Real, Fake Eyes

“Never forget that anticipation is an important part of life. Work's important, family's important, but without excitement, you have nothing. You're cheating yourself if you refuse to enjoy what's coming.”
― Nicholas Sparks, Three Weeks With My Brother



A few days before Oli's first birthday I woke up after only sleeping a few hours.  The big day was finally here.  The biggest day!  She was getting her first pair of painted prosthetic eyes!

 

I could hardly contain my excitement.  I couldn't even imagine what she would look like.  All of those feelings returned from when I was pregnant and would lie awake at night trying to picture her.
 
Before she was born I imagined her with big brown puppy dog eyes, long full lashes, and a sparkle that would melt everyone's heart.  Now I was imagining the same thing minus the long lashes and the sparkle.  Little did I know how fantastically real, ocularist's can make fake eyes.  That sparkle was there, just painted on.

 

I rushed everyone through breakfast and we all piled in the car for the trip to L.A.

 

The drive seemed to take forever. Seth and I passed the time talking about what we each thought she would look like and what color we were going to choose.

 

"Brown.  Or maybe blue.  Kekoa has blue eyes. Or green like yours?" I couldn't make up my mind.

 

"Blue. Kekoa and Thalia both have blue eyes and her little left eye looks like it is blue." Seth makes the final decision.
 
"Blue it is." I honestly really could have cared less by this point.  All of those dreams of big brown eyes were receding from my mind and by the time she was 1 year old I just wanted her to have any kind of eyes. They could have been purple, red, or painted like cat eyes and I would have been absolutely thrilled. 

 

Months and months of staring at blank eyes had made me realize how much I wanted to look at a pair of real looking ones.  Although we had shed the ghastly pegs months ago, I was now anxious for the conformers to be painted. 

I knew that I would love them, but I had no idea how much the prosthetics would change her whole face and appearance...

 Oli before she got her painted prosthetics.