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Fun with kids
Written by Claire on Saturday, April 7, 2007
When I’m out pretending, I love the exchanges that I have with people. Kids are my favorite.
When I was on my recent trip I went to Starbucks to get a coffee. This Starbucks has a set of double doors so you open one, walk or wheel a few feet and then there’s another door. As I was wheeling up to the first door, just behind a guy, he opened the first door for me and then up ahead was a 6 year old girl struggling to open the second door.
"Open the door for the lady, Jennifer!" dad said.
Jennifer turned around to see me right behind her, smiling, and she her eyes got really big and she pulled mightily and struggled and got the door open and held it for me. I smiled at her and said "Thanks, Jennifer!" (I could have opened the door much easier than she did!) Eyes still huge and serious, she said "You’re welcome."
Once in the store I took a quick turn to go to the restroom. Jennifer followed me. I went into the wheelchair stall, and she was in the stall next to me but she was much faster than I was. I heard her trying to wash her hands and she yelled "Dad, can you come in here and help me? I can’t reach the soap!" Dad said no, he can’t come in there, hurry up! "But Dad, I need to wash my hands!" Dad still refused to come understandably!) I came out of the wheelchair stall and said "Here, Jennifer, maybe you and I together can reach the soap, what do you think?" She nodded, and I wheeled up, and she held out her hand while I reached across and pushed the button on the soap dispenser so that it fell in her hand. There was just one sink so I wheeled back out of the way so she could wash her hands.
She turned around and she pointed at my very dirty hands (which she had to have noticed while I was getting to the soap) and she said "You have to wash your hands, too, you know!" I told her I know, they’re very dirty, it’s because I have to push my wheels and the wheels get in the dirt and the slush. Her eyes got really big and she said "OOOOhhhh!!" Then she just spun around and ran out.
I washed my hands and wheeled into the store and got in line to buy my coffee. Jennifer was pressed up against the glass pastry display case. She turned around and saw me and smiled and waved her hand conspiratorily for me to come see. So I left my place in line and wheeled over and she showed me the cake she wanted. I told her it looked really good. Her dad was standing nearby watching us with this huge smile on his face. He was obviously enjoying watching his daughter interact with me. I would have too, if I was watching one of my children act friendly and natural with someone in a wheelchair.
Later on in the day, I was again in the wheelchair stall in a bathroom, and a kid yelled "Look mom, they’ve got a bike in there!" The mom, not in the least embarrassed, said really loudly "No, honey, that’s a WHEELCHAIR!" I nearly laughed out loud because I was so sure she was going to shush the kid.
[tags]Pretending, Wheelchair, BIID, Kids, Children[/tags]This entry appears in Claire's Thoughts, Other's Thoughts, Thoughts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
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4 Comments
I had an interesting encounter the other day when I was wheeling at the mall. There were a couple of girls who were around 14 years old and I started to notice that they seemed to be following me. I tested my theory by going from one end of the mall to the other, up one floor and back to the other end of the mall without entering any stores. I could see through the reflections in the windows that they were indeed following me, whispering to eachother. So I went around a corner and quickly turned around and waited for them to round the corner. When they came round and saw me looking straight at them, they stoped in their tracks and went white as ghosts lol. I said “Don’t worry, I’m not contagous. I’m sure there are more iteresting things to do at the mall than follow me around.”
They were stumbling over they’re own words when they said “we were just looking at your wh….” “My WHEELCHAIR?” I asked. They started turning red and nodded.
I said all they had to do is ask me if they were cuirious about my chair.
They asked me why I was in it which was the first time I had been asked that. I hadn’t thought of making up a story before so I had to think of something so I said I was in a car crash. We talked a little more and they asked me what’s it like to be in a chair. I said that I don’t mind it at all and that I like the way I am.
One girl said that she had always wondered what it was like to use a chair and sometimes she pretended to be “crippled”. She seemed kinda embarrised about it but I said that I have some friends that use wheelchairs that are AB. Her face lit up when I said that and I started to wonder if she is “one of us”
I seriously wonder how common BIID is.
3 On 20 April, 2007, Claire said:
Does it strike you how much different it’s going to be for the next generation? THEY are going to know who and what they are, and find peer support, at an age where we were absolutely clueless. I was 28 when I first had a clue I wasn’t alone on the planet in wanting to use a wheelchair. With the Internet, kids are figuring it out now in their teens.
I was lucky enough to discover the transabled community relatively early, when I was 17. The next generation of transabled people will hopefully find more support from the medical and psychiatric community than we do now. Also I think that if they know that they are not alone early on, they’ll do much better in the long run.
I think of all of us as a family, and to me there is nothing more important than family.
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1 On 8 April, 2007, Gordo said:
Awwwwwww. :)
Reminds me of an encounter with this girl at an art gallery. She kept staring at me (I pretended not to notice); I was moving at approximately the same pace as her family, in terms of exhibits. Then came an exhibit that was on a platform about 3 inches high, and you can’t really see it unless you’re right on the platform itself.
The girl stepped up and wasn’t expecting me to be able to follow her. But I did a wheelie and jumped the platform, and her jaw absolutely DROPPED like a rock (even though it was no biggie for me).
Afterwards, she approached me and went like, “How’d you DO that?” in an astonished manner. I demonstated to her how to do it, with that same platform, while her parents looked on. They were pretty much like the parents from your entry, with a huge smile at this little exchange.
God, I love kids. :)