My daughter has been spending a lot of time with Shane, our sitter from next door who, after returning home early from a gap year trip in a very rural region of New Zealand with zero cases of COVID-19 anywhere near, had to isolate herself for two weeks because she flew through LAX.
The two weeks are up and Shane and my daughter are doing all kinds of things together. One of the things they did over the course of three days after school made Tie Dye clothes. They went through my daughter's drawers and found two old, white shirts that would be vastly improved with some color added which would in so doing, hide the stains. They selected some new socks I had just gotten and found somewhere a new t-shirt including tag we must have gotten for some other purpose.
They prepared and colored one day, rinsed the next and did some nice drying in the tree branches with hangers that looked cute. They brought them in and said it was time to wash the newly colored items and later that day when the items were dry, my daughter had new, special clothes she designed herself. She was really happy about them
The thing is...she can't see them. She has to have someone else tell her what her shirt or socks look like. She will never see them and doesn't even have a good idea of how they might look as her memory of sight is pretty much gone. Why does she care?
Today I gave her some new, bulky crayons that were made from chopped up crayons. Each one had four or five colors in it. I gave them to her because making a mark with crayon on paper leaves a trail you can feel. It's great for marking things like which answer is correct or following your way through a tactile maze.
These crayons were extra broad at the tip and left a very nice mark when used. My daughter asked Shane, again and again, today, "what color is it writing now?" while she was using one of her new crayons to mark up some worksheets for school. Why does she care?
I don't know why she cares, but I'm glad she does. Having interests in things is far, far better than shutting it out and being resentful because you can't experience the thing.
Tonight, my daughter wanted to read me a book. She picked, "I am a Rainbow" by Dolly Parton. In this case, the book associates colors with emotions and situations in which we might feel those emotions. But still, she picked a book about colors. She loves a thing she will never experience. But I'm glad she does.
The Big Boy Update: My son has turned our bathroom and closet into an escape room. He's not quite done yet so hopefully tomorrow we'll be able to escape. He's got some clever things going with codes, mirrors and backward letters. Notes stuck on cabinets and doors. I'm looking forward to trying to escape.
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: My daughter was skyping Chelsea for music therapy today. I was upstairs working when I got a text saying, "somehow she has turned the tables on me and is making me identify instruments by sound." I came downstairs to find my daughter standing inside the pop-up tent which she'd put in the middle of the room. She had the basket of instruments inside and would make sounds with one and ask Chelsea what the instrument was. On my way down, Chelsea had texted me, "she just said, 'for once you got it right.'"
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