Clearly, this is all Random… Including the author.

There be Molars here…

March 4th, 2009 at 9:54 pm (Hearing, Sabrina)

Thus far she has two bottom front teeth that came in first, two top front teeth that she got for Christmas and several molars on their way in.  The first one broke the surface in the last day or so.  I think I would be complaining more than she is about something that size cutting through my gums.  She doesn’t complain at all… or any more than usual.  They do look huge in such a tiny mouth.  I am pretty sure that her brother had several of the other front teeth come in before the molars, she just needs to be different.

Heather and I spent Saturday at CID.  It’s a pretty amazing place.  If I am understanding things correctly.  They built the school with the intention of teaching children pre-K or earlier through High School graduation.  They have a beautiful building with a huge gym.  The thing they did not anticipate is how good they would be at mainstreaming their kids.

Now for a brief intermission… she just put my big toe in her mouth.  I think she was going to try and chew on it.  I am sitting on the couch with my laptop with my right leg crossed over the left making a work surface.  She walked over and started pulling the screen down.  I moved it away from her, she smiled at me and sent me a message.  That message was, you may be able to protect your laptop Daddy, but what about your toe?  You see Daddy, you can only protect so many things from me at a time and you had better choose wisely.  Now don’t you think you should give me the computer.

Stinky baby.

Anyway, they have been so good at mainstreaming their kids they generally only have them for the first few years; Pre-Pre-K, Pre-K, and Kindergarten.  Many of them are mainstreamed by the time they are in 1st grade.  It’s a pretty impressive track record.

Now for a second intermission… Stinky baby… no, really, really stinky baby,  she smells really really bad.  I will be right back.

Let’s try and finish this one up.  We signed in and ate a donut.  It was a good donut.  But that’s not why we were there, it was just a perk.  The sessions started with an opening speaker, Jayna Altman.  Moved on to a session about sports, followed by the choice of Financial Aid and (I forget the title), but it was about sibling relationships.  We went to the second one and found out that Doug is completely normal and that we are doing basically the same things other families are doing to try and make their other children know they are special too.  Lunch was next and we sat and chatted with a few other families.  When one of the other dads found out I was in IT we spent most of the time talking about what to look for in a new laptop. 

After lunch it was another split session of… um… something and one about safety.  We went to safety.  It was run by a police officer who, as he put it, was not an expert but was a paranoid parent of a hearing impaired child.  Who can’t relate to that one, hearing impaired or not.  We were giving quite a few things to think about.  We discussed the pros and cons of having a “Deaf Child” sign or two put up in the neighborhood.  We talked about marking hearing aids in case they were lost, my idea was to take them to a jeweler and have them gently engrave a phone number on them.  We talked about medical alert bracelets which are very important for the cochlear implant crowd as they cannot have MRI’s done.  Also, turning a medical alert bracelet into a charm bracelet was mentioned.  We discussed the importance of having labels on baby seats.  The hospitals here gave us CHAD tags, (Stickers for the child seat with alternate contacts of family or friends just in case there is an accident.)  Usually after an accident the police will extract the entire child seat rather than just the child from the seat.  They recommended having a tag that made note of the hearing impairment, not just for MRI reasons but a hearing impaired child may appear non-responsive if an accident is severe enough to knock her hearing aids out.  So in addition to the normal information on a CHAD tag, making note of hearing impairment is important.  We discussed registering with the local police department.  Apparently they can flag our house in the 911 call system so if they ever get a call with dead air they know there is someone with a hearing impairment at this address rather than treating it as a mistake or a prank.  Finally we learned important things like Tube Riders, Oaktree Products, AG Bell, Otter Box, Ear Gear, and Harris Communications.  All of these links with the exception of AG Bell are shopping sites.  ( I get nothing for your clicking on the links.)  They are just resources we did not know about until this past weekend.  Oaktree (under assistive devices) and Harris have all sorts of things from fire alarms and bed shaking wake up alarms.  Portable doorbells and lighting that flashes when the phone rings, hearing aid compatable phones, etc etc.  Otter box makes waterproof boxes for putting electronic devices in at the beach or pool, Ear Gear makes sleeves to protect hearing aids during sports, and Tube Riders makes nifty things you can attach to the tube between the hearing aid and the ear mold.  AG Bell is a site that has a parents support section.  So the safety session provided more than just safety but a sharing of information.  A group of people living a shared experience sharing a bit of that experience with each other.

Ok, I checked the schedule and I got things a bit out of order, lunch was after safety and the session I couldn’t remember was about being ready for the mainstream, but that doesn’t change much.  After lunch we has a session on current and new technologies and then ended with a Young Professionals Panel with three former CID students.  Plus there was a young lady who came with one of the speakers for this last panel who joined in.  She had gone to a different school and learned ASL as well.

CID is an oral school, they do not teach sign, but the consensus among parents was sign is also necessary.  Batteries die, you can’t wear aids while swimming etc.  Sign fills the gaps, and it also allows entry into a different world.  Something that I learned years ago in a social studies course and was reminded of this weekend, culture is defined by a common language.  ASL being a complete language also has a culture of its own.  People who have a shared experience and a shared language to use to express that experience.  It seems one of the requirements for entry into this community is the ability to use ASL.  I have believed since we first learned Sabrina was hearing impaired that we should learn ASL and give her the option to learn it as well.  I want her to have the option of being part of any community she should choose to be part of.  Be it the hearing community, the deaf community, or ideally, both.

I am not sure what I left with that day.  Maybe a glimpse of the start of a path that has been laid out for my daughter.  A path that will take her places that I have never been, but that’s probably what this life thing is all about.  I’ll be there to hold her hand along the way, carry her when needed, and push gentle in the right direction as is my right as her father.  Right now I am going to go and give her a big hug and pick her up as her path for tonight leads only to bed.