The Bottom of the Grand Canyon

I was talking to a friend today and he was asking questions about what my daughter remembers seeing and what her understanding is of sight in general.   She was fully sighted until close to four years of age so I'd think she remembers seeing and has an understanding of what sighted people can see.   Over time we get evidence by way of comments from her that she may remember very little of seeing at all.

Yesterday we were all eating dinner and the word 'canyon' came up in relation to my son's schoolwork.   When my daughter wanted to know what that meant we described how a canyon was between mountains and sometimes canyons can be very, very large, and are carved through the landscape over incredibly long periods of time, like the Grand Canyon.

We explained how very deep it was and my husband said there was an interesting way to get to the bottom of the canyon by riding a donkey down from the top.   My daughter said, "it's so deep you can't see the bottom?"  

She was assuming far away meant it wasn't visible.   When we explained that we could see things far away I think she was both confused and also somewhat sad.   She's still accepting being blind.   When her father said, "even though it's far away, it's still something you can see," my daughter said in a petulant voice, "well how would I know, I'm blind!"

That's anger.  I wanted to ask lots of questions at that point like did she think we could see the moon in the sky even though it was very far away, or the Sun when we traveled to see the solar eclipse.   I wanted to quiz her, but I don't.   We get the information we get when it comes organically.   Pulling information out of her never works and only upsets her.

The Big Boy Tiny Girl Hidden Weapon Game:  My son and daughter played a game this morning with lots of weapons from the weapon bin.  We call it that and that sounds dangerous but it mostly contains foam light sabers, nerf guns and other plastic and soft things that technically are categorized as weapons.   Before school this morning they each hid various weapons in different rooms for the other one to find.   School started before the game ended.   I'm typing with hidden weapons under my seat and two katanas in the drawer in front of me.