We've been going to the market on Tuesdays after dropping Bristel at her ballet ride. Trevor is learning how to navigate the aisles, read labels, compare prices, and engage with humanity. This has allowed us to organically incorporate essential life skills, along with speech practice, ot, pt, and even orientation and mobility work into his home education goals. Today he did an excellent job finding items we were looking for and practicing his, "My name is Trevor, what's your name?" memorized sentence.
Here's the thing. I use his handicap placard to park. I don't use it everywhere or all the time, but the Walmart parking lot is a zoo and for his safety and my sanity, I use it.
It's probably in my head, but I felt like the elderly woman and caregiver or daughter parked next to us were giving us the stink eye. The daughter stood outside the vehicle with her cell phone in hand until we left. She appeared to be texting. I found myself wondering if our picture was going to be circulating FB by some well-meaning "handicap parking abuse advocate".
Not all disabilities are visible on the surface.
While I find Trevor's various special needs to be quite obvious even to the less educated observer, I understand that most people are surface gazers and see a little boy and his mom. Rather than seeing a disabled little boy and his mom. This isn't necessarily bad; however, it's frustrating at times because people tend to be quick the judge and slow to compassion.
Those are the moments I want to make t-shirts with Trevor's MRI splashed prominently on the front and back. We've even discussed cane training him, so that his (significant) vision loss is immediately evident. Though I have visions of him waving it around like a Harry Potter wand, which would probably work against not for us.
Sigh.
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