Here comes Victor

A recent conversation in our house:

Eden: Victor, say the magic word. (pause, no answer) What's the magic word?
Victor: Use your cane.

We may have created a little cane using monster.

So we should be receiving orientation and mobility training. We're on a waiting list and should get a call this summer. As in this summer. The one that is mostly over (sorry, kids). It's a governmental agency. No other explanation necessary, right?

That is why I took matters into my own hands. I found an excellent book, Independent Movement and Travel in Blind Children by Joseph Cutter. I read it. I highly recommend it...if you happen to be the parent of a visually impaired child who is waiting on bureaucracy to teach your child to walk independently.

And now Victor uses his cane daily at home. We've taken it out on occasion as well but we need to warn people to protect their head and their crotch. That whole, "Keep it on the ground, Victor!" thing seems a little hard to grasp. If you do see him with his cane, he will likely be looking for "piggies" and if he finds your toes, look out, success usually comes with one final pound to the toes.

 And yes, I am well aware that this is not the proper way to hold a cane. It doesn't have to be. He's 2. That's what the book said, anyway. The author argues (against many other experts in his field) against waiting until the child is old enough to hold it properly. His philosophy is that a child needs to learn independence as early as possible and to begin to understand both the auditory and textual clues he will learn from the tapping of the cane. And we all know Victor is good at tapping. I mean, banging.

We also teach functionality and resourcefulness. If you can't find your cane, you just use whatever else is around. Kitchen utensils, Tack strips that lose their stickiness and fall off the wall, etc.