Fa-la-la-la-la-la

 So it’s December 18^th and I’m trying to make it a great Christmas for my boy.  Ok, that’s a pretty lie I tell myself.  I’m coasting at best.  My socks are neither too tight, nor is my heart too small however I loathe this time of year with a smoldering, tinsel encrusted passion.  I’ll say it.  I freaking hate Christmas.  Bah Humbug!

The first Holiday Season after my mother passed away I realized something fundamental about myself.  I have no Christmas spirit to speak of. 

Now my Mom, she was a right jolly elf.  She’d start playing Christmas songs in June.  Her shopping was done by August 15^th and the month of December was dedicated for decorating, cookie baking, hand painting ornaments and mailing out 1,672 personalized Christmas cards.

It’s hard to be Grinchy in the face of such enthusiasm so naturally, I assumed that I had the Christmas bug as well. Then she died and I spent the next 10 years volunteering to work Christmas day, just so I could avoid the whole thing. Rum sodden egg nog and the movie where the kid wants a Red Rider BB gun: those were the parts of Christmas that I liked.

Enter Gabriel. 

I was already day dreaming of his first Christmas the day I brought him home from the hospital.  I was going to fill the apartment with fairy lights, put up the biggest Christmas tree I could fit through the door and indoctrinate him, early into Jimmy Stewart’s Wonderful Life.  I had plans, man.

And then we went to Columbia and found out that his eyes were irreparably damaged.  It was the beginning of December and the streets of Bogotá were decorated with gloriously cheerful garland that my baby would never see. Every one of those icicle lights pierced my heart.  On the plane ride home, with unshed tears burning my eyes, I knew I couldn’t do it.  I knew I couldn’t make a Christmas that year.  My baby’s first and I barely acknowledged it.  Well, I had some eggnog. Fa la la la la.

Seven years later here we are again.  Christmastime.  And I’m trying to try.  Christmas is a very visual holiday, if you really think about it so I work with what I’ve got.  The house smells of our Christmas tree and cranberry scented candles.  Nat King Cole is singing about Frosty the Snowman and I’m thinking about actually stringing popcorn by hand, although I’m not sure there’s enough Rum in the Caribbean to fuel that particular activity.

Gabriel is incredibly smart and asks too many intelligent questions…this whole Santa Clause thing is falling apart at a rapid clip.  It doesn’t help that I hate to lie to him and have never really felt too good about the while Chris Cringle thing.  I answer his questions as abstractly as possible in the following fashion:

Gabriel:  Mom, we don’t have a chimney.  How will Santa get in the House?

Me:  Ummm…..well he’s Santa.  He probably knows where we keep the hide-a-key.

Gabriel:  How can the elves really make all those presents? They’re so small.

Me:  Couple of years ago Santa started outsourcing some of the work to Mordor.  They have an Orc reform program, so those guys do the heavy lifting.

Gabriel:  Orcs do not work in Santa’s workshop!

Me: Course not.  They’re allergic to Candy Canes.

Gabriel:  How does Santa know if I’m being good?

Me:  I rat you out.  There’s a hotline parents can call when their kids have been naughty.

Gabriel: Oh, yeah? What’s the number?

Me: 1-800-Snow-bal

Gabriel:  Can I see your phone.

Me: No.  Want a cookie?

 

This is the last year that he’ll believe in Santa but that’s not really what it’s about anyway.  I’ve been teaching him about brotherhood.  I teach him that Christmas is a time of year where you go out of your way to let the people you love know how special they are to you.  When you help people who have less than you, when you put aside your fears and worries for a little while and celebrate what you have at the moment. 

In teaching him this, I relearned it myself and some of my hatred for the season seems to have waned.  I’m taking time to count my many blessings and eagerly anticipating the beginning of a new year.  I’ve found some joy in my heart that is unrelated to rum or BB guns and I can’t wait to see the look on my Little Dude’s face when he finds the Xbox that Santa’s Orcs whipped him up this year.

