Archive: 8th March 2010

Sunny spring day – oh no!

Who says that? Me. And Charlotte. The more gorgeous the weather, the harder things seem to be for her. I became a great lover of the winter solstice the moment I heard that Charlotte’s vision would probably be better in the twilight. We are trying sunglasses on her today but she really doesn’t enjoy wearing them. Who can blame her? She doesn’t want a piece of hard plastic pressing on her little face and head. And yet, she does seem calmer with them on. Our kitchen is a gloriously sunny room in the mornings with two huge south facing windows. We have no shades or blinds on them. I would have to get some but we are going to sell the house instead. Who wants a north-facing, basement kitchen? Me, me, me! I’m viewing a house today that has a double height living space which I am pretty sure is two stories of south-facing glass. Sounds divine. Not the right place for us.

I fear that more and more of our decisions are going to be made on the basis of what is right for Charlotte. Where does the balance come? I firmly believe that one child, nor any child, should rule the family roost. My opinion is that children need to fit in with family life, particularly second and subsequent children. Parents make the decisions and children go along. Obviously, I don’t mean this as authoritarian as I sound but “benevolent dictatorship” is probably pretty close to my model of parenting. But I digress. It seems to me that more and more family decisions are being overtaken by what Charlotte needs: schooling, housing, childcare, holidays, even the country where we live. (Of our three possible choices of cities: London, Sydney and Vancouver, only London offers both gloomy weather and good public transport).

The reason why I am reluctant to make changes to our family life for Charlotte is because I have read and heard so much about not treating special needs, especially blind, children, any different from their peers and siblings. I want to give her the tools to get on with life and then expect her to get on with it. I’m struggling to reconcile the tools and the getting-on-with right now.

I expect I am struggling with many things right now. We’ll get to that.