Is That Your Work?

We’re trying to be in the positively hopeful realm when it comes to my daughter’s eyes.   At the same time, we’re also firmly situated in the realistic world as well.   We want to see progress, improvement, any signs that her vision is getting better in some way, any way.    But we have to be realistic.    It’s too easy to take a single point of data and extrapolate to get the result you want to have.   People do that all the time but a single point of data is not enough to draw a conclusion, especially when there are so many points of data to compare it to each day.

That sounded rather wordy.   To sum up, we’re hoping for the best but go with what the evidence actually shows us as we try to draw conclusions on the status of my daughter’s vision.  

One of the data points we have regularly is the work she brings home from school.   If she’s done a painting, drawing or other work, she’ll put it into her purple school bag and bring it home.   Typically, she’s too busy running off to play with the neighbor’s children after school so we ask later in the day for her to tell us about what we found in her bag.

As a substitute, I’m familiar with the types of work they do in a Children’s House Montessori classroom.   When I see certain types of work come home I make a mental guess about who’s work it is.   Drawing is a tough one because my daughter loves to draw.  Her drawing skills are at a certain level based on age, experience and vision ability.   Sometimes a great piece of work comes home and I wonder if it’s a sign she’s either seeing more or has better visualization of her surrounding world.   Usually when I ask her if these types of drawings are hers she’ll say, “Neel drew that for me.”  She has multiple friends that like to draw and then share their work.

She does a lot of cutting work, following patterns and lines.   She’s quite good at cutting but her accuracy isn’t as spot on as a normal sighted child’s would be.   Sometimes, again, there will be for instance a very well cut spiral in her bag.   When I ask, I get the same response, “Naya gave me that.”

Then there are the new works.  Work that my daughter hasn’t been given a lesson in yet, but could learn at any time from her teacher if she shows interest and is ready skill-wise for the work.   One work came home like this the other day in which a circle was “cut out” using a pin to punch around a circle line.   One the pin has been punched all around, the child can press out the circle (or other shape) just like you would anything perforated.   In essence, they’re creating their own perforation, building excellent fine motor skills along the way.     Was it her work?  Sadly, no.

She is doing work at school, but it’s moving slowly by necessity due to her current vision.    She sees her retina surgeon next week and we’ll find out his next plan and thoughts.   I was hoping for some return of sight by now, but we may be fighting a brain ignoring her right eye.  

So we’re hopeful, yes, but realistic always.   Being realistic sometimes sucks.   Having a happy daughter mitigates much of it though.

The Big Boy Update:  My son came home from his overnight campout today.   He had a very good time and told us about some of it until he got too tired and cranky to tell us more.   We let him have the iPad to wind down after the busy two days camp in the woods.   He fell asleep with it in his lap.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter had a sleep over at Mimi and Gramps last night—her first.   She played treasure hunt with my mother, got a fuzzy blanket and wooden xylophone from my father—which she loves, and slept a full eleven hours, waking up at eight o’clock (later than usual) to have a nice breakfast with my parents before I came to pick her up.   My mother said she was a delight and my father said, “she’s such a sweet little girl.”   I agree with my father, she is.