Good morning Bloggets. A good sleep as I went to bed in a
better fettle than weeks before hand. Relaxed with the knowledge that I had a
good night with friends and the relief that my Son was home safely after a long
day with no communications from him.
Also I am planning to meet with a friend and I am really
looking forward to meeting with her. We have become great friends over the
months on line, but I have never met her but you know when you get a connection
with someone and you just know your paths have met somehow before? So Hub and I
are off to meet her for the first time later on this month. I can’t wait.
For what is going on in our lives right now keeps hitting me
in the face when I’m not expecting it, and that is dreadful. It’s like grief.
You wake up fine, all sunny then
Wham bam.
Reality kicks in. But thankfully last night I wiped out all
worrying and bad in life to move forward for once.
Today, another form of reality.
Two parents blind, a Son who is sighted. No family close
enough and Son want’s to learn to drive.
It should be the Dad taking out the Son to learn to drive or
even the Mum. How can we?
I’m sure other V.I.P’s get family members to teach their
kids or even a driving school. We can get the driving school, but not the
practice bit. Oh. Now what? Not sure. His girlfriend is lucky, she has her Dad
every weekend, in fact, today, and she is driving miles and miles for experience
as she has her driving test in two weeks. But her Dad will be in the car with her
as will teen; this is a worry, a seventeen year old with my boy in the back…
But she is getting the practice in, isn’t she?
Who will take out my Teen?
Dam blooming dam being blind…
This is the rare occasion I feel like a useless parent. So that is next on the agenda. How we can get
about this situation.
As teen left to go out for the day today, I thought to
myself, what a really good looking lad he is. People say he is handsome, but he
has a kind of aura about him that is one of a very handsome young lad and he’s
so very tall and sporty physical. I hope he finds a dream girl as he really
deserves one and he thinks he has found one in his current gf. He thinks she is
perfect, and as long as he thinks that I guess he is the one who will have to
live with her and face her each morning.
I guess as a blind parent there are a lot of issues in life?
School was a huge challenge which for me was harder than raising a baby to a toddler,
as for a baby, nappy changing, measuring bottles, finding toys on the floor,
chasing your little one around, whether it be from running away or crawling,
was really difficult, tiring. I have never been so exhausted. Everything I did on
my own. My x was working hard and playing hard throughout my Sons growing up.
School, teaching him to read and write without the knowledge of Braille so I
could combine Braille and print and read stories to him was hard, as I had no
clue of Braille or sight for print. then writing I had to describe a capital A
for example, was up down and across. A letter K was a footballer kicking and
the hissing snake was a letter S.
This is how I got him to learn to write now I then couldn’t
of course look at where he was going right or wrong and the stress of my failures
was awful. Then to get him to birthday parties? Oh, he would come home with an
invitation. He would tell me about it, and then take it out of his bag with
excitement. I would have to do my best acting and go through the motions of how
excited I was for him, an yet feel physically sick inside as my mind was asking
“Where is this place? How will I get him there and back?
When we get there, I will be sitting on my own whilst other parents would be up
and down to see to their kids as they may be in trouble or whatever.
Other parents would
fill the children’s plates with food where as my poor Son had to get his own and
he was so polite, he would let everyone get their food before he would get his hence,
rarely there would be much left.
I would be burning with guilt and kind of pity for him.
Also I was very aware that he constantly came back to see if
I was OK all of the time and of course I would have the permanent fixed smile
on my face to show him I was as happy as a bumblebee on a sunny day perched on
a flower.
Then getting home and that’s not counting going to buy a
gift for the child’s birthday. Quite oftern as well the kid’s parties would be
at one of those dreadful climbing places for kids. So noisy and always a child
screaming.
Was it my child crying? Then I would realise mostly it wasn’t.
If it was, I couldn’t go to him I couldn’t’ tell off the child who had him in a
head lock or who had been nipping him.
I didn’t know if he had disappeared out of the door into the
car park. I absolutely hated parties.
Though when it came to his birthday, I gave him the
birthdays fit for a prince.
I was in control and my x would be my eyes for the day.
He was great for that I mean, I did all the work like
cooking and setting out the tables blowing up balloons and hanging up banners.
My x would have to tell me if they were the right way? And he did, but I did
the games and party bags. I would pay for a children’s entertainer and he had
wonderful parties.
Then there were the school reports. Oh what a nightmare. My
friend who has a child still at school, still has the problems of getting the
schools to write the reports in a format she can read, like email?
They still come to her in print.
They came in print for my Son and poor little thing had to
read his own reports to me. He hated reading, so I would get half the report.
My x wouldn’t’ read them.
Going out for the first time on his own. Other parents would
look out of the window to see their children playing or whatever. Or they could
go looking for them? I couldn’t
Fancy dress days at school. Oh God they were dreadful.
It’s hard I’m not saying anything other. But in my heart, I
was a great Mum, supposing I say it myself. I’m certain my Son would disagree and
his gf thinks otherwise too, as she told me a year ago, my Son has issues with
me…
I know I was a good
Mum because I worked so hard. I worked at his side 24/7.
I took him to horse riding lessons. Ice skating, with the
help of my x for that. Tennis lessons. Swimming lessons, Karate, Beavers, cubs
and scouts just to name a few out of school activities he attended. He rode a
bike before his friends and he is impeccable as far as his manners outside the
house. Inside the house, Hmm...
Anyway I bathed him from two days I know of parents who just
couldn’t do this, afraid. I couldn’t read to him at bedtime so I did puppet
shows with his teddy bears.
He had the best clothes I could afford. Never went without
anything. I fed him only the healthiest foods and made sure he ate five fruits
per day.
I will never forget when I took him to the library as I
wanted to get some books he may be interested in, as I couldn’t get him into
reading.
My x took us. But the nightmare began. My boy sat there, I
sat there and my x sat there. I asked my x to try to get a bit involved to show
interest? He wouldn’t so I got up and fumbled around picking up any hard cover
books I could find.
Quite often, they would be books unappropriate, but how was
I to know what they were called?
The titles were blanked out by loss of sight.
My x could have done so much more to help but didn’t, so I affectively
was a single Mother, financially as well as emotionally.
A shame really as my x had a chance to be a good Dad. And he
is far from lazy. He is the best worker I have ever known. Certainly not shy to
work.
But now the driving thing. Hmm. What to do as this is the
next stage of parenting.
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