All the Christmas lights he'll never see still cause me a modicum of dismay but every year it gets easier. And, hey...if I'm sneaky enough, I can Christmas shop for him, right in front of him.

I hope all of you reading this, whatever your beliefs, whatever you celebrate have a wonderful Holiday Season.  Have an eggnog for me.

It's OK to be Blind

                I detailed some recent troubles Little Dude and I had in my last post.  That was an odd week, filled with random strangers doing randomly strange things. A deviation from the world I have painstakingly created for my son, a world where it’s ok to be blind. 

           If you read that last post you’ll notice that I was a bit dismayed by the events of that week, but managed to downplay the significance of those events, both to Gabriel and (eventually) myself.  It’s easy to dismiss negative behavior when people are out of line. 

But what do you do when the message is one of love and hope yet still wildly inappropriate?

Last week Gabriel and I were in a grocery store we don’t frequent often.  I was trying to motor through the store as fast as humanly possible but Gabriel heard the siren song of the refrigerated meat counter and had to check it out.  He was shambling freestyle through the market (sans white stick) and I was tossing directional commands at him while simultaneously being overwhelmed by feminine hygiene products; multitasking at its finest.

Gabriel reached the meat counter, pressed his ear against the glass and informed me that the refrigerator sounded funny.  I told him I’d be right there and advised him not to move to his left, because a woman was already occupying that space.

Said woman had been observing our antics. She said hello to Gabriel and touched his head.  I could tell she was harmless, but I dislike it when strangers touch my child and something about this woman gave me a mild case of the heebie jeebies.  I abandoned my tampon mission and crossed the 10 feet that separated us in a flurry of overprotective mothering.  The woman said hello and told me that my child is adorable.  I thanked her, grabbed his hand and lead him toward the cheese.

While debating the virtues of mozzarella over provolone I felt a presence behind me.  I turned and found Ms. Meat Counter regarding me with a look akin to benevolent compassion. I threw up a little in my mouth because I’ve developed a sixth sense about these things and I knew what was coming.

She asked me if I believe in God.  I instantly replied that I did and started hedging away.  I shot her a look that clearly said, ‘Please, stranger.  Shut the hell up.’

She did not.

Instead she told me that God works miracles. That one day, with enough faith on my part, my boy could see.  I could feel piousness oozing out of her. I know that she thought her message was one of hope, perhaps she’d even felt compelled by the Holy Spirit to trail us around the frozen food department to deliver it.

I was literally shaking with contained fury.

Thank you, Meat Counter.  For seven long years, I have been raising my child to embrace his fate.  I’ve been teaching him to believe in God while accepting that he is missing something fundamental that most other people take for granted.  I have been teaching him that God works in mysterious ways that we can’t always understand.  I tell him that God has a special plan for him, one that involves the extraordinary gifts he has been given in lieu of sight. I have never once given him hope of ever seeing.

For a moment, I dissociated into two separate entities.  One contained all my logic and the other all my emotion and they were both screaming for a chance to respond.

Logic’s argument was sound:  The pathways in the brain that allow people to understand what they are seeing are formed by the age of two. Even if Gabriel’s retinas were miraculously reattached at that very moment, right there in the dairy section, he would not be able to comprehend what he was seeing.  If there is ever to be a miracle in my boy’s life, it will be one of technology and not divine intervention.

However, science stands on a fixed ground of proven facts while belief in miracles is not hindered by any such limitations.  It is impossible for these two factions to debate because the argument always boils down to science pointing out a physical impossibility that a miracle could somehow trump.  Logic was clearly not the way to go.

Emotion’s argument was relatively incoherent, as emotions tend to be: Don’t you think I prayed for that?  Don’t you realize that I had to pull myself inside out to get to the point that we’re at now?? Do you have any idea how difficult it is to raise a child to believe in a God that made him less than perfect? Who the hell do you think you are, saying such things right in front of him??  Do you have any idea how damaging false hope is to a child?? What are you…some kind of idiot??

