[blparent] Introduction

Star Gazer pickrellrebecca at gmail.com
Mon Jun 12 14:26:23 UTC 2017 

				Hi Kim. You succeeded in posting to the
list. 
What type of connections are you trying to make and why?
Serious question, I'm trying to understand your goals and why you have them.

You also may want to join the list dedicated to parents with blind children,
though you are of course welcome here. 

-----Original Message-----
From: BlParent [mailto:blparent-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Kim D via
BlParent
Sent: Sunday, June 11, 2017 7:15 PM
To: Blind Parents Mailing List <blparent at nfbnet.org>
Cc: Kim D <dobiefly80 at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [blparent] Introduction

I'm not sure how this works. How do you post to the thread.  I'm brand new.
My family is moving to the more rural Montana from Portland and I have a
teenage daughter that is blind. Trying to make connections any way I can.
Kimberlie

On Jun 11, 2017 3:06 PM, "Jo Elizabeth Pinto via BlParent" <
blparent at nfbnet.org> wrote:

> Heather,
>
> The "Ranger in Time" books are wonderful. There's a lot of great 
> history slipped into the fast-paced stories. Plus, a golden retriever. 
> How much better can it get?
>
> As for the circus, I know what you mean. I feel that way even with 
> just one service dog and a kid. Not so much now, but when my daughter 
> was little and I had the dog, the car seat, the diaper bag, the baby, 
> and all the trappings, and I finally got settled in a place, I would 
> sometimes say, "The circus has arrived."
>
>
> Jo Elizabeth Pinto
>
> "The Bright Side of Darkness"
> Is my award-winning novel,
> Available in Kindle, audio, and paperback formats.
> http://www.amazon.com/author/jepinto
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: BlParent [mailto:blparent-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of 
> Heather Bird via BlParent
> Sent: Sunday, June 11, 2017 3:30 PM
> To: Jo Elizabeth Pinto via BlParent <blparent at nfbnet.org>
> Cc: Heather Bird <heather.l.bird at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [blparent] Introduction
>
>      Jeremy loves the Magic Tree House. I pre-read everything that he 
> is going to read, and they just about drove me batty, but I got through
it.
> Ranger in Time? I've got to snag those. Summer is upon us and I am 
> seriously limiting his Apple TV time, so I need to pack his USB thumb 
> drive with as many books as possible. He reads just about everything I 
> can find on NLS Bard, including some books that are typically thought of
as "girl"
> books, like the American Girl books, Little House Books, although he 
> lost interest after finishing the Long Winter, the Ramona books and 
> similar. Go you, I can certainly read Braille, but not in a way that 
> makes it pleasant to listen to me read aloud. I pre-read the board 
> books and short story books that I am going to read for Caleb, so I am 
> just using the text as a cue for the memorized text. I believe 
> strongly in the value of Braille, and my sons are learning Braille, 
> but my reading aloud will just never be even anywhere close to their
dad's.
> He does crazy funny voices and accents too. That's OK, I am the chief 
> story maker-upper in our house, and with eccentric kiddos on the 
> spectrum I have to make up some weird stuff. Jeremy loved vacuum 
> cleaners from age 2 until around age 5 and street sweepers from around 
> age three to six, so I had to make up stories about those. Caleb is 
> obsessed with shapes, so our current crop of bedtime stories are all 
> about adventures with discovering shapes. What the heck on a nature 
> walk or a grocery store run is shaped like a trapezoid? *palm to 
> forehead* Oh, a black labby. My mom Bernice has a black lab named 
> Octane from the Seeing Eye. We are a circus everywhere we go with 
> three adults, two of them blind, two kids and three service dogs. I swear,
restaurant owners quake in fear when they see us coming.
>
>
> So nice to meet you.
>
>
> On 6/11/2017 4:42 PM, Jo Elizabeth Pinto via BlParent wrote:
> > Hi, Heather. It's great to meet you. It sounds like you have a busy,
> active family.
> >
> > My daughter is nine years old, entering the fourth grade in the fall.
> She enjoys all things Barbie, princess, and sparkling. But she also 
> has an adventurous streak, and many times her Barbies and princesses 
> will get prettied up to go mountain climbing or spacewalking. She's 
> sighted, and loves reading out loud to me from the "Magic Tree House" 
> and "Ranger in Time" books. I've been reading "Dr. Dolittle" and 
> "Little House on the Prairie" to her this summer in braille. Her dad 
> owns a watch and clock repair shop, and I proofread braille books, 
> mostly textbooks, from home. We live in Colorado. I have my third 
> guide dog, a black Lab, from Guide Dogs for the Blind, in California. 
> Actually, this one, Anlyn, came from the Oregon campus in 2014.
> >
> >
> > Welcome to the list,
> > Jo Elizabeth Pinto
> >
> > "The Bright Side of Darkness"
> > Is my award-winning novel,
> > Available in Kindle, audio, and paperback formats.
> > http://www.amazon.com/author/jepinto
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: BlParent [mailto:blparent-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of 
> > Heather Bird via BlParent
> > Sent: Sunday, June 11, 2017 1:58 PM
> > To: blparent at nfbnet.org
> > Cc: Heather Bird <heather.l.bird at gmail.com>
> > Subject: [blparent] Introduction
> >
> > Hello. My name is Heather and I am the middle generation of a three
> generation blind family. My mother is blind and my father sighted. My 
> husband is sighted and my two sons, ages 3 and 8 are also blind. The 
> four of us have LCA, a rare autosomel dominant form, as LCA is 
> typically recessive.
> >
> >
> > My older son Jeremy is about to turn 9 in August, and he is my 
> > extreme
> child. He is on the autism spectrum and he never acts his age. He 
> either acts far more considerate and mature than his peers, like a 12 
