Orange

Hip Hop Happiness

2012-01-26T17:59:00.000-08:00

Ben has been taking hip hop dance lessons since September, along with the kids of some of our friends. Here are all four boys (ages 3-4) puttin' on a show at the end of Tuesday's class. The cheering is from the "big girls" who have a class at the same time in an adjacent studio, and often serve as audience for the hip hop gang.

I didn't try to caption this one, because there's really no dialog except for the occasional "woo-hoo" or "Good job!", and some unintelligible lyrics. You gotta love the pose they strike at the end. These are preschoolers with some serious street cred!

Benny van B

2012-01-24T19:04:00.000-08:00

A month or so ago, Ben's paternal grandparents sent him this great book called My First Classical Music Book, by Genevieve Helsby. Ben loves it, and it has become de rigueur bedtime reading. He's been working on his pronunciation of the names of Tchaikovsky and Stravinsky, and he pretty much nails them both now.

It's a wonderful book. There's just one thing I don't like about it. I quote from page 26: "Poor Beethoven even went deaf ... but he still composed music!" Yeah. Poor guy, he went deaf. Sucks to be deaf, don't it? Now, the thing is, going deaf was indeed a hardship and a tragedy for Beethoven, for all sorts of obvious reasons. And even today, when life is so dramatically different in almost all respects for people with hearing loss, it's still often a hardship. [We're having earmold issues. Even with the best technology, living with hearing loss can be a real PITA sometimes.] But it's most definitely not a tragedy, and it stings a bit to be reminded that the automatic reaction to deafness is pity -- "poor deaf kid." Kindness, consideration, sometimes a little accommodation, but not pity, thank you very much. In any case, I'm not comfortable reading that line to Ben -- or at least I leave out the "poor" part. I guess it's fortunate that we usually look at that book after his equipment is out, which effectively dodges the issue, at least until he learns to read.

But that's my only complaint -- really, it's a great book, and I highly recommend it.

And that's the history behind the following exchange with Ben as I picked him up from school today:

Ben: I'm deaf!
Me: Yes, you are!
Ben: I'm not wearing any hearing equipment.
Me: [looking with some confusion at his equipment] Really? Then how can you hear me?
Ben: I'm listening through a speaking trumpet!

He went on to insist that I call him Beethoven all afternoon, and when we got to page 26 of the book this evening, he said, "This is my page!"

Cool speaking trumpet!

From later in the same book. Ben named this character Yo Yo Giraffe.

Ode to Joy

2012-01-22T13:39:00.000-08:00

Here's Ben conducting the Ode to Joy from the fourth movement of Beethoven's 9th Symphony. He's actually more enthusiastic than he looks -- this was the first time he'd heard the original symphonic version, and he was busy taking it all in. (Oh, and I'm sorry about the whole sideways thing -- new camera, and it frankly hadn't occurred to me that you shouldn't hold it in portrait mode while making a movie, duh. Lesson learned. Just turn your head.)

Whence this interest in the Ode to Joy? Well, Ben is a little fixated on this video. Now, don't judge. Granted, the ending is a little intense for a four-year-old. Ben calls this the "Beaker and Thunder" video. Part of his fascination with this video stems with the fact that the metronome is like the one his piano teacher has. Anyway, he likes it. And now he's learning how to play Ode to Joy on the piano, so I really can't complain.

Operatic Bennyism

2012-01-17T18:53:00.000-08:00

As Ben and I walked down the hall of his preschool this afternoon, he said, "Mom, do you remember the part of The Magic Flute where Papageno is eating the feast sent to him by Sarastro?"

And it occured to me that this was quite likely the first time this particular sentence had been uttered in that hallway.

Ben has also been practicing the Queen of the Night's aria. The one that my sister and I used to ~~butcher~~ sing on the last leg of the school bus journey, when the only kids left on the bus were us and a few others from our neighborhood who already knew we were weird that way.

Here's a very peaceful scene. It's what our street looked like at about 6:15 am last Friday, when I went out to shovel the driveway for our first snowfall of January. We got a lot more over the weekend, but today it hit 50 and rained all day, so Ben's lovely snowman and igloo are now ignominious lumps of slush. I think we somehow skipped winter and it's really, secretly, late March, but nobody's telling us.

Of banana splits and magnet compositions

2012-01-16T13:40:00.000-08:00

Why yes, that is a Yo Gabba Gabba placemat. Don't judge us.

Ben creating one of his magnet compositions

Ben playing one of his magnet compositions, for Mozart Mouse

Well, the first picture is pretty self-explanatory. No, he didn't get to eat the whole thing himself. He shared it (somewhat reluctantly) with us, and it was delicious.

