[blparent] Please help me snap out of my pity-party

[Jo Elizabeth Pinto]

Hi, Jen.  I've felt your frustrations and they are completely 
understandable.  Even with one preschooler, sometimes she'll do the same 
thing--they must all like water and glue--and I'll think, a sighted person 
would have prevented that!  But there are two things I try to tell myself. 
First, it's just water or just glue, or just crumbs, or just playdough on 
the carpet, etc.  It will clean up okay, now or in a while when you get to 
it.  It's not the end of the world, and I wouldn't want a house where 
children couldn't be children.  That doesn't mean I don't make my daughter 
help me clean up; I do.  She knows how to use a Dust Buster or to soak up 
spilled water with a towel.  The second thing I tell myself is that while 
perhaps a sighted person could have prevented every spill, if he or she had 
an eagle eye on the child at all times, it wouldn't be desirable.  My mom 
was a clean freak who went ballistic if someone tracked in a leaf or got 
fingerprints on the window near the doorknob.  She didn't allow playdough or 
glue or any such messy things--it was kind of a bummer way to grow up.  Most 
sighted parents aren't psychotic about neatness like my mom.  They get 
distracted the same as we do.  They miss what their kids are doing; they 
have to clean up messes.  Often, it's me who tells my daughter's sighted 
dad, "Hey, watch it.  She's getting in your tool drawers again."  So the 
problem isn't exclusive to you as a blind mom, or even caused by your 
blindness.  It's a kid thing.

As for the world of visual media, I understand that, too.  Your daughter 
will very soon get old enough to describe things to you.  My four-year-old 
will now sometimes tell me some funny thing she saw on TV, or what the 
dinosaur in the picture book is doing, and we'll have a good laugh over it. 
Last night, it started snowing here, and my daughter wanted me to go look 
out the window with her and see the snow.  I told her I couldn't see it, and 
she--logically--said that was because I wasn't by the window.  I reminded 
her that my eyes didn't work.  I had her close her eyes and tell me what she 
saw, which was nothing.  I said that was what I saw by the window, or turned 
toward the TV, or anywhere else.  So she said, "Mommy, let's go touch the 
snow then."  We had fun, just for a minute, going out and touching the 
fluffy cold snow on the bush just off our porch.

So hang in there.  You might not always get to share every visual thing with 
your daughter, but children are amazingly adaptable in finding ways to have 
the experiences with you they want to have.  Blindness can be reduced, once 
again, to the nuisance it truly is.

Keep your chin up,
Jo Elizabeth

Truth is tough. It will not break, like a bubble, at a touch; nay, you may 
kick it about all day like a football, and it will be round and full at 
evening.--Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
-----Original Message----- 
From: Jennifer Bose
Sent: Thursday, October 25, 2012 1:22 PM
To: blparent
Subject: [blparent] Please help me snap out of my pity-party

Hi, parents.

Overall, I tend to think of blindness as just inconvenient. But
sometimes, blindness and parenthood together get me started on
thinking of blindness as a real pain. I guess there are always issues
that will present challenges for anyone, and mine aren't all that big,
I realize. But here they are:

My two daughters are three years old and six months old. While I'm
paying attention to my baby and I'm alone with both of them, I find it
tough to track what my three-year-old is doing. If I'm well-rested,
this isn't such a big deal. But if I'm tired, it's more than
frustrating. She's very bright and independent and often surprises me
with all the things she can now do on her own. But there are times
when I'll discover that she's playing with water or glue in a place
where she shouldn't, and then I've thought to myself: Well, if I'd
seen her with that water glass, this never would have happened!

And then, there's this whole world of visual media that I wish I could
share with her. All the picture books, DVDs, coloring books--I feel
like they're off limits to me and that I miss out on all the fun she
has going through them with other people. Not that she should
necessarily learn everything from me, but she and I don't get to
engage each other through any of that.

Ugh! I'm making myself really depressed and a little nauseated here. I
guess this is when I should start being grateful for what I have.
Please, have any of you ever felt these frustrations? What do you say
to yourself, or what do you do, to get your positive attitude back?

Thanks for reading this rant. I know it will survive in cyberspace
forever. Oh, well ...

Good times. Starting to laugh already!
Jen

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