Penelope had her first eye checkup today. She did great! She even laid back and laughed when they put the dilation drops in her eyes , no crying at all. Her doctor Penelope S. Suter is awesome! Seriously if you are in Bakersfield and looking for a doctor for your child you must go to her. She was wonderful with Penelope and not to mention she has a great name. ;p She said Penelope's eyes looked good but she wants to have her back in 6 months for another checkup to make sure there are no changes. I had Amblyopia as a child, basically "lazy eye", which caused me to lose most of my vision in my left eye. Amblyopia occurs when the brain and eyes do not work together properly, the brain favors one eye. The preferred eye has normal vision, but because the brain ignores the other eye, a person's vision ability does not develop normally. Because it is suppose to be genetic I thought it would be a good idea to have Penelope's eyes checked. Thank God things are looking great! As a child I had two eye surgeries to correct the Strabismus "cross eyes", which caused the Amblyopia and I had to patch my eye to try to strengthen my bad eye but because I was constantly teased I would refuse to wear the patch. For years growing up doctors told my mom that between ages 5 and 10, the brain stops growing and the condition becomes permanent, therefore there was nothing that could be done to correct the loss of vision in my eye. Several weeks ago I had an appointment with Dr. Suter and she informed me that this is not the case. If I wanted to I could do some therapy to strengthen my eye and possibly get some of the loss vision back. Wow! It was really cool to hear this because for years I was told otherwise and I have always been self conscious about my "lazy eye". She said therapy would require a lot of work and would include eye exercises and being patched for several hours a day therefore she doesn't recommend it right now while Penelope is young but that if I wanted to try in a couple of years we could discuss therapy then. That was really nice to hear because if anything ever happened to my "good eye" I would pretty much be blind. Anyway...long story short just want to make sure Penelope's eyes are nice and healthy and so far everything looks good. ;)