Dx: Intermittent Exotropia

Many months ago, Andy asked if I'd noticed Chad's left eye drifting off to the side. I told him, no, his eyes are fine, you're totes cray-cray, Andy. Or something along those lines. But as time passed I started to think Andy wasn't cray-cray after all, or at least not totes cray-cray, because sometimes Chad would turn his head  to look at us, and his left eye would sort of take it's own sweet time to catch up to the rest of his head.
So a few more months went by with us playing the "His eye just did it again! Did you see that?" game at dinner, and I agreed to add it to my long list of questions to ask his pediatrician at his next well-visit.
I mentioned it in November, and asked if it was something we needed to worry about and if it needed to be checked out now, or if this was something that "watchful waiting" would suffice for.
Her answer was an emphatic, YES this needs to be looked at, and it should be checked out NOW because when it comes to eyes you should never mess around.
Which was awesome because it's always great to be the mom who a) didn't notice her kid's eye problem and b) told her husband it probably wasn't anything serious.
The verdict was that Chad would need to go see a pediatric ophthalmologist to get the situation checked out. 
Do you have any idea how long it takes to get an appointment with a pediatric ophthalmologist? A long time. I spent that time doing my own research with Dr. Google, learning scary facts about how patching doesn't usually work, and how the problem would need to be corrected by surgery.
Finally, Chad's appointment rolled around, and he and Andy showed up bright and early to a waiting room that was outfitted with all sorts of toys, including a whole arts and crafts station.

Our little patient started off by getting his eyes dilated.

I'm told the drops stung. And after they started working, he announced, "I can't see!"

And then he went in to see the real doctor, who outfitted him with some special fish shades.

Andy said they showed him pictures of trees and cakes, and asked him to identify the shapes when they were big and small. Until he lost interest and stopped telling them what he was looking at. Also, he sometimes referred to the cake as a "plate". Which I think showed very good table manners, because you should always eat your cake on a plate.

The doctor said that one eye would look ahead, but she did see a little wiggling in the left eye. Fortunately it was intermittent (hence the diagnosis) and not very serious. There was no evidence of amblyopia (that's the fancy pants term for lazy eye), and his eyes are working well together, and he doesn't need glasses yet. We just have to go back in six months. So not bad at all. He even got to keep those fish sunglasses!

Since the Eye Center is just a stone's throw from my building, they came to visit me afterward, and Chad presented me with the art he made in the waiting room.

My office is just a little more colorful now.

And after that they went to visit some of the admins that Andy supports, one of whom gave Chad a chocolate.