However, as this woman truly meant no harm, it seemed unfair to unleash my wrath upon her.  It would have been mildly satisfying to tell her exactly what I thought of her kind words, but not worth having to explain to my boy why Mommy made a nice lady in the supermarket cry.

All of this happened in an instant while Meat Counter looked at me expectantly.  Gabriel’s hand tightened around mine, possible because he could sense the battle being waged in my head.  That tiny hand brought me back to myself. 

I smiled at her.  It may even have been a pleasant smile.  Maybe.  I told her that my son’s very existence on this Earth was, in and of itself, a miracle that I am extremely grateful for and that I wouldn’t dream of asking for more.   She started to speak again but I held up my hand, thanked her and walked away.

I respect those who have such faith.  It’s an incredible gift but I have to wonder: do those who suggest that others believe in miracles ever stop to consider how unnecessarily devastating it is for those to whom miracles do not come.

As Gabriel and I were checking out he summed up the incident nicely.  “Hey, Mom.  That lady was kind of weird, wasn’t she?”

I agreed and was extremely proud of the way I handled things, until I got to the car and realized I’d forgotten both tampons and cheese.

I do believe in God.  I also believe that sometimes the answer is no and you’re only choice at that point is to make the best of what you’ve got.  The alternative is to become consumed with a longing for something that you most likely will never have, living a half life at best and that’s no way to live.  Little Dude doesn’t live a half life.  He lives a life in a world where it’s ok to be blind.

Another Fucking Blog Post

I’m working on an entry that I want to post in the worst way.  It’s a tribute to Gabriel’s volunteer Braille Coach.  The magnitude of this man’s generosity ripples through my son’s life in a way that he will have no scope of until he’s much older. For now all he knows is that he has the best Braille teacher ever, ‘his’ Edwin.  

I’m slightly humbled in the face of capturing the story of Edwin’s entrance into our lives.  Not only has he become a strong, male role model in the little dude’s life, but he’s also become someone I’m honored to call my cherished friend.  

I’ve been agonizing and overworking and now I find myself left with a puddle of beautiful words that have somehow lost their meaning.  I had a case of circumstantial writer’s block but was determined to post that story.

And then, last week, circumstances changed and I got really pissed off. 

My Jeresy flared-up and wanted to write a scathing, F-bomb filled post slandering my foes.  All thoughts of goodness flew out of my head (as they tend to when one is presented with more sensational emotions).

At first, I said to myself, “Self…don’t do it.  There is enough hate and profanity in the world and you should strive to put more good out there than bad.”

Then I reconsidered and said to my mirror, “Fuck. That. Shit.  I’m 50 shades of pissed off right now and part of being a writer is being honest.  Plus, who am I to leave the knock of inspiration unanswered? You should totally write that post and see if you can use the F-word no less than 27 times as various parts of speech.  Make it Eminem level offensive."

Then my 12 year old self rose her gawky head and threw in her charming two cents:  'I triple dog dare you'.

The dreaded triple dog dare.  

I would have lost all the street cred I’ve amassed with myself if I didn’t do it.  So here we go….hold the fuck on.  This post is not for the faint of fucking heart.

Last week, I had three back to back incidents where my child was treated poorly because of his blindness.  I’m so fucking pissed off right the now just thinking about how fucking pissed off I was when these incidents fucking took place.  Come back with me, to one seriously fucket up week.

Sunday

Gabriel was in the creepy-germ infested playhouse cavorting with some kids his own age in our local McDonalds.  I was standing at the bottom watching his shadow skitter through the tubes when some big kids (10 year olds or better) joined the foray.  These children were riding the sugar dragon and swaggered into the playroom with all the arrogance of fledgling street gang members.  

I felt apprehension on my child’s behalf but didn’t call him down because while I can’t protect him forever, at this stage of the game I can best teach him how to deal with little, fucking douche bag thugs.  I was also hopeful that it would be ok.

It fucking wasn’t.

Not only did these little fuckers alienate my child, they openly mocked him.    

Thank my stars, he didn’t really get it.  He thought they were all playing.  He didn’t realize that he that he was chillin’ at the tubular top of a plastic encased rendition of ‘The Lord of the Flies’ cast in the role of Piggy.

