The title of this post was me today. I made a conscious decision to do some things others might have deemed irresponsible. Let me explain…
First, it was the last day of school! As an aside here, exclamation marks are overused in writing a lot and I try to use one for every twenty times I’d like to because otherwise I’d sound like a peppy cheerleader after drinking three Mountain Dew sodas for most of my blog posts. But yes, it was the last day of school and I was excited. I was mostly excited because the children’s schedules have been a mess. What with the multiple therapies (Orientation & Mobility, Play, Music) plus gymnastics plus swim team in addition to full days at school is just been too much. My sitter, who is great, must have thought me an inept mother at best and a calendar-challenged fourth grader at worst what with all the changes and mistakes I made. As a result, I think out of all the members of my family, I was the most excited to have the last day of school finally arrive.
Today, school was dismissed at noon with an all school gathering at a nearby park for pizza lunch and Kona Ice for the families, teachers and staff. When we arrived, I sunscreen the children, helped them get some food and then spent the rest of the time talking to adults and children, paying very little mind to my children unless I was specifically needed, which was the first intentionally irresponsible thing I did today.
My daughter was one purple shirt-wearing child among a sea of purple shirt-clad children. There were adults everywhere under and around the shelter. Children were playing in the grass with hula hoops and bubbles and chaos was in high swing. It is here that I will remind you my child is blind, or, well and truly visually impaired, whichever way you want to think about it. How does a blind child find me, her mother, also wearing a purple school shirt, among all the people milling about?
I wanted to see how she fared in an unfamiliar environment with a crowd of people. I had a plan you see. And before you think me a terrible mother, I knew she would be safe because she isn’t the wandering off type, is quite happily independent and was surrounded by parents and teachers who all knew her and could help her find me if needed. And she was indeed brought to me several times during the event, although I’m not sure she was in more trouble than any other child who might call out, “Mommy? Mommy?” because they don’t see them in the immediate vicinity. My daughter was never upset and the reason she needed to find me was usually for something like, “mom, can I have some watermelon?”
I was impressed by how well she did overall. She listened and watched the large freight train go by near the area, found and talked to some of her friends and definitely had a lot of food to eat. The most daunting thing about that whole portion of the afternoon was the roots. We were in shade under large, old trees with gnarled roots sticking out of the ground in what I’m going to call low-contrast dirt areas. Without careful walking, she could have fallen, but she was reasonably cautious and nothing happened.
The next part of my afternoon of irresponsibility was in leaving my son alone. He’s five, and he’s also just as independent as his sister. This particular park is large but at this time we had moved to the playground, children’s train, swings, carousel area. My son was interested in playing on the play structures while my daughter wanted to ride the little boat-go-round and the train. I lost sight of my son but knew he really wouldn’t have wanted to go anywhere other than the jungle gyms or sand play areas so I didn’t fret. Then, suddenly, my daughter had a dire need to go to the bathroom. So I left him.
The bathrooms in time and distance would have been a quick four minute round trip for an adult, but I had a hot, tired four-year-old in tow which added significant time. Then, we discovered the bathroom was being serviced and had to go to the second bathroom area another walk away, now backed up with a line. By the time we got back it had been about twenty minutes. Where was my son? In the sand play area not one bit worried he hadn’t seen me in some time.
After that my daughter wanted to ride the train, which goes around the park perimeter, another twenty minutes of time about we’d be away from my son, who had no interest in leaving the sand. I told him to look for us and wave when the train came by. He did about fifteen minutes later while we waved back at him. The only bad part about the whole thing was trying to get him to leave the sand to go on the carousel.
The day from my perspective was a success as I watched both children manage themselves independently and easily, even with the vision deficit my daughter has. They may not be officially in kindergarten yet, but they have self-confidence and can manage themselves without a parent beside them at all times.
The Big Boy Update: My son found a video on his iPad today and excitedly brought it to me saying he’d found a Lego he thought he and daddy could do together. I told him I’d look it up, knowing from the size of it in the adult man’s hands it was going to be an adult-priced Lego. When we found it online I told him it was over two hundred dollars and that it was too much to put on his wish list. He was disappointed but I think he still plans on asking my husband about it later. He remains hopeful.
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: My daughter was confused by the two trains today. The first was a large commercial freight train running behind the park. I had told her there were no passengers on it. When we went later to ride on the park’s train ride she said, “but you said there was only cargo allowed on the train, where will we ride?”
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