Please note that I am in no way a trained specialist or educator of
any sort. I am simply the Mother of a blind little boy who is
flourishing. These are my humble opinions, and what’s that thing they
say about opinions? Anyway, you’ve been warned.
Part 1 – Fill The World with Music and Laughter
When Gabriel was a baby I read somewhere that you should keep things
quiet for your blind child so they could learn to identify all the
sounds in the world around them. I instantly rejected that. What kinda
crap…??? Sure, so my kid already can’t see to stimulate his brain and
I’m supposed to keep the house snow-covered-graveyard quite, while we
breathlessly listen for the comforting hum of the air conditioner and
the much anticipated arrival of the mailman?
Nut-uh. Something about keeping Gabriel in the dark AND the quiet
rubbed me the wrong way. This was the first time I considered defying
the experts and the decision to do so had me so nervous I bit off all my
nails. When I noticed that my toenails were looking more bitable by
the day, I decided to trust my instincts. I got rid of his fancy mobile
and found one that played Mozart. I threw all of his pointlessly, cute
stuffed animals in a bag and found him ones that made noise or had
interesting textures.
I started his musical education with the Classical Masters. Bach,
Beethoven, Brahms, even some composers whose names don’t start with the
letter B. We went on to Ragtime, Opera and then graduated to Rock and
Roll from Presley to the Present.
The first time he heard the Blues he cried. The first time he heard
Reggae he kept time to the music by beating his hands on the side of his
baby walker. It was Bob Marley’s, Buffalo Soldier and it was then that
I knew he’d be musical. Rap helped him poop. Weird, I know. The
first time he heard Raffi, I had to quickly adjust to never getting to
choose the song, for a long, long while. I sang to him constantly and
right after he started speaking he’d sing along. All my memories of
his babyhood are interlaced with music, and I’m pretty sure his are,
too. We did observe quiet time, but not too much of it – I figure the
world isn’t a very quiet place and I’d teach him early on to appreciate
and create his own peace.
One day when he was a little more than a year he played Twinkle,
Twinkle Little Star on his toy piano. At first I thought I was having a
stroke… possibly auditory hallucinations. Then he played it again.
Evo thought I’d gone completely insane, because my sweet baby quite
enjoyed making me look like a delusional, overly proud mother. Then…one
day I showed my child up by capturing him playing it on video. This
leveled the score to Crafty Mom-1, Sneaky Piano Playing Infant-23.
Evo and I bought him a professional level keyboard when he was two
and he instantly started teaching himself to play. It was amazing!
Finally, I could stop envying my friends their Baby Einstein videos,
because now, I too, had something to amuse my child so I could do crazy
things, like have a pee alone. Shortly thereafter, he told me that the
melody to Twinkle, Twinkle and the Alphabet Song are one and the same. I
had never realized that before. We had a good laugh about it. We
laugh about everything, even him being blind. One of my friends does the best
impression of Gabriel’s sneaky ‘ninja shuffle’ and his antics leave me
in stitches. Even without the visual, Gabriel giggles even harder than
me.
His laughter is the music I love best. Poor kid gets tickled so
much, we had to teach him a ‘safe’ word. It’s Tasukeru, which means,
“Help!” in Japanese. He has twelve different laughs now, from a deep
Louie Armstrong belly laugh to a high pitched cackle that is quite
freaky with his crazy, doll eye. His regular laugh is somewhere in the
middle of those and soothes me like no cocktail ever could. I’m an
addict.
He’s blind, but happy. If, in the future, his sightlessness – or
anything else makes him unhappy, I’ll know in a moment. I’d miss that
laughter like I’d miss bacon and shoe shopping during a post apocalyptic
situation. When he’s an adult, I won’t be responsible for his
happiness anymore, but I can arm us both right now with a constant dose
of truth, comforting scents, sarcasm, irony, love, music and words. I
can read up on amazing blind people, so he can have his choice of
heroes. I can give him a wonderful childhood, and I try my hardest to do
just that.
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