As it’s both illegal and immoral to beat the fucking stuffing out of children these days, I whistled him down with the promise of nuggets and a toy. He was clueless but I was fucking vibrating with anger.  I told myself to get a grip and let it the fuck go.  I did. 

Ehhh….sorta.

Tuesday

Gabriel and I found ourselves parched while out in the world so we decided to seek hydration at a local quickie-mart.  He chose a purple Gatorade and I went for an overpriced, chemical laced coffee drink.  We were laughing about something as we placed our drinks on the counter and the cashier barley noticed us…until she did.

Upon receipt of my change, she acknowledged Little Dude and I with a glance that turned into a lingering stare and climaxed into this perfect fucking stranger shrieking at the top of her voice, “Oh, my God!!  What’s wrong with him??”

I leapt over the counter and introduced myself to her with a flying tackle.  My elbow was precariously placed in the hollow of her throat as I asked her to repeat her fucking question while looking me straight-the-fuck in my eyes.

No, I didn’t.  Fucking social protocol and assault laws.

I looked her into shifty, rodentesque,  mud colored irises and said, “Absolutely nothing.”

Walking out of the store, with a child who was outwardly unaffected (he was processing it though), I decided that passive aggression was suddenly my best friend.  

I got my phone and told all my local friends that a boycott of that particular store was immediately needed because the ferret faced proprietor had been mean to Gabriel.   

All of their replies of boycott affirmation were comforting but one was absolutely priceless:  ‘She’s fucked. That store smells like my dos’s ass anyway.  I never go there but now I’ll never go there double. Want me to picket out front?’

My response to the incident may have been pretty fucking petty, but I’m ok with that.

Friday

Gabriel and I were in the pharmacy waiting for his next installment of never fucking ending eye drops.  I was making him laugh by assigning names to the chairs in the waiting room.  He was sitting in Oswald and I was draped across Alexander when it happened.

A young man put on a Halloween fright mask and startled his dad with it.  The guy actually jumped - it was pretty fucking funny.  When the Father recovered he pointed his son in the direction of the Little Dude.  I suppose he thought it would be funny to witness a 7 year old being frightened.

They both tried to get my child’s attention to the point that it was just sad all around.  I said, “He can’t see you guys.”  

They ignored me and continued to try and catch my little guy's eye.  That's hard when it's plastic, unless you're speaking literally and I have specifically instructed Gabriel not to play 'Toss the Eye'.

I fucking said it louder.

The Father finally looked closely and said, “Oh, noooo!  Poor thing!” and then tried to give my child a hug.

What the fuck??

 

I was at the fucking end of my rationality at this point, People.

I intercepted him - literally pushed him back, said “No! He’s not a poor thing!” and leveled him with my best Ice Princess stare.  Without breaking eye contact I grabbed my child’s hand and dragged him into another part of the store to check out hair dye.  

We’d  just about finished talking about the difference between Chestnut Brown and Auburn when Mr. Poor Thing approached us and apologized.

He was by far the kindest of all recent offenders and somehow that made him the worst one.  The children were rude, fucking little degenerates, Ferret-face was a stupid, fucking asshat but this man…..he was sorry.  

Sorry for my son.  

All he could fathom was a life in the dark.  He hadn’t noticed that my boy navigates the store like he can see it.  He didn’t hear my son’s impressive vocabulary.  He didn’t appreciate how happy and comfortable my blind kid is in a world that he can’t see.  His pity had blinded him.  

Poor fucking thing.

It’s a cruel world.  It’s hard to be the blind kid.  It’s also hard to be the fat kid, the small kid, the big kid, the slow kid, the kid with Autism, the smart kid, the kid with buck teeth and acne and the kid who always randomly smells like onions for some reason.

It’s also hard to be a parent to kids who don’t quite fit in.  In a world where bullying runs rampant and people are obsessed with the most superficial aspects of the world, so many of our kids feel like round pegs trying to be square holed.  And the sad, hard, fucking truth is all we can do is give them a strong enough foundation of love and security to weather the wear of the world. We can't shield them forever, we have to teach them to protect themselves.

