Moot Thoughts & Musings

The feelings that welled up inside me upon the birth of my first child probably echo those of every other new parent. Boy, I sure hope I don't screw this up. All the emotions can be overwhelming: the joy, the trepidation. But then you get your groove, and though as age grows into the next, you have to deal with the uncertainty, it's not quite like the first time you held that baby. Having a child that needs more attention in some categories than is typical escalates the anxieties sometimes.

When we first started going down the Deaf Track with Ellis, it was all so overwhelming. Deafness was not something either of us had ever really encountered. We had learned new languages before, so at least we had that experience. But being in the process of learning the language we're teaching our son sometimes can get a little stressful, because I don't want my inabilities to hold him back in his language development. Overall, we have a groove, though. We have familiar territory, our routines, our trusted teachers and friends. And we're having a great time.

Now we are facing a new twist to things. At first I thought my fears were about how the cochlear implant will change our routines, but I think on a basic level they're about changes that will inevitably come as Ellis gets older...namely, speech therapy.

Today I woke up at 7.30 on Ellis's floor. I have no idea how I got there. Just kidding. Actually, to pick up where we left off, after he climbed out of his bed and padded into our room, I tried pulling him into bed with us, but he was having trouble settling, and I didn't want to disturb Chris who gets up for work insanely early. So I took him back to our little sleeping area that I set up on his floor. He had trouble settling, but eventually fell back asleep. I don't really know how long it took him, because I was so zonked out. I just provided the face to contort, which is like his most comforting thing ever. So, since Ellis had a crazy night, he woke up at 8.30, which was great! Except for the teensy little fact that we were supposed to take the 8.36 train into center city for his next CHOP appointment. I figured we could barely make it if we took the 9.09, so we did that.

Except that in my exhausted, post-major-trip state, I totally forgot about getting a stroller from the car: either the one in the back of the one Chris had at work or the one in my MIL's car. I don't have a carrier for him, either, since he's outgrown all we did have. (I'm so canvassing for patterns after today. SOMEthing!) So I thought we could just wing it with him walking part of the way. Well, I had to carry him to the train station this morning, because we had to walk on top of snow. And as I panted up to the station the train was already there, thankfully we barely made it.

But then I realized that I wasn't going to make it to my appointment in time by waiting to switch trains to the station near the hospital. So in some demented moment, I had this insane idea to walk from 30th Street Station to the hospital, about 10-11 blocks, at least a mile, thinking this somehow would be faster than waiting for the connecting train. Folks, I hoofed it A MILE carrying my nearly 30 lb toddler!! And no, it didn't save any time!! I was still 20 minutes late after walking for half an hour. My arm still feels like it's going to fall off. Somebody explain to me why I ever thought it was a good idea...

Anyway, back to the topic at hand: the appointment. Well, Ellis met with the audiologist of the cochlear implant team, who confirmed what his regular audiologist already did...that audiologically he's a candidate. Then we met with the speech therapist and a couple educators, who popped in for a bit. I was pleased that they all signed with Ellis.

We haven't really done much yet with speech therapy, yet, though planning to start soon. I have that overwhelming feeling of starting something new--feelings of uncertainty about whether I haven't been doing enough, or whether my pleased feelings about his signing ability were misplaced. I know it's probably silly. The therapist gave us a lot of fun things to do to get him to vocalize more purposefully, imitate mouth movements, and start to speech-read. He began to pick it up immediately. Sure is handy to have a smart kid! :-D

I guess ultimately this post is angst over the next stage of development, because I'm all sentimental about the fact that he's just starting to sign BIRD properly now, too. Instead of facing toward his face, he now makes the bird tweet facing out. :-( It was so cute.