Upping the Geek Factor?

Before I forget - the winner of the JumpStart giveaway is ... Angie! Congratulations!

Check back soon for another fun giveaway. :)

It's Wednesday. Colin's school gets out early on Wednesdays, which pretty much jacks up my whole schedule. The rest of the week, I've got things running (relatively) smoothly - right down to the time I leave the house to take him to, and pick him up from, school. But come Wednesday, it seems like I have to restructure everything. And I'm not sure why other than I'm an anal-retentive, scheduled, orderly freak ... it just really throws me off-kilter for the entire day. I walk around feeling like I'm one step behind, in a constant state of "duh." You'd think that since I've had a Kindergartener for a month and a half now, I'd be used to this middle-of-the-week upheaval. But I'm apparently unable to adjust.

So yeah. Wednesdays. Booooo.

Colin brought home a letter the other day that says he didn't do so well on the school-administered eye test, and that we need to get him to the eye doctor for an examination. This makes me nervous. Let's forget for one moment the inevitable hassle of having a kid with glasses: losing them, damaging them and whatnot. I'm most worried about what this does to up his "geek factor," which is already dangerously high.

Don't get me wrong. I adore my eldest son's, um, quirky personality and preferences. And I encourage them every chance I get. When he went through his praying mantis phase, I allowed one to live in my house. I sacrificed the tray of my barbecue grill to a volcano experiment gone wrong. I have nodded and "uh-huh"ed my way through endless explanations of each latest obsession: the skeletal system. The urinary system. Hitler. Venus fly traps. Crocheting. Ammonium dichromate, which I actually had to look up. And yesterday afternoon, he was eating some grapes, held up the stem, and said, "You know what these look like, Mommy? Alveoli. Like in your lungs."

And sure enough ... they really do. For those of us *coughcoughmecoughcough* who need a refresher as to what "alveoli" are, here's a handy illustration:

See? Total grape stems.

But unfortunately, the things I love about Colin can be really off-putting to other kids sometimes. Especially the older they get. And I'm scared that having glasses will further catapult him into the social fringes. Because, y'all? This is what he looks like in glasses:

 
Okay, so we'll get him frames that fit his face, but you get the idea. I think it's adorable. But combine corrective eyewear with his penchant for all things scientific, and you've got a recipe for geekdom. I mean, I'd much rather him be a little on the nerdy side than, say, some thuggish little troublemaker. And when he's an adult, as far as I'm concerned, bring on the geekiness! (As long as it's, like, finding-a-cure-for-cancer-geekiness. I'm not down with the Star-Trek convention-going, living in our basement at 35, never-having-a-girlfriend type of geek).

It's just that, you know, he's got so much longer to be a kid. And other kids can be so mean. And as his mom, I want to protect him from everything that might hurt his feelings. I want him to be who he is, and be comfortable in his own skin - but I'm worried that he won't be so comfortable if he gets teased. What if he ends up changing who he is, just for the sake of fitting in?

Deep breath, Rita. I'm probably overreacting, right? It just sucks because, as my oldest, Colin's like my guinea pig. I wasn't sure what to do with him the day we brought him home from the hospital, and I'm not sure what to do with him now. Every new stage is a first for both of us, and all we can do is bumble through it, fingers crossed.