I've spent a good amount of time getting everything on the girls back to school lists checked off. School supplies and uniforms and making sure I have it all in order has been a big focus the past month. Since we're new to the whole uniform thing this year, we're starting from scratch and I had to keep double checking that I was getting the girls everything that they need. I have to admit that I find it a bit easier to buy regular clothes for school as opposed to uniform pieces. After seven years of buying school clothing wherever I pleased, I felt out of my element when selecting uniform pieces and what not.
I've spent a week or so feeling pretty confident that I had everything that the girls needed for school. Then Ellie's glasses started falling off her face repeatedly. Katie has a penchant for swatting glasses off of Madeline and Ellie, so their glasses have been taking a beating. Ellie's good pair of glasses were very bent and her cheap spare pairs were just as bad. So I came to the conclusion yesterday that the girls needed new glasses before school began.
I was hoping to take advantage of the $25 kids glasses at JCP that my mom told me about, but I didn't like how cheap the frames were in terms of quality, so Bryan and I took the girls out to the very good optician that is a 45 minute drive from our house to get Ellie's good glasses bent back into shape and to buy new glasses.
I'm excited about Madeline's new frames. She picked out a flexible pair that should be very difficult for her or Katie to bend. I'm hopeful that this means fewer trips to the optician for repairs. We also finally got around to getting her rec specs for soccer. She's spent several years playing soccer with no glasses because we never seem to get around to ordering the required rec specs. Of course, her vision isn't far off from 20/20 so it's not like she can't see. Her problem is a lazy eye that turns in when her "crazy eye" can't focus and shuts down.
Ellie found frames that look quite nice on her. I wish they were the flexible kind like Madeline's, but I'm confident that they will hold up better than her spare pairs. I even ordered her new prescription for her current good glasses so she'll have two good pairs. Since one of her lenses has no Rx, upgrading her current pair is very reasonable. With Madeline it's typically not cost effective to put new lenses in old frames because the cost can be almost as much as a new pair. I'm excited that we're getting some more life out of her current frames since they cost a nice chunk when we brought them last year.
The grand total for the glasses was more than what we will be paying for a month's tuition. Ouch! Bryan made some comment to the optician about how he didn't want to know how much it was all going to be and he decided he was going to cut us a small break to drop our total below $800 [I said OUCH, right? Rec Specs are expensive and so are super flexible frames] by upgrading the lens in Ellie's current frames to the new prescription for free. It was a small amount knocked off, but it helps. Bryan and I were actually quite surprised and grateful that he even offered to do it.
Sometime in the next week or so the girls will be sporting new glasses. Just in time for school. I'm looking forward to seeing the girls in glasses that aren't scratched, bent or sporting noticeable signs of wear. I think now I can claim I'm done with back to school shopping.
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