Ch Ch Ch Changes

Hi all,
I am back. I find myself in a bit of an altered circumstance that has me questioning a lot of who I am. My husband and I are in the midst of separation and divorce and I am beginning to see a me that hasn't been part of me for a while. I don't know if it will eek out in my writing or not. People who know me see a difference in my everyday activities and attitude. Is that good or not? I don't really know. I don't see or feel the difference in myself, but apparently it is there.
Although it is tough for me right now and I have spent more than a couple sleepless tearful nights, I know that I can't return to the relationship I had. It was not healthy for Bear or me. Sadly, though, Bear is caught in the middle. Despite both of us trying to make it easier on him and trying to always put his needs first, he knows that his life has inexplicable changed and he doesn't fully understand why. His cognitive abilities are lagging a little behind his cohorts, which may be a good thing sometimes, but he knows that mommy and poppy do not live together any more and he misses his poppa. Where we live, we rarely get snow. However, this weekend we got about 6 inches.In our area, that amount of snow shuts everything down and I do mean everything. The DOT crew couldn't keep up with the roads and so we have been a bit snowbound for the past 3 days and will be tomorrow. Bear was supposed to go visit his poppa yesterday and spend the night, but due to the weather, that hasn't occurred. Hopefully there will be a short visit tomorrow if the roads are a little better. He has been very patient with me(for a five year old)and I have experienced the joy of piggy back riding him around the house, listening to him practice his braille reading and listening to many many repititions of Curious George on his CD player.
His new interest is video games. We went to my best friend's house to vist over Christmas break and both of her boys played video games for a good part of our visit. Well, that kind of left Bear out a bit. He couldn't really do that and the things he was interested in didn't really interest them- although they did try. It caused me to see the larger gap between him and his class-mates. I thought,"this is what his class-mates at school are like when they go home." This is another realm that he doesn't fully understand, another brick in the wall that is up between him and his sighted peers. It made me sad. I have since been looking for video games that are out that are for blind kids or that have enough audio sounds so that he would at least have on some level the same experiences. Most that ahve been geared for blind, seem rather mature. I read that most companies who produce video games are not interested in making them accessible to the blind because it would not be enough of a money-making venture for them due to the snall population of blind people. Others just think its ridiculous to have a video game for a blind person. They should walk a mile and see if they still agree with that. I do not know if he would understand what to do with them or not though. I know I do not have the skillsets needed for teaching video gaming to anyone. I also don't know if it would be a good thing for a child who has issues with social skills to have a video game to play on his own. It might be a further isolation for him. I'm in a bit of a quandry about it. So I have started looking at other types of games. I am considering braille versions of Go Fish or Uno. At least they are games that you play with other kids. He seems excited about the prospect. I got him a braille version of Hi-ho Cheerio for Christmas and he seems to enjoy that. Of course, he beats me every time I play it with him, but that is okay. I would be curious to hear about what other parents of blind children have done in regards to games and such.
We live in an area where there are not a lot of kids and we do not live in the same community as his class-mates, so it makes it hard to have a lot of social interaction with peers outside of school and his group therapy.
This was his first snow. I thought he would love it, but he didn't. He thought it was okay for the time he was out there, but then he wanted to come back in and hasn't wanted to go back out. However, he did enjoy the snowcream I made. He said, "Mom.I like the creamy snow better."
Have a blessed day.

BEARZ Mom