I mostly ignored the bad behavior of others last week and I suppose that’s the best you can do.  If all bad behavior was ignored maybe it would just give up and slink away.  Until then, I walked away a little stronger and made myself a promise: I will never let the negative behavior of others affect me more than inspiring a vilely-worded blog post.  

Last week fucking sucked, but I shook it off.  Because that’s what you have to do with the bad stuff.  You have to shake it off, one time, real fucking hard.  You can’t absorb it, especially when you have a child to consider. My son, unknowingly, looks to me to show him how to interact with other people.  I will not fail him by letting anyone drag me down to their level of douchebaggery.

It helps to focus on the good things.  Like Gabriel’s Braille coach, who will be mildly horrified by the language in this publication.  

Sorry, Edwin. I’m from New Jersey.  What the fuck can I say?

My Little Worry Basket

My little Dude, the boy who was never supposed to be born, the baby that almost didn’t make it through his first night in this world, is a little over seven years old now.  2,624 days after his birth and I’m struck by how much I’ve learned from him.

I’ve learned about being a Mother. I’ve learned about raising a blind child. I’ve learned to compartmentalize like a Mofo. I’ve learned to make my peace with the things that I can’t change, and to work really hard at changing the things that I can.  As a result of all I’ve learned, I’ve gotten closer to being the person I always wanted to be. I try really hard because I want my son to grow up being proud to have a Mom like me.  

Long ago, I desperately wished for a cure for his eyes.  I stopped the day I realized that wishing for something futile uses energy that could be better spent on raising a kid who can deal with the hand that life has dealt him..  I decided that the best way to go about this was by refusing to treat him like a blind person.  

I’m incredibly lucky because I have a singularly disabled child.* I can phase out Gabriel’s blindness to the point that I recently asked him to hand me a green towel and then we had a good laugh about how I sometimes forget he’s blind.  I’m not in denial, it’s just that I’ve accepted it to the point that it no longer matters. 

I do, however, have a set of worries about my son’s future.  The stress of that would drag me down if I let it.

Worrying wastes even more energy than wishing and the only way I can go on treating my kid like he’s not blind is by keeping my focus on him and not the daunting prospect of his unseen future. So I’ve developed a system of keeping my worries out of my daily life.

You see, I keep them in a picnic basket.  I put the basket in a box, which I wrap in saran wrap, douse with water and store in the deep freezer under my secret stash of Ben & Jerry’s Cherry Garcia frozen yogurt and my emergency bottle of Jack Dainels.  And there they stay.  All my little pointless worries, tucked far away where they can’t creep up on me during play time.

However, there are times (usually in the small hours of the morning) I find myself completely compelled to check out the contents of my worry basket.

In the event that I’m not distracted by Ben, Jerry or Jack…. if I make it through the many layers of frozen saran wrap…. if I am not deterred by the DANGER stickers and ignore the handwritten note that says, ‘Don’t open me ever, Dumbass!.... I am free open the box, take out the basket and release my worries.  

It usually goes something like this:

What if we were in a Zombie Apocalypse situation and it started while Gabriel was at school.  Would someone help him?  Would he have a chance at holding him off with his white stick until help arrived.  Should I have him in a Karate class?  Would they accept him as a student in Karate class?  Is Jujitsu better suited for fighting zombies?  What’s the difference between those two things…and Kung Fo is something completely different, isn’t it?  I’m almost 40…why don’t I know this stuff by now?

What if he has a guide dog one day and it gets scratched by a bat and becomes rabid, like Cujo.  Would he notice that the dog was abnormally thirsty and take it to the vet or would he miss the symptoms completely and be ripped to shreds by his canine companion?  They always seem to use big dogs for Guide work…a rabid, big dog could do much more damage than a rabid, small dog.  Do they train miniature poodles to be Seeing Eye dogs?  Not much threat there…he could just kick a rabid poodle dog away or stuff it in a pocketbook and call animal control….. 

