No Myth

As the mother of a deaf child, I am constantly amazed (and dismayed) at the pervasiveness of myths surrounding her disability. Spoken or unspoken, we face these regularly:

"She's deaf? Really? I couldn't tell. She doesn't look it." (Variation: "But she's so pretty.") Sorry folks, there is no "deaf look"; the only way you can tell just by looking at Calyssa is if you notice her hearing aids. Really, they're hard to miss, bright purple as they are, and attached to her clothing by a tether.

"No, she can't be deaf. I can tell she hears me." That's because, like most of the deaf people we know, she can hear some things. She can tell that you're talking to her; she just can't really tell what you're saying.

"Oh, I guess we can't talk to her. We don't sign." Neither do I, much. Calyssa is extremely oral, actually, and her speech becomes clearer every day.

"She's a great lip reader. Did they teach her that at school?" Maybe, but I doubt it; she does, after all, have the same curriculum as your first grader, at the same school.

"It must be great to have it quiet all the time, even when it's really noisy." Hearing aids amplify what sounds she can hear, so loud noises really hurt. She'll usually beg me to take her aids out in noisy rooms so they don't "shout" at her.

"Deaf kids can't sing. Why is she in the choir?" Let me tell you, my deaf kid certainly CAN sing; quite well, actually, and her choir director, who sings in the "grown-up choir" with me, tells me that Calyssa always knows the tune, and usually better than the hearing kids. Calyssa and I work really hard on the lyrics before each of their performances in church (but that'll be another blog post...) The school speech therapist told me that her singing actually helps her speech tremendously. Besides, Calyssa loves to perform.

So, to sum up: mine is a normal, highly outgoing, effervescent child who just happens not to hear very well. She doesn't need you to shout at her, and really appreciates it if you wouldn't because it hurts her ears. Just make sure you get her attention first. I guarantee she'll have yours. And that's no myth.

Never thought I'd say THIS...

One aspect of parenting that I couldn't possibly have anticipated beforehand is the frequency with which I hear myself uttering the most unlikely combination of words to Calyssa. And not because I'm trying to be silly to titillate her; these are purely original thoughts that in the moment actually made sense. Here's the story that spawned my favorite example.

One evening, almost a year ago, Calyssa and I were running errands and happened to be in the vicinity of the Target Greatland in San Ramon. (In case you don't live here in the Bay Area, you should understand that San Ramon is a quite upscale community of McMansions about 10 miles from our home. Very soccer-Moms-in-Juicy-driving-Land Rovers. I really don't belong there, seeing how I'm firmly ensconced on the other, lower, end of middle-class spectrum.)

Anyway, I rarely have the opportunity to shop at that particular Target-on-steroids, and we were legitimately in the area, so we stopped there. Among the several items on my list was panties for Calyssa. So we're both standing at the checkout and the checker scanned the package of Hannah Montana Hanes. He started to bag them, but she objected, so I told her she could hold them if she wanted to.

Mere moments later, I was rummaging through the coupons in my purse when I realized that the frat boy checker was staring at a point just past me with his eyes bugging out of his head. I turned around just in time to see Calyssa pull her jeans up. The next moment she shoved her balled-up, old panties in my suddenly nerveless hand. (Gee, thanks, just what I've always wanted!)

The silence along the row of checkstands was deafening. No doubt the Juicy moms were wondering what rock we'd just crawled out from. There was nothing to be said, so I just paid as quickly as possible and hustled Calyssa out to the car.

"It's not okay to change your underwear in the store." The ridiculous, but honest-to-God sentence spoken in the car as we drove home...and a rule hereby established for the Southern family.

Down, girl!

It's rare that Calyssa encounters another deaf/HOH child outside of school. So, imagine my surprise when, upon boarding the whale watching charter in Depoe Bay, OR this past Saturday, she noticed that TWO of the (maybe) 10 other kids on the boat were wearing hearing aids!

Calyssa did not have her hearing aids in. They were safely locked in the console of the rental car. Being foot-in-mouth me, I spoke my thought aloud almost before I'd formed it, and was heard by the mom of one of the girls, "Wow, you're brave!"

She immediately spun around and started in on me, "No, we don't keep them locked up! They're deaf, not freaks!"...or something like that.

I immediately raised a conciliatory hand and gestured towards Calyssa, "Hey, she's deaf, too. I just meant that it's brave to bring them aboard! I was too afraid that they'd end up getting wet so they're in the car."

Startled, she looked at Calyssa. "Really? She doesn't look deaf." (???? Neither did the girls with her, come to think of it...) "Does she sign?"

"Yes, though she usually prefers speech," I answered. "She's gaining fluency in both."

Soon her daughter and niece were happily signing away with Calyssa, but their mom avoided me the rest of the trip. It got me wondering...am I THAT defensive? And THAT insensitive? (Joanna, I'm ignoring your answer... =])

Making a splash

I am the world's biggest klutz. Always have been, always will be. Seriously, I've been known to run into walls that aren't even there. Single-mommy-hood, and its associated schlepping, has done NOTHING to help to rectify this condition; it's simply made the casualties all the more spectacular.

Take a very recent morning, for example. Having realized, upon opening the fridge shortly after 6am, that we would be eating our breakfast cereal dry because we'd finished the milk the previous morning, I made a detour to Sam's Club after dropping the kidlet off at school. (I love their early-morning Gold Key Business hours, by the way...)

I arrived at work at 8 and opened the car door, meaning to stash the milk in the staff kitchen for the day. Whomp! The jug fell out, a gallon of milk drenched my shoes and a river of 1% ran through the parking lot.