At his piano teacher's recommendation, I got a "Music for Little Mozarts" piano instruction kit which includes, among other things, two stuffed animals named Mozart Mouse and Beethoven Bear (he also has Mozart and Beethoven action figures, acquired separately) and this great magnetic white board. One side has the piano keyboard that you see, and the other has staff notation. There are ten small note-shaped magnets, and Ben's favorite piano-time activity is placing these on the keyboard and then performing the result. It's been a great vehicle for him to learn the pitch names and locations, and he's pretty much mastered that. He usually practices at the piano in the living room, but this was an impromptu act of creativity at the electric keyboard in the guest room, timed especially so as to delay his bedtime. He knows how to manage me.

Holiday Pics

2012-01-12T19:43:00.000-08:00

And we're halfway through January already. As my father likes to say, time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana. Last time I posted, Ben and I were sick. Neil succumbed a few days later. We then drove to Wisconsin, germs and all, and proceeded to swap germs with my family there. Despite the perpetual sickness, we had a good time. Here are a few pictures from the trip.

My handsome guys

Ben and his Grammy

Recreating the Beatles' rooftop concert

We took it easy on the drive back and stopped at a hotel in Ohio.
Ben works the tablet while Neil relaxes with the paper.

Israel, v.2. This will take some explaining. See below.

He never naps any more, unless he's sick. Here he is with Bucky Badger.

As soon as he finally managed to kick the long string of colds and pink-eye, Ben got socked by some mysterious stomach bug for about 24 hours. The nap with Bucky is about halfway between two nasty regurgitative episodes. Nuff said.

As part of her annual holiday decorating, my mother sets out an elaborate miniature Bethlehem -- little buildings and tents and manger, etc. It's quite the spread. This year Ben helped, and they both had a great time "setting up Israel" on an empty bookcase shelf. When we got back home, he recreated this in Legos on a shelf in his bedroom. Complete with Beatles figurines.

Ben has really gotten into miniatures and ... yes, dollhouses ... lately. I think I'll devote another post to the question of gender-typed toys, and the malleability of those boundaries. Something to ponder in the meantime.

Ahhh, latkes....

2011-12-20T18:40:00.000-08:00

Happy First Night of Chanukah! Ben's big present tonight was a V-Tech Inno Tab, which beat out the competition (the LeapPad) for three reasons: (a) It has better drawing resolution. (b) We don't need the camera, because Ben already has one. (c) It was available.

Here are his exact words after he opened it: "Well, I would rather have a cheese board."

[There's a backstory on that one, but I'll spare you the details this time.]

Anyway, once he realized that he could watch ABBA videos on it, he was much more enthusiastic, as you can see here:

Of Germs and Grinches

2011-12-20T06:47:00.000-08:00

Well, we're a household full of germs this week. Ben has pink-eye and a cough. I have strep. Neil has stayed healthy so far, which puts him in the role of General Caretaker.

Here are two quick Bennyisms:
1. Ben, cuddling in my lap: "Mom, you are my wife. Someday we will get married."
2. After enjoying the book for a couple of years, Ben finally got a chance to watch the animated version of How the Grinch Stole Christmas. Towards the end, after his miraculous heart expansion, it is claimed that the Grinch suddenly acquires the strength of 10 Grinches plus 2. Ben: "That makes 12 Grinches!"

I'll never get caught up!

2011-12-17T12:08:00.000-08:00

I'm so far behind on reading friends' blogs -- all those titles on the sidebar look soooo tempting, and I just haven't had time, folks, I swear.

Well, I got my fall semester grades turned in last night, so things should begin to loosen up a little. I'm down to about 500 things left on the old to-do list, so hopefully by Monday I can devote a few good hours to some Serious Blog Action, both give and take.

Here's one Ben tidbit to tide us over: I have this longish grey cardigan that Ben likes to wear -- it drags on the floor and gives him a bit of a wizard look. So the other night after his bath, he was parading around wearing the sweater and absolutely nothing else, singing, "Monostatos is my name, catching people is my game!"

Okay, so there's a backstory (you were afraid of that). Ben has an English-language version of Mozart's The Magic Flute on DVD (gift from Neil's parents), which he loves. Monostatos is an evil guy from the opera who wears this weird bat-like costume and he's always raising his wings and flashing his rather unattractive beer belly at people, and he's constantly trying to recapture the heroine Pamina. Meanwhile, Papageno is this bird catcher character who sings, "Papageno is my name, catching birds is my game." So as soon as Ben saw in the mirror that he could achieve a similar effect by raising his arms and revealing his little all, he naturally thought of Monostatos and adapted the lyric.

When the backstory is longer than the tidbit, that's clear evidence that my narrative style leaves much to be desired. You'll just have to believe me that it was pretty funny at the time.

Bennyisms and Pics

2011-11-20T18:37:00.000-08:00

This afternoon, Ben was pretending to roast a "marshmallow" (large plastic bead) on a stick (drumstick) over a "fire" (red plastic jar lid). He carefully blew on it to cool it, then pretended to take a bite. He looked thoughtful and said, "Hmmmm. That's pretty good, but it's not my favorite kind." I asked, "What's your favorite kind?" "Real."

This evening Ben was having a cookie for dessert. Neil: "You know what goes really well with a cookie? Milk!" [pushes