What if he has no friends and can’t find the bus stop?  What if has no job and doesn’t need to take the bus anywhere?  What if he’s extreme rock climbing (alone because he has no friends but that’s where he took the bus) and his little hitchey-thingie is faulty but he doesn’t see it because he can’t see?!?  

Most of the worries that wash over me, stream of consciousness style, are completely ridiculous.  They are one last attempt to keep myself from the tiny jewels at the bottom of the basket.  My genuine, legitimate life concerns.  

What if he is in an emergency situation in a building one day and can’t find a way out?  He bumps his head all the time, is that why he had a headache the other day or was it just a headache?  His sleeping problems…is that just because he’s just bad at sleeping like me or does he have Non 24^? What if he gets bitter when he’s older because he really wants to drive a car?  Will they let blind people drive Google cars alone??

This can go on and on. I shouldn’t brag…. but I could be a champion worrier.  If they ever have a Special Emotional Olympics I could possibly be a contender for the Gold in fretting.

The biggest problem with worrying is that there are so seldom easy answers.  Most of the things I agonize over will probably never be a problem outside my own head and in the past, the biggest challenges I faced were ones I never saw coming.  I should never open that basket but sometimes I can't seem to help myself and occasionally I do head off some problems by giving them forethought.

When he’s older I’ll be sure to tell him to ask someone help him locate the emergency exits when he goes to a new place for the first time.  I spoke with his Doctor, and as long as he’s not concussed a head bump is just a head bump.  I still have no clue about the root of his sleeping issues, but I’m pretty sure I’m just going to start drugging him. As for the Google car, well there might be driverless hover cars when he is old enought to drive or maybe in the post Zombie apocalypse we’ll all be riding donkeys.

When I’ve obsessed enough about ridiculous things and muddled through some real stuff I put my worries back into the basket, rewrap it and stick it back in the deep freeze.  I don’t ever bring them out when Gabriel is around me because they are my worries, mine alone.  If I start carrying them around with me they will weigh me down or worse, spill out onto him.

He has his own worries in his little basket….how can he weasel out of doing his reading homework and play video games, mostly.

Little Dude was assessed a few weeks ago for his ability to socialize.  Socialization can be a struggle for blind kids. In some cases they can feel isolated, lack compassion and be generally antisocial.  Not mine.  He's already a little party animal.  The conclusion is that he is very well adjusted for any child, but especially for a blind one.  This confirms something that I’ve long suspected:   My struggle to keep my worries in check has allowed him to grow into a little boy who happens to be blind instead of a blind kid  Treating him like he's perfectly normal has given him both the confidence and the spirit to be well...pretty much normal, despite his abnormal eyes.

* Many of the blind children out there are blinded as a secondary complication to other seriously debilitating health problems.  The parents of these kids don’t have the luxury of make-believing that nothing is wrong.  There’s a chance that they can’t even crack jokes for it because the rigorous schedule of taking care of a multiply disabled child does not allow for a lot of joke cracking time.  They are too busy fighting with the insurance company, or having the wheelchair ramp in the van fixed.  Their child’s health problems are of the ‘in your face’ variety and they can never escape them.

^ Non24 is a sleep disorder that affects blind people because seeing the sunlight plays a role in helping to the body’s ability to regulate it’s Circadian Rhythms. 

Disembodied Voices in the Dark

 

It’s Summer vacation and Little Dude and I are off the chain and running wild.  We’re staying up late, having people over all the time, eating ice cream after 7pm, watching TV shows at bedtime, the other day I even ran with scissors…it’s complete madness over here.  I love it.  I’m already kind of dreading the beginning of school.

I’ll miss Gabriel’s constant company when he starts 2^nd grade in a few weeks.  He’s a charming little fellow and since he’s my only child I’m never really overwrought with Mothering.  He has reached an age appropriate level of independence and enjoys spending a little time alone as long as he has some way to entertain himself. 