So, I was back at square one: out of milk! That evening, I picked Calyssa up from after-school daycare and we went to Safeway. She asked for apple cider, so we went to the juice aisle...where I proceeded to drop and shatter a half-gallon of Tree Top. Cleanup on aisle 4! It was all I could do to keep from skulking out of the store and leaving the milk behind...

A Toothsome Tale

Calyssa lost a tooth last night. It was her third. This one had been hanging by a thread for several days, so I wasn't at all surprised when she spat it out with her toothpaste into the sink, and very nearly ran it down the drain before she realized it.

It brought back memories of a few months ago, when she lost her first tooth. She had two that were equally loose, so we were kind of curious to see which would go first. Friday night, she went to sleep with all of her teeth still present and accounted for. About 3 a.m. on Saturday, I was awakened by my daughter's sobs. Many moms come awake instantly when their child cries; I'm not one of them. Fortunately, nights like these are a rarity in Southernland. So, bleary and groggy, I shook myself and asked her what was wrong.
"Mommy, I lost my tooth and I can't FIND it!" she bawled. (This was right before we moved to our new place, so at that point she didn't yet have her own bed, but slept with me.) So, I turned on the bedside lamp and confirmed that, yes, her tooth was, indeed, missing. Like, GONE. Not under the pillow, nor anywhere else in the bed, which meant that there was only one place it could, reasonably, have gone.
"Binky, you know what? I think you must've swallowed it," I said. "It's probably in your tummy," which statement served only to make her cry all the harder.
"Don't worry, it won't bite you," I assured her, because at that hour, I couldn't see any other cause for such extreme upset.
"Mommy, I don't have my TOOTH! Now the Tooth Fairy not COME!" she wailed. I tried to reassure her that the Tooth Fairy has likely seen this kind of thing before, so I was sure that she'd understand and come anyway; this line of reasoning didn't work. Then her eyes alighted on the notepad that I keep with my Bible, next to my bed.
"Write a note," Calyssa begged. Since at this point I simply wanted both of us to get back to sleep as quickly as possible, I agreed.
"Dear Tooth Fairy," she dictated. "Can I give you this note instead of my tooth? I swallowed it, and I'm really sorry I can't trade it for my dollar. My Mommy says I can't look for it in the potty. Please don't be mad at her."
"Okay," I said. "Here you go. Get a cup from the kitchen, put it on the dresser with the note inside, and come back to bed."
"Wait, I have to write my name," she insisted. So she took my pen, added, "Love, Calyssa" to the bottom, folded it up, and set it on the dresser inside a cup. About twenty seconds later, she was fast asleep, with a smile on her tear-streaked face, so I quickly got up, grabbed a bill from my purse, hid the note to use on a future scrapbook page, and snuggled down next to her. All was right in her world again.

In case you were wondering, the Tooth Fairy visited us again the very next night; that other tooth fell out later that day, and now lives, hidden, in the locked bottom of my jewelry box.

Real, or Fantasy?

Tomorrow afternoon I am scheduled to attend the first Parent-Teacher conference of Calyssa's grade school career. I will receive her fall report card, and discuss her progress in class. On the front seat of my car are a few of her more recently completed, graded assignments that I plan to discuss with her teacher. One assignment in particular shows various cartoon-y drawings of a pig in various poses. Calyssa was supposed to circle the pictures that show scenes that could actually happen, such as the one where he's eating at a trough in a barnyard, and put an X on those that are fantasy, such as the one where he's frying an egg in the farmer's kitchen. "NEEDS HELP WITH THIS" is marked in big, red letters at the top; Calyssa circled every picture.

I know that my child is, shall we say, rather imaginative, but I didn't realize that she had so tenuous a grasp on reality. Frankly, as a realist myself, I was horrified! So both I, and my teacher sister, have begun quizzing her regularly, to see whether she can identify situations as real or fantasy.
"Calyssa, Mommy reads a book. Real or fantasy?"
"Real, Mommy!"
"Good! How about this one? Betsy [one of our kitties] reads a book. Real or fantasy, Calyssa?"
"That's fantasy, Mommy. Betsy can't read!"

This has been going on for a couple of weeks. (It makes good drive-time conversation.) Then, this morning, she asked me, "Mommy, is Santa Claus real or fantasy?"

Gulp!

Lesson Learned!

This past summer, Calyssa had an assignment: she was to learn her telephone number. One evening, as I drove home from daycare, reciting my cell number for the umpteenth time, I chose to expand the lesson a bit. I decided we needed to talk about who she could call in an emergency. After all, it's just the two of us; it could happen.

"Calyssa, if Mommy ever gets hurt or sick and you need help, who can you call?" I asked.
"Papa!" she cried, referring to my dad, who lives about 12 miles away. While certainly he would do whatever he could to help in an emergency, this wasn't quite the answer I was looking for... "Okay," I agreed, "but do you know how to call the police or fire fighters? In a real bad EMERGENCY, you can call 911." "Okay, Mommy. I remember that," she replied.

Then a thought occurred to me. Calyssa has a hard time understanding much of anything on the telephone. I usually put on the speakerphone, but that's only a marginal improvement. Suddenly, I recalled 911 tapes played on the news, instances where young kids have called for help. The dispatcher usually asks them all sorts of questions; questions which Calyssa would be unable to hear, much less answer in any useful way. So quickly I continued, "Now listen, Binky. If you ever have to call 911, you need to say right away, 'My Mommy is hurt. I'm five years old and I'm deaf'."

A gasp arose from the backseat. I glanced in the rearview mirror, just in time to see my kidlet put her hands on her hips, shake her finger at me, and declare, "Mommy! It not matter I'm deaf!"

Now, who do you think could have told her that, over and over? =]