So far behind!

I have so many things I want to say, but I feel like I never have time to blog!

First, Miss Kat got an upgrade. She is now sporting two new Naidas. We are still getting to know them, but the features are amazing. I hope to blog soon about exactly what they are doing for her, but it has been less than a week, so we are still getting to know them.

I am busy at school. I absolutely love my classes! I am learning so much and I am finally getting time in the classroom, which I have really missed. It is interesting to be in classes with students who want to be teachers of the deaf, but know so very little about how to teach, and even less about how deaf children learn. But, I fully have confidence in the program to get them to the point where they will all be great teachers. (One of my pet peeves right now is a girl in my class thinks that getting a child to correctly repeat the sounds in a complex science vocabulary word is teaching them. Argh. The least of your worries should be how "symbiosis" sounds when coming out of their mouth. How about instead we concentrate on the meaning of the word, or filling vocabulary holes so they understand the lesson, or ANYTHING OF SUBSTANCE, rather than saying "I will have them practice saying the word more times because it is going to be tough for them to say". END RANT)

BLAH BLAH BLAH!!!!

Last night Miss Kat was laying in bed and talking and talking and talking. It was bed time, and she had her sleep mask on but was still yakking.  So, I put my finger to her mouth to shush her. She was so offended! When I asked her why, she said that she was worried that I was serious. She said that the "bullies" at school always tease her for "talking too much". Seriously?? This was a problem we never thought we would have!

My dearest Kat

I am so grateful that you have the listening and language skills to be able to follow my far left political rants. I am so proud that you went to school and told your best friend that it was NOT Obama's fault the government was shut down and that you voted for Obama at school because "Romney only loves riches, but Obama helps poor people". But maybe, just perhaps, at dinner with the Sister missionaries is not the time to wax political and rant about how when you were just a baby that Daddy was sent away to war "to fight for gas"!

Miss Kat's CI turns 5

Happy birthday to my ear!

Kat's advice

I was on a parent's panel a few days again, and one of the other parents said that their daughter (age 12) is very embarrassed by her CI. She thinks that everyone is staring at it. So, I decided to ask Miss Kat what she would say to such a girl. Here was her response:

"I would say that they are just curious. You are deaf and that makes you special. Everyone is different, and that is ok."

It was beautiful. She was empathetic, but also completely matter of fact. It was so amazing to here her articulate how she felt and how she would encourage someone who was having trouble. She is growing up so fast!

Music Mornings

Every morning on the way to school, Miss Kat and i have been listening to music in the car.  She prefers classical because she says it helps her relax and have a good day. Today, we had arrived at her school and were listening while we waited for the doors to open to let the kids in. I asked her what instrument was the melody and she immediately recognized the violin and said "Violins are for sad songs".  Some people claim that kids with cochlear implants cannot hear and make sense of music, but that has not been our experience at all. Here is an extremely late implanted child who loves music, enjoys listening to variety of types of music, and can even accurately identify the emotional motifs of passages and particular instruments.  Not too shabby.

Judging others

This is an excerpt from a reply I made on Facebook, after a long thread about the controversy of cochlear implants and spoken language. It reflects my thoughts and experiences about judging parents who do not choose ASL for their children.

NAME OF PARENT, I don't see one single parent telling people to do oral only. In fact, if you knew NAME OF ANOTHER PARENT, you would understand that her child has been in an ASL immersive environment since she was discovered to be deaf. Her daughter's first language was/is ASL, and she was in a bi-bi school for many years. YOU judge because she is also successfully oral, and because she believes that there is no right way to be deaf. The only person saying another parent is wrong is YOU and some of the militant Deaf people who are NOT parents of deaf children. 

It is clear to me why you are so angry and upset about oralism. It didn't work for your child, and since it didn't, you believe it will not work for others. I completely understand because I was there once too. I had a child who NEEDED ASL. She would have been completely without language without it. Spoken language was completely impossible for her, and she had no way to access it fully. I saw her, and so many other children like her and I (wrongly) generalized her situation to all deaf kids. Well, the truth is, that she is just that, ONLY HERSELF!! There are plenty of other kids who are doing amazing who have been raised with only spoken language. I have seen and talked with them myself. I have met them as adults as well. I have been to conferences and spoken to them, seen panels with them, emailed and talked on the phone with them. And they support me and tell me to keep fighting for my daughter!!

The truth is, when she was younger, I was completely immersed in the Deaf community and never had the chance to met adult like I just described. Why? Because they do not exist in the Deaf community. If you seek out the Deaf community, you are wish to use ASL and will be communicating using ASL. You are seeking out people with a similar story and struggles. You have the same beliefs and common background BECAUSE THAT IS WHAT MAKES IT A COMMUNITY!!! If you were deaf and an advocate for spoken language for deaf children, had no desire to learn ASL and considered yourself part of the hearing community, you wouldn't seek out the Deaf community, so why would you ever hear that there??

Last but not least, I also want to share that when my daughter was very young, I judged others brutally. I KNEW what was right. I KNEW that all deaf children needed ASL. I KNEW that they would grow up and fall behind. I KNEW that they would struggle to read at the 4th grade, and as they entered high school their education would be miserably far behind. And I KNEW that once they were finally away from their horrible, oppressive oralist families, they would all seek out the Deaf community and finally learn ASL, improve their reading and academic levels, and finally get better....and I KNEW that because that is exactly what I was fed. 

I was a close minded fool. I was reacting so angrily because I was jealous. I remembering going to a Hands & Voices retreat when Kat was almost 5, and the mother I was staying with called home and was able to talk to her implanted son on the phone. I remember crying because I knew that Kat would never have the ability to easily pick up the phone and call someone. Sure, she could use relay and a videophone, but that is not the same. I just saw for a moment how the world really wasn't set up for her, and it made me so sad. I was jealous that her child didn't need special accommodations, that he wouldn't have the same stumbling blocks and communication issues that Kat would her entire life. I was sad that she couldn't just walk into a store and ask where the shoes were, I was sad that she couldn't watch any movie at any time. I was so jealous that their children were going to have easier lives than mine, and I lashed out with judgement and anger because of it.