[blparent] In Over My Head,, toddlers

[Jody Ianuzzi]

I agree the advice you got on Facebook was terrible. When my kids were little I always felt bad that I was not able to drive them places like other moms. Instead we would go on long walks and talk and have all kinds of adventures. We would put a sheet over a rope in the backyard and form a tent and then make believe we were camping out in the woods. I think my kids ended up with excellent sense of direction and great imaginations because of the way we played. My son is now 40 and my daughter 30 and both of them say that they were the lucky ones because they got to spend real time with me were other kids just got driven to sports games and never really got a chance to talk to their moms. 

It sounds like those people on Facebook were not limited by their blindness but by their lack of imagination and sense of adventure. 

JODY 🐺
thunderwalker321 at gmail.com

"There's no point in being grown up if you can't be childish sometimes."  DOCTOR WHO (Tom Baker)

> On Jun 3, 2015, at 2:20 PM, Star Gazer via blparent <blparent at nfbnet.org> wrote:
> 
>                Sounds like that group on Facebook wasn't
> doing you any favors. I have to wonder if that was what caused the "I wish I
> could interact like a sighted person" nonsense. 
> We moved recently too. It's very stressful even if the move is a good one. 
> Your husband may already be doing this, but make very sure he's viewing his
> main job and the instructing job as work, meaning there is no side work and
> no main job, it's all work. If either job is taking more time, energy and
> money from the family then you or he are comfortable with, something has to
> change. Many part-time jobs are way more work then a full time job ever
> thought about being and it's easy to get into the mind-set of "It's side
> work so I'll put up with it". 
> As for "me time" build it into your day. Watch a show or read while you're
> doing other things.  In other words, don't "try to get it", actually get it.
> You may not complete a book as quickly as you'd like but who cares? The book
> certainly doesn't. 
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: blparent [mailto:blparent-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Jo
> Elizabeth Pinto via blparent
> Sent: Wednesday, June 3, 2015 2:12 PM
> To: Blind Parents Mailing List
> Cc: Jo Elizabeth Pinto
> Subject: Re: [blparent] In Over My Head,, toddlers
> 
> Lila would get used to not really leaving the house much?  Oh dear!  That's
> scary.  Really scary.  I'm not an NFB member, nor am I always big on the
> "NFB philosophy," although I will readily say that the NFB has made huge
> advances for blind and visually impaired people in equal rights over the
> last several decades.  The organization is often too in-your-face for my
> liking, to the point of rudeness.  But I have found creative ways to get my
> daughter out of the house since her early toddlerhood, and she and I will
> continue to "go on adventures," as she puts it, hopefully even after she
> grows 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: Jessica Reed via blparent
> Sent: Wednesday, June 03, 2015 11:35 AM
> To: 'Blind Parents Mailing List'
> Cc: Jessica Reed
> Subject: Re: [blparent] In Over My Head,, toddlers
> 
> Thanks all for the kind words and advice.  I try hard to create "me" time,
> and now that it's summer my husband should be around nights.  (He is a
> welding instructor during the school year as well as his main job.  He is
> pretty much gone from 4a.m to 8p.m during the school year.  I also neglected
> to mention in my last message that we very recently moved into a bigger
> home, just handed the keys over to our other house yesterday.  Huge sigh of
> relief!  Jon still has some serious unpacking and organizing of his stuff,
> but the end is insight.  (He has a ridiculous amount of tools for his job as
> an iron worker.)
> 
> Thank you again for your support.  A few months back, when we were house
> hunting for a bigger house in a very specific location, I reached out to
> another blindness group on Facebook.  I was trying to figure out how others
> balanced finding a decent sized home without sacrificing independence.  I
> pretty much was told that I was dreaming.  We were blind and therefore
> trapped and I should know that by now and get over it.  Needless to say, I
> was devastated.  I was shocked at how many parents flat out said that Lila
> would get used to not really leaving the house much.  I bring all this up,
> not to slam the group, but just as a glaring reminder of the strength of the
> NFB philosophy.
> 
> Thanks Again,
> Jessica K. Reed 
> 
> 
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