Productivity

Wow it's only noon and I've already taken out the garbage and the recycling, and done two loads of laundry, fed the baby (thrice) and read Skyler three stories, played ball with him and given him a bath, and done some tidying and reorganizing. I also played a computer game somewhere in there. I've been up since 7 by the way. I still have to do the dishes, but I'm thinking now that he's down for his nap I may even find the time to feed myself and take a shower. Got my fingers crossed for those two.

My poor baby has an icky awful cold. He is full of so much phlegm, the poor kid, he can hardly breathe. He keeps hacking, but he doesn't know to spit it out and his nose is running nonstop. Of course he's had trouble sleeping because of it, but I'm amazed he can sleep at all. I just want this cold to be over for him so he can go back to breathing normally and sleeping at night again. Of course I am happy to say that I am now done working my split shift.

Yesterday C and I went to a workshop for Blind & Low Vision parents and teachers, we learned a lot. The speaker was an O&M instructor and a Dr. of education. He works with blind, low vision, and deaf-blind children. He was an engaging, funny, and articulate speaker. We really enjoyed the workshop. They even gave out cds at the end that are full of awesome resources for blind children and their development, plus it has an overview of the whole workshop, and it goes into even more details than the slides in the presentation did. I'm very glad we went, I think we took a lot away from it.

For instance, low vision children often get overlooked and studies show that a fully blind child in their childhood/adolescence tends to do better academically than one with low vision simply because teachers assume too much of the low vision child. They assume that because the low vision child has some vision that they must be seeing the whole picture and understanding it, whereas with completely blind children they know that they have to teach them in other ways without relying on visual learning. Which is not to say that the low vision child cannot learn visually, but just that we can't forget that he is still legally blind, and he may only be seeing small pieces of the whole and not really understanding what he's seeing because he cannot see the whole picture. We still have to make those adaptations and make sure he is understanding the whole concept.

Last night we took out the Braille labeler and went Braille crazy. Just about everything in the apartment is now labeled in Braille. Don't misunderstand me though, I don't intend for my one year old to be able to read it. That's not my intent at all. The reason everything is labeled and done so within his reach is that sighted children are exposed to the printed word everyday. It surrounds us, billboards, ads on tv, books, packaging on food, it's everywhere. They learn at a young age that this print stuff is associated with words, that those markings can be read. So by covering everything in Braille I am encouraging early literacy, and the normalcy of Braille. I want him to feel those bumps, I want his fingers to be familiar with them, so that when the time comes to learn it, he isn't overwhelmed wondering what this stuff is. I want him to make the connection between print, and Braille, and words.