My daughter loves art of any kinds; painting, drawing, singing, acting. But she really enjoys playing with the Microsoft Paint program on my PC. This picture is a recent creation named "Natasha's Prettiful Colors". She is 8.5 years age going on 15 years.


When my darling first came home from Ukraine (at 3.5 years of age) she didn't know how to play. And her gross motor skills were so delayed that playing with clay and trying to color were frustrating. But she loved singing. It was her form of self-stimulation. She would sing to herself and rock. Her orphanage had a piano and from what I can tell they had frequent sing alongs. Natasha has very fond memories of the adult who played the piano.


Question: How do you eat the elephant?


Answer: One bite at a time.


Natasha had so many issues to deal with that I focused on them one at a time. The physical issue (crossed eyes) was dealt with first. (Actually I was dealing with attachment issues too but that is another blog.) Her ability to see... to have depth perception impacted her quality of life.


Think of it this way... She dropped a black raison on my black pants and couldn't see it. She could feel stairs as she climbed but they didn't have any visual depth. So I know where part of her Sensory Integration issues came from. Her body was feeling something different from what her brain was seeing. Lack of depth perception made her very clumsy. And she had no fear of jumping off a slide because she couldn't see it. I was constantly fearful for her because she would try things that anyone with depth perception would see as dangerous.



It took 45 minutes of out-patient surgery to completely change her life.


She has congenital esotropia. I say "has" because she inherited this genetic issue from her birth parents. She will have to watch for it in her children, if she decides to have children. The best option for this type of strabismus is surgery. Other types of strabismus are dealt with by patching (building up eye muscles by forcing them to exercise) and glasses.


Less then 2% of the US population has esotropia strabismus. I cannot find any numbers on Ukraine, but I would be willing to bet it applies to Ukraine too.


Here is a picture of what it looked like. She had problems with both of her eyes. The muscle attachment on both eyes had to be moved. 1 eye was always stuck looking inward.





Crossed Eyes and Art
Part 1
Part 2