There are a lot of things my daughter can’t see. Some of them make me sad—well, all of them make me sad, but sometimes something just gets me down more than other things do.
I was looking up at the night sky, or rather the twilight sky and trying to decide if it was a full moon or a nearly full moon and if it was waxing or waning. My son was in the yard at the time and we both took some time to look at how big the moon looked on the low horizon and how bright it looked in the sky.
My daughter wanted to know what we were looking at so I told her we were talking about the moon. She remembers the moon and knows it’s in the sky, but the small point of light in her whole visual field that is the moon is just not something she can see. She will try though, and wanted to know where the moon was. I pointed in the direction, but that didn’t help because she couldn’t follow the angle of my arm so I turned her head so she could see the moon.
I don’t think she saw it, but she said her typical positive, “oh” response that gives us no information on if she did or didn’t see anything.
In any given day I’m reminded at least a dozen times of the things my daughter can’t and may never see. I try not to let it get to me. Sometimes it does though.
On the other side, I am constantly surprised by what my son does see. I’m a little warped in what to expect from vision in a child at this point because my daughter’s lack of vision has made me aware of all the things vision gives us information-wise as people. So when my son points out something far away or small or hard to see because of high contrast I commonly think, “wow, he’s got great vision coupled with superb observational skills”. I don’t think it’s really that, but when you’re used to a child who can’t see the tree five feet in front of her, you get a little lopsided in your expectations of vision.
The Big Boy Update: My daughter brought home some, “gluing work” from school late last week. To do this work you use a small brush, dip it into a tiny bowl of glue, brush glue onto the back of the attachment paper and then place it on the main sheet. It’s not so much creating a specific design as much as it is working on fine motor skills. My daughter’s page was covered in rectangles so much you almost couldn’t see the background paper. I was asking them where the pieces of paper were from (a cut up tissue box from their classroom). They weren’t sure so my daughter suggested we look on the back side of the pasted, glued pieces. My son said, “maybe the ones on the back are the background?”
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: We’ve been trying to come up with independent work for my daughter to do at home. She far prefers to do something with other people such as play a game, spend time together outside or do a craft. One thing she is good at and enjoys is drawing. I decided to repurpose the “lego table” in the corner of the dining room to a drawing table. I got a little light, some notebook and coloring book choices, markers and crayons and set the whole table up. So far she likes working there. I had to add a second chair so Madison could draw at the same when she comes over to visit.
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