Our middle child Tut with a spoon feeding our little girl LouElla. He has his bike helmet on and she is in small toddler seat.

As many of you know, living in this world while being blind requires Trusting Others. At times, this may even mean trusting your kids that are all under five years old. With that said, there is a different level of trust that I put in my guides that ride on the tandem bike at 60mph down the side of a mountain and the trust I put in my kids to tell me what's on the shelves of the aisles at the store. Either way, I know that in order to be the optimal dad that I can be, I must put trust in my kids and utilize them to help me do the best job of parenting I can.

Let's take a look at a few situations in which I use my other senses as well as trust in my kids to help me out.

Kids on Bikes:

Kennan has begun going downhill around cones on his Ebike and pedal bike

From my social media posts with my kids riding their bikes and me commentating the videos, y'all probably think I can see what they are doing. If you do, I have you totally fooled! Once they get more than 10ft away, they are nothing but a smear on my visual world. Once they are 20-30ft away, they are non-existent.. This means that I am merely using situational awareness and my knowledge of what they are probably doing to figure the situation out. I often ask them questions frequently, not because I really need to but rather to use their response to locate where they are and what they are doing. I use the sounds of the tire on the road and the chain on the gears to locate where they are and know if they are moving away from me or towards me. I also keep them in areas that I am fairly familiar with so I can pre determine what is ahead of them and what I need to be concerned about. Lastly, I ask one of them to tell me where the other one is. Tut is younger and still on his balance bike so I can often keep up with him quite easily. It is not uncommon for me to say, "Tut, do you see Kennan? What is he doing?" Although they are very young , they understand that daddy can't see very well and they actually really like helping daddy out. They also know that daddy values honesty and the truth. In order for me to trust in them, they need to be trustworthy.

What's LouElla Doing?:

For anyone to watch three kids at once, you know that your head is constantly on a swivel. When you can't see very well on top of that, swivelling your head doesn't really help that much. With LouElla being one years old and walking everywhere as well as putting everything in her mouth, I must again trust in the other ones to give me intel. It is very normal for me to say, "Hey Kennan, what is LouElla doing?" His response may be, "Putting toilet paper in her mouth," to which I immediately go over to her and take everything out of her hands. He may also respond with, "Just playing with trains," to which I can remain calm and be pretty confident that she is all right. When I hear her getting excited and making noises, I often know that she probably has something in her hands which will probably go in her mouth. These sounds are cues for me to go over and check what she's doing. The boys will also typically inform me if LouElla is doing something she shouldn't. Even if they think its funny, at least they let me know. An example of this may be Kennan giggling while announcing, "Daddy, Lula is on the stairs, she's climbing up the stairs." Regardless of the way I get the info, I utilize what the boys tell me in order to keep everyone safe and happy!

Shopping at the Store:

Imagine going into the grocery store with three kids and your visual world is a complete blur. Well, that's how I do it every time. With LouElla strapped to the front of me and the boys in the wagon, we conquer the store together. I often get comments like, "Man, you are super dad," or "Dang, you have your hands full!" In my head I am chuckling, "You don't even know!" It helps to go to a store that I am familiar with so that I can at least memorize the aisles and have an idea of the general vicinity that items are located. This is one reason that blind people often hate going to Costco. The intentional rearrangement of the store is like a constant game of hide and seek. With all the above taken into account, when shopping with the kids, there are a lot of , "Hey boys, I need you to find the bread" or "Let's play eye spy for Ketchup." When one of the kids isn't following directions and pulls the wagon into another aisle, I will say, "Tut, I need you to find Kennan, he's in trouble." Typically, they like to get the other one in trouble so this is an easy way to solve the problem. Sometimes I have to bribe them with a treat in order to get them to help me out but that's just life with kids.

This is just the tip of the iceberg on how I must have trust in my kids to help conquer this world as a Blind Baby Daddy of three. I could continue this post forever but I must get back to watching the kids!

Blind Baby Daddy Blog: Trusting Your Kids