Today is my husband's birthday and to celebrate we took the kids to the new California Academy of Sciences Museum in San Francisco. It was great, though it was also a complete madhouse. Anyway, as we wound our way around the aquarium, we passed a woman helping her young daughter navigate through the crowds in her reverse walker. I couldn't help myself, I stared.
I have never seen a kid in a walker out in public. Never. I don't know why. I just haven't. And since having Drake, I've thought about it a lot. Why haven't I seen a parent with a child in a walker at the grocery store? At the park? Walking around the neighborhood? I've really started to question it. Because I know when Drake gets his walker, he is going to be taking it to the park, the grocery store, and on walks down our street. Because that is where I am going to be and where Lucy will be, too.
I have read posts from other parents who talk about the hard work of getting a kid in and out of a walker, of carrying the walker AND the kid, of the emotional drain of other people's stares and questions. I wonder if these things have made the parents of children with special needs in my neighborhood stay home.
But today, seeing that mother carve a path through the crowds so her child could walk up to see the fish made my day. And she didn't even seem too worse for wear for it either!
1 year ago