Well, I promised to post daily for 30 days and I am not being as faithful as I hoped.  Silly me for thinking I would have plenty of time on my hands when I went part-time.  I am spending more time with Joshua (my ultimate goal) but I think I increased the expectations on myself and so I still feel like I am constantly running to catch up.

I try to be honest about only child parenting.  Most of the time I write about positive experiences since most of my experiences are positive (I am a little biased).  However, this weekend has been challenging and I thought I would write on the trials of only child parenting.

My son Joshua needs a little more attention than some only children.  He has amblyopia – neurological lazy eye.  It means that his left eye is not being utilized by his brain – his right eye is 20/20 and his left eye is 20/200. We have until he is around 7-years old to get his brain to use his left eye or he will not have sight in his left eye or depth perception for the rest of his life (he’s 5 1/2).  He is being treated by an excellent ophthalmologist.  The treatment is either patching or putting dilating drops in the good eye to force his brain to use the weak eye. Recently, he went to wearing a patch on his good eye 3 1/2 hours a day.  Imagine having 20/200 vision.  The doctor put a glass over my eye once so I would know what Joshua is experiencing. Ugh!  On top of that, he has to do things that use his close-up vision because that works the brain the best.  Consequently, he needs “help” with almost everything he does.  If he is building with Legos, he needs help finding pieces, if he is coloring, he needs help finding colors, etc.  I also read to him, we play board games, etc.  In short, he needs concentrated attention.  I have found myself thinking more than once over the last few days that I wish I had another child so I could tell them to go play.  I know there are other challenges that go along with having multiple children but it would be nice to have a ready playmate for Joshua right now.  Would I change my situation for anything in the world?  Nope, not even for a ready-playmate, but thought has crossed my mind recently so I thought I would share.

Anyone have similar experiences and want to comment?  I have opened comments to readers as long as your register, so feel free to share your thoughts.