Just Call Me the Invisible Woman

I am invisible. Not the cool kind of "Hey, I can spy on everyone" invisible, but the "Hello?! Am I even here?" kind of invisible. For example, my children can see the TV just fine, but even if I stand in between them and the screen, they absolutely cannot see me. However, everyone else can see me just fine, so I must conclude that only my children are affected of my invisible nature. I call this particular affliction Domestic Blindness. I am not the only thing that becomes invisible due to the malady my children suffer. Absolutely any object in our house may mysteriously become invisible to their poor, tortured eyes.

Domestic Blindness is often experienced with the corresponding residential disease referred to as Domestic Deafness. When having a flare up of Domestic Deafness, children are completely unable to hear certain frequencies, typically those that encompass the speaking ranges of both father and mother.

Let me explain how these debilitating diseases effect our daily lives. This morning I asked Nathan to put his bib on so he could eat breakfast. He was obviously in the middle of a flare up of Domestic Blindness, because he could not see his bib even though it was right in front of him. For nearly five minutes he searched all over, looking everywhere in the vicinity of the table. Finally, the flare up passed and at last he was able to see his bib. When it was time to brush teeth, I asked the big boys about six times to stop playing and brush so we could get Daniel to school on time. But to no avail. It was obviously Domestic Deafness. Later on, as I was trying to get Matthew ready to go, I asked the big boys to take the dry laundry out of the dryer and put the wet laundry in. There was no response. No sounds of action. Nothing. So I asked them if they were switching the laundry. They replied in the negative (of course), so I asked them again. And still there was no movement towards the laundry basket. Apparently they were both experiencing intermittent flashes of Domestic Deafness. When we finally got everything done and were ready to go, I asked for help in finding Matthew's blankie. I should have known that both Daniel and Nathan were far too ill to be able to assist me in this task. I was searching every room in the house, hearing them periodically holler that they couldn't find it, walked back in to the kitchen and saw the blankie about two inches from both boys. Normally a bright blue blanket patterned with rainbow hued animals with electric yellow edging would be no problem to spot, but when afflicted with Domestic Blindness, it becomes impossible to see.

I hope these fine examples of Domestic Blindness and Deafness are helpful in identifying these troublesome conditions in your own homes. They seem to affect all children at one time or another, although some are more prone to relapses than others. Unfortunately, the only cure for these disorders appears to be having children of one's own, at which point the disease simply passes to the next generation. I only wish that these illnesses could linger into adulthood. Perhaps then I could ignore the enormously loud noises that seem to accompany my children in all their waking hours or even gloss over the cracker crumbs spread all over the kitchen floor, but alas, it is simply not meant to be.