A few days before our baby, Yixin, came into this world, my husband and I, who both have a Grade I visual disability, decided to give up our work away from home and live together as a family of three. Over the past two years we have been living, working, and growing together with our daughter. In general people think that raising children must be a difficult job for a young couple with low vision. But for us, this can be summarized as: attitude + effort = results. We believe that you can always find a way to achieve what you want, which I am happy to share.

The other day, we were presented an opportunity to do a TV program: Here is the Baby. During this period, we realized that she had grown up, making the best of the cards we had used for handling troubles in the past useless. And new challenges have also come up one after another.

Let me talk about meals as an example. As a 20-month old baby, my daughter was able to have some of the same food adults eat; food that is not spicy, easy to chew and digest. Therefore, three of her meals every day, except for milk powder, were almost the same as ours in terms of timing and nutrition. My husband and I hardly cooked special food for her anymore. The three of us can eat in restaurants, which is a very exciting change for people like us who are far away from home. This enables us to go out for a whole day and just bring enough milk powder and some fruit.

For us, a restaurant that provides high chairs is very convenient, because it makes her eat quietly. Otherwise, she may run around, and it is too chaotic for us to control her because of our low vision. Under such circumstances, she eats no more than half the amount she normally does. But this might be also our special situation. Because our low vision makes it impossible to feed her in our arms like old people do, she has developed a habit of eating in a high chair since she could sit up. Nowadays, if we have enough time, we will usually eat in restaurants providing such a chair, such as some fast-food restaurants and medium-sized eateries, where budget meals are also available.

When ordering food, I always order a specialty called dough drop and vegetable soup, a kind of hot soup that warms the stomach of our baby who has been outside for the whole day. The soup contains nutritious food and vegetables, which is helpful in preventing our baby from being underfed even if she is particular about food.

Of course, she still needs milk power. We bring a thermos bottle filled with water at 40℃, saving time of having to heat repeatedly when we are mixing milk powder. We put the milk powder in separate boxes of different sizes, one box per meal, prepared in advance.

Water is also necessary. Because she likes to drink cool water, we bring a lot of mineral water. Because of our low vision, we prefer to use a cup with a straw instead of an open cup or bottle which is more likely to leak, soaking her clothes and making a mess. We also bring a syringe-type feeding device that she favors as backup.

We also prepare some food for emergencies, mainly ham and bread, in case the little girl is hungry but there is no restaurant nearby. We also bring our own silverware for hygiene and to avoid our baby breaking restaurant dishes when we are not watching her. We are used to the size and angle of the spoons we normally use.

Food is a basic necessity for people. Only if food is not a problem can we travel easily. The journey of the three of us growing together has only just started.