some time ago, max’s teacher recommended we take him to a pediatric osteopath for some testing. while our insurance (which always seems afraid of newer approaches, even when they work) wouldn’t cover it, we found it really helpful. he quickly diagnosed some food alergies for max that made an immediate difference in focus, alertness and other issues (when we “cheat” on the alergies, as we sometimes do on vacation, we — and max — can immediately see the former behaviors return). the doc did some other stuff, but also suggested we take max to a developmental optometrist. she a real eye doc, but has an osteopathic, developmental approach, and mainly works on the neural pathways in the brain connected to interpreting information from the eyes.

liesl saw this eye doc also, and both our kids have had weekly appointments with her for a few months. we have “eye therapy” homework every day — interesting exercises for each kid that work to break down, then rebuild, the way their brains interpret visual information. liesl has never been a reader. max loved being read to, but hadn’t taken much to reading on his own.

last week, on vacation, i took these two pics. liesl read the entire 6th harry potter book on her own. max read other things — in this pic he’s reading one of my green lantern archive collections. it really is amazing – almost startling — for jeannie and i to see our kids choosing to read like this.