What’s more than that, I’ll miss seeing my boy so relaxed all the time.  It wasn’t until this break started that I realized exactly how stressful school is for him.  

Every day I go to Gabriel’s class to pick him up from school.  In the beginning of the year I would ask him to tell me about his day and he would respond like a world weary teenager.

Me:  Hey, Kid.  How was your day?

Gabriel:  It was fine.

Me: Just fine?

Gabriel: Yeah.  Fine.

Me: Well what did you do?

Gabriel: I dunno.  School stuff.  Math maybe.

Me: Well…who did you hang out with during lunch?

Gabriel:  I dunno. Some girl. She has a head.  
Me: Was it a nice day?
Gabriel: It was a day.

I was mildly concerned about my then 6 year old's lack of enthusiasm.  First grade is supposed to be a magical wonderland of learning and socializing with tiny peers.  I remember running home to my Mother and telling her every detail of my busy day at that age.  Frankly, I was slightly appalled at what seemed at first to be well…apathy.

And then in the middle of the year it truly dawned on me; at school my boy is pretty much all by himself, in the dark, bobbing around in a sea of voices.  He comes home mentally exhausted from trying to process hundreds of things that happened that he didn’t understand.

Person 1:  Hey!!! What did you do that for??

Person 2: Oh, man.  It was an accident, I’m sorry.  Here let me help you get that.

What just happened? You don’t know. You didn’t see it.

You may assume that someone bumped into someone else and the bumped one dropped something. But you don’t know for sure, and you don’t know what they dropped.  Could be anything; a brief case, a picnic basket, the gold leash of a very quiet tiger.  You just don’t know.

So many conversations start with the phrase: Look at this.  So many things happen that people see and then start talking about. Gabriel must really struggle to make sense of the non verbal interactions that go on around him.  All the time.

I decided to lay off the questions and started asking him just one thing after school.  I ask him to tell me his best and his worse from the day.  This is no problem.  His bests diversely vary, but his worst is usually some variation of ‘the kids were loud’ or ‘someone was yelling/crying’.  Sometimes I ask him who was yell/crying and most of the time he doesn’t know.

After school he walks in the house and makes a beeline to his key board.  I toss a juice pouch and a snack at him and he's gone.  Transported to a place of beautiful melodies, crystal clear chords, patterns that are simple, yet gloriously perfect. Finally, something the Little Dude can control and understand completely. 

After a while, he resurfaces and it's obvious that that the music helped him decompress. He's ready to start part two of his day.  That’s when we’ll do homework and hang out. He’ll rarely go back and mention anything that happened at school. It's over as far as he's concerned.

Low and behold, now that it's vacation and the pressure's off, it’s all coming out. My child is finally telling me about his day.  From six months ago. 

I've been hearing random things; a kid was mean to another kid, a day when the teacher was yelling, one time when the kids were screaming like maniacs in the gym, a day when his lunch was amazing, one of the teachers uses the same fabric softener we do.  

 I’ve been hearing juicy little tidbits of gossip, and about all the long list of  games they play and songs they  sing at school.  ‘Barbie Girl’ is on that list and Gabriel thinks that's a great song.  Almost as good as the Beatles. That is a fact I try not to dwell on.  

In a few weeks he’ll be going back, and second grade brings it harder than the first.  He’ll also have extra lessons three days a week after school, possibly four if we can manage to squeeze in music class.*

It will be stressful and he might revert to a less communicative state.  I’ll miss that, but I stand firm in my decision to send him to school with sighted kids.  Nothing that he’s learning in school is as important as the lessons he doesn’t realize he’s learning…how to be the blind guy in a world of people who can see. Life is a full contact sport, if you want to get good at it you have to play it.

He is developing skills that will help him deal with people, ask for help when he needs it, ask what’s going on around him. He has already taught himself how to cope with the stress of it all.  He’s learning how – not only to drift- but to swim through that sea of disembodied voices around him.

* Yeah, you’d think piano but no, he really wants to learn to play a trumpet or a trombone.  I also try not to dwell on that.