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He looks perfect to me

The Cheese Eater was born with a small, little birth defect.  The muscle in his right eye lid didn't fully develop, leaving the lid to droop over his eye about the center of his pupil.  It's a condition called congenital ptosis.  (It's not quite as bad as it looks in this picture.)

When he was first born, we thought that his eye was just swollen from the delivery, but as the weeks passed you could really see that his right eye lid didn't match his left.  So at 10-weeks-old we went to see a pedictric ophthalmologist and we've been seeing him ever since.

Luckily, the lid wasn't causing him to lose vision, so there was no need for immediate surgery.  (Had his lid covered more of the pupil, he could have lost sight in his right eye.)  Instead, we waited for his face to grow bigger, finally having surgery just after he turned 3-years-old.  The surgery wasn't perfect--they say that congenital ptosis is difficult to correct--and his lid still droops a little.  So next summer we'll have to have another surgery, which will hopefully make the positioning of his two lids "match."

I tell you all of this in order to share this story.

After bath time the other night, which the Golfer was in charge of, the Cheese Eater came downstairs to tell me goodnight.

"Mommy?  Why is this eye smaller than my other one?"

This was the first time that he had EVER asked about his eye, and I felt my heart stop and then restart.

"Well, Buddy, that's just the way God made you."  By this time he was snuggled in my lap and not talking, so I continued.  "It's part of what makes you special.  It's what makes you handsome."

"But I want it up."  He was now grabbing his eye lid with his thumb, pushing it way up.

"Well, we'll have another surgery next summer and hopefully that will fix it."

That seemed to satisfy him, and he kissed me goodnight before running back upstairs. 

Five years ago when we first went to the doctor and found out that his vision was fine, there was only one thing that the Golfer and I were worried about.  I still remember the comment the Golfer made to our doctor after we had all agreed that it was best to wait on surgery until he was older.

"We just don't want him to feel self-conscious or to be made fun of."

We had always been careful not to talk about his eye.  Whenever a stranger or a child at the park has asked in front of him, "What's wrong with his eye?" we've always answered with, "That's just the way God made him." 

And as we mama bears are known to do, my first instinct is to protect my son.  I worry if the kids in his class ask him questions.  I worry that he's starting to think there's something wrong with him because his eye looks different.  But then I remember what the Golfer and I always remind each other: if an underdeveloped muscle in his eye lid is the worst thing that happens to him, then he'll be better off than most. 

The truth is, we are all born with our little imperfections that we live with every day.  My son's just happens to be a little more noticeable than others.