Isn’t this some rite of passage as a child? Every small child wanders away from their parent or the parent rounds the corner to the next aisle and suddenly you’re lost in a sea of consumables and your parent is utterly and completely gone. Panic sets in. Your chest tightens. You start to run. Maybe there are tears. Then some adult helps you (go to the next aisle) and your mother is right there, not even realizing you hadn’t left the cereal aisle at the same time she did.
Today my son was going to a movie with my husband and Uncle Jonathan. My daughter was invited to the Ninjago movie but she declined, saying what she’d really like to do is go to H-Mart with me instead. And when she got home from school she didn’t want to go on the inflatable water slide next door, she wanted to go to H-Mart.
She and I looked at all sorts of things, the produce aisle being the most intriguing as there are things in this large Asian market we don’t have in our corner grocery store. We picked up a large sugar cane stalk and some bean sprouts as well as some raw peanuts and then moved to the dried goods area. Or really the aisle as there was a whole aisle of rice. My daughter picked up large bags and couldn’t believe it was all rice.
We got samples and selected some candy. She remembered we were supposed to get squid so she picked out two squid as large as her forearm and we put them into a bag for dad to later make into calamari.
Then we went to the bakery to get a macaron for her and her brother with specific instructions to bring him a lemon one. After that we were going to check out but my daughter decided she wanted to eat at the food court-esque area there. It was confusing on where to order and where to pick up but I figured it out eventually and got our order placed. I sat my daughter down and told her to stay there, I’d be right back.
It was at this point that I’d realized no one had carts of products in the food court area. I figured I’d check out quickly and then come back to help get the food. She’d be all right, right?
You know where this story’s going next I know, because when you’re in a hurry to check out, you always run into delays. And there were delays. I started to get a knot in my chest, waiting for someone to come over the loudspeaker saying, “will the negligent mother with the little blonde girl please come back to the food area to collect your crying child?”
Only that never happened. I got back to the food court with my bag of groceries and large stalk of sugar cane to find my daughter had made friends with the family beside her. It was a mother and daughter in high school and they let me know our number had just been called.
I got our food and told them thank you for talking to her (my daughter was not upset in the slightest but I wasn’t sure if they were. It turned out they weren’t.) We had a nice conversation with them as we ate dinner and then when they left they made a special point of saying goodbye to my daughter.
I don’t think my child will ever have problems making friends and getting help as a blind person. I know the people tonight could tell she had glasses and if they looked closely they would notice her eyes don’t move normally, but I don’t think they had any idea she was blind. But they definitely could tell she was friendly.
The Big Boy Update: To some of you, this won’t make any sense. To others of you, you’ll understand why I was so proud. My son told another child at the playground the other day, “my mom has a TARDIS.”
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: I went to help with an apple event today at school and had lunch with my daughter—and found out something unexpected. She loves coleslaw. Really loves it. Eats it every day they have it in the cafeteria. She picked some out for dinner tonight too.
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