> year old, or he acts incredibly immature and difficult like a 2 year 
> old. So, Its like having my 3 year old son Caleb, and two other 
> children, a 2 year old and a
> 12 year old with some weird custody arrangement where the 2 year old 
> and the 12 year old are never in my home at the same time.
> > *smile* Jeremy is extremely bright, but has poor planning skills and 
> > is
> often seriously lacking in basic common sense. His reading 
> comprehension is two to four grade levels above, but his actual 
> reading is about one grade level behind his peers. He can do mental 
> math one or two grade levels ahead of his class mates, but getting him 
> to sit down and write out his work on the Braille writer for math is 
> like wrestling a rabid, really pissed off squirrel. His primary 
> interests are space flight/NASA history, Mine craft, collecting figit 
> spinners, amusement park rides, science and watching other people play 
> various games on YouTube. Like his father, Jeremy cannot carry a tune 
> in a bucket, has an aptitude for math and technology and a fondness 
> for Bruce Coville books and doing Lego models. Jeremy is also my child 
> of contradictions. He wasn't fully potty trained until around age 4, 
> we are talking about "sit on the plastic froggy potty and I'll give 
> you an M and M and a penny to put in your toilet piggy bank that you 
> flush to get the coin to go down into the base, and please for God's 
> sake can we get you out of cloth training pants by the start of 
> Kindergarten?" But, at age 3 he could take the old empty toilet paper 
> cardboard tube off of the holder and install a new role for me. He can 
> read children's books on difficult topics like the holocaust or the 
> underground railroad, and have meaningful conversations about their 
> content, but if he drops half of a cheep, crappy
> 20 cent freeze pop, it is the same bursting into tiers and carrying on 
> like a wounded animal that you would expect to accompany something 
> serious like his cat dying.
> >
> >
> > My younger son Caleb is 3. He is my easy going sweet. He is quite 
> > smart, but rarely brilliant. He has tantrums on occasion, but he 
> > rarely misbehaves. He's very dependable, for a 3 year old, and a 
> > very amusing, lovable kiddo. If he is on the spectrum, it is much 
> > less significant than with Jeremy, as he is pretty typical in most 
> > ways. He loves music, car rides, shapes, visiting his nana and his 
> > grammie, and scented products. The only sensory things we have 
> > really seen with him is that he screams his head off as if we've 
> > poured sulfuric acid on him whenever Ilsa licks him, and he is not 
> > thrilled about having messy things on his hands or face, although he 
> > is able to cope if I give him a cloth napkin to use whenever he gets 
> > something on his fingers or face. He has done everything either on 
> > time with or slightly behind his peers, whereas Jeremy did just 
> > about everything way ahead of or way behind his peers. I see more of 
> > myself in Jeremy, but I have an easier time with Caleb. I love them 
> > both dearly, but, honestly? I like Caleb better. On a day-to-day 
> > basis, I far prefer spending time with Caleb. Jeremy pushes my 
> > buttons constantly, although on the rare occasions when Jeremy can 
> > focus and control his behavior, he is responsible for the majority 
> > of the extraordinary, epic or memorable moments in our household. 
> > Caleb keeps me sane and Jeremy helps me grow as a person, and both 
> > are very valuable aspects of my life. We want to have one more 
> > child, and we are hoping for a girl, but we are stopping at three 
> > even if the next one is a boy. Although, with three little boys, my 
> > husband, with his male service dog and Jeremy's male cat, I might 
> > have to go and spend some time with the little girls of friends to 
> > keep from being overwhelmed with testosterone. At least Ilsa is on 
> > the girl team with me. *smile*
> >
> >
> > My husband is sighted and he is one of the few sighted people that I
> feel really "gets it" about the blindness thing. He is an Iraq War 
> veteran of the United States Marine Corps. He just graduated with an 
> under graduate degree in computer science and is looking for a job. He 
> has moderate to severe PTSD and is a service dog handler. His service 
> dog is a smoothe coat collie named Dante, who we owner trained.
> >
> >
> > We also have a grey and black Maine Coon cat named Houston, who is
> Jeremy's pet. One of my catch phrases regarding the cat, as I fish him 
> out from under something, extricate him from a tight spot or shoe him 
> away from something he's stolen is "Houston, you are a problem."
> >
> >
> > I have a black and tan German Shepherd Seeing Eye dog named Ilsa. 
> > She is
> still quite young as I got her in September of 2016 and she wasn't yet 
> two at that time. I have previously had a yellow lab from GEB, two 
> GSDs from Fidelco and one GSD from TSE prior to Ilsa.
> >
> >
> > I am the chapter president of our local Rochester chapter of the
> National Federation of the Blind of New York. My husband, Jim is a 
> board member, and my mother, Bernice, who is also blind is our 
> secretary. I am also the vice president of the New York Associations of
Guide Dog Users.
> > Jim and I are members of IAADP and Jim is a member of the VFW, the 
> > DAV,
> and also of NOPBC. He might be joining the blind veterans division as
well.
> I am an attachment parent, in most respects and a green parent 
> whenever I can be. Our chapter is very new and very small, but is 
> growing rapidly. Wee were chartered with 7 members in October of 2016 
> and we now have 15 members, and of those 15, 5 of them are blind 
> parents, my mom, my self, a single blind mom and a blind couple.
> >
> >
> > It will be great to get to know all of you here on list.
> >
> > Have a great Sunday,
> >
> > Heather and family,
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
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