle in his eye was going spastic every time it tried to focus on a whole page. This brought us to another day of tests. This time was much more "painful" for he and I both. We had to begin dilating his eyes the night before. The muscle had to be totally paralyzed. The drops burned! We "dropped" his eyes 3 times before his appointment the next day and when we went in, he was very farsighted. To our amazement, this was his problem. He could not focus. Not mentally, but visually! He now has glasses and is starting tutoring to catch up on his reading, but the doc says he could gain a whole level this summer because now he should be able to focus! I'm so glad I did not accept those labels and neither did his teacher or his pediatrician. We all worked together to find an answer. God is awesome and answered our prayers for our precious Christopher. I can't wait to hear him reading his little heart out to me. He is excited. He no longer has to be frustrated on a nightly basis. He no longer has to think he is stupid (which I told him all along he wasn't). AND.... He looks sooooo cute in his glasses!