“It’s never going to work again!”

I’m a horrible father.

Yesterday, the oldest little Johann had eye surgery. He had his strabismus muscle (strabismus, stromboli, whatever the hell it’s called) reattached in a different spot on his eye so that his eyes would work together correctly. Poor kid is in quite a bit of pain, naturally, and putting drops in his eye three times a day is not exactly an adventure I have enjoyed so far.

The title of this post is his tearful response to my trying to get him to open his eye.

I feel extremely bad for him, but I cannot convince him that he has got to use the eye in order for it to be able to be used. He does the deal where he’s got the bad eye just barely open and then moves his head accordingly to see what he wants to see, mainly because he says it hurts to fully open his eye. Again, I hate that he is in such pain and has to go through any of this at all–if I could, I’d trade places in a heartbeat–but he has to start using his repaired eye.

I am extremely frustrated. I don’t know how to convince him to use his eye. I know he’s only seven, and I know it’s killing him. It’s killing me that it’s killing him. I am essentially powerless to help him and that sucks. I can’t make him use his eye and I can’t convince him why he needs to even though it hurts like a bitch.

This is one of those parts of parenting that leaves one extremely hollow inside and feeling like a failure.