Justus, Meet Mickey
Confession. When my infant son Justus was just a couple weeks old, a certain man (who may-or-may-not-be-my-husband) diagnosed him with a possible disability because–based on the medical knowledge the man gained during his business major–the baby’s eyes just weren’t “focusing correctly.”
It was particularly disconcerting that the baby locked in on the plain, off-white curtains, while Chuck (let’s just hypothetically call the man Chuck) frantically waved his arms around in front of him trying to get his attention. Or it was particularly amusing, depending on how seriously you took the eyesight issues, that the baby so blatantly refused to acknowledge his dad hyptothetically referred to as Chuck.
We would’ve been ordering the braille version of Goodnight Moon if it hadn’t been for Google, which quickly delivered an alternative point of view–that as it turns out “Unlike a baby’s hearing, which is fully mature by the end of his first month outside the womb, the sense of sight develops gradually over 6 to 8 months, at which point your baby will see the world almost as well as you do.”*
Chuck even found Tinyeyes.com-a simulator that estimates how your baby’s vision develops over time. (Though my Dad keeps ruining its coolness by repeatedly asking, but how do they know? Do they survey the babies? Its clearly a scientific technique beyond his comprehension.)
At Tinyeyes, they show the progression in the baby’s vision with a series of Mickey Mouse pictures that grow clearer as the baby gets older.
According to–again, this deeply scientific process–my baby can now fully see Mickey Mouse.
I can’t help feeling a bit of satisfaction, not only in that my motherings skills allowed my child successfully to scrape by to his 6 month birthday with two eyes still intact, but that he is now equipped to focus on Disney characters.
What more could a person want out of life?
*http://www.babycenter.com/0_developmental-milestones-sight_6508.bc
For the previous post about infant Justus, Baby Scissorhands, please click here.