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1. Simple Activities Aren’t Off Limits to You
My
kids love to ride their bikes and swim in our apartment complex pool.
Both of these are typical childish activities, that I remember
enjoying as a kid. Vision is sure a handy thing to have though for
monitoring of such play. I can’t safely navigate them around
parked vehicles, not to mention avoid moving vehicles while they ride
around in circles. As for the pool, given that both my kids are
still learning to swim, I do not feel safe bringing them both to the
pool at the same time. I’ve found a way to work around the pool
issue , going with each child individually on separate days, but I
wish they could have the fun of getting to play with each other in
the water. As for the bike riding, my sighted husband does it
whenever he can, but I still sometimes wish I could just take them
out during any given day by myself and enjoy that special time with
them. I feel like I am missing out on a fun part of their childhood.
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2. Matching Socks
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Oh my goodness, I don’t have the words to articulate my frustration with socks. I can understand I begrudgingly suppose, in theory, the desire of relatives to buy my children colored socks that match perfectly with every outfit that they own. But they all feel exactly the same and they usually just end up in one huge, in discriminant, messy pile in their dresser. More often than not, they wear mismatching socks and I find that I just don’t care. Even though, as both of my children are also blind, they do not have any perception of color whatsoever, it matters a lot to them what color socks they are wearing. This too, drives me crazy. No matter how many times I explain to them that I am, like them, blind and cannot see colors, they will still incessantly ask me the color of well pretty much everything! If I had the money, I would love to hire a housekeeper (wouldn’t we all), but I’d also add an exclusive position for sock matching and color identifier for my children!
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3. Cleaning up Crap
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In case anyone is wondering, I mean literal crap here. Yes, I know, this is one that is on everyone’s list. But seriously, I hate doing this as a blind person. Anyone want to guess why? Every time I’m cleaning up their rear, I’m wondering if I got it all. I’m also wondering how far I want to go to ensure that I’ve gotten it all. As you’ve probably figured out, without sight, there’s really only two other senses to make use of here. If I am by myself, I will get it done, but that’s like addding insult to injury. The worst is if they are having stomach issues and don’t make it to the toilet. Yeah, trying to gauge where that fecal matter landed without sight, and without stepping in it, is well one of the crummiest tasks ever!
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4. Finding that all important, Tiny Lost Toy
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Oh, you know the one I’m talking about, that toy that your child has to have right now. You know, it’s the one they haven’t played with in weeks but suddenly randomly remembered while eating breakfast and now it’s the only thing they can think or talk about. So I ask where they last had it, because I know I’ll get a reliable and helpful answer. Now, with vision, I could just casually look around the room and tell within a few moments if that item is, in fact, in the large living room as my child emphatically insists. Instead, I get to waste time by walking the entire length and width of the whole, stupid room. Even if I do this, I will still most likely miss it. And that’s assuming that it is in fact in the living room and not on the porch, in the bathroom or at grandma’s house in Florida. And, if by an act of God, I do manage to find it, said child will play with it for a full sixty seconds, if I’m lucky, before discarding it and going on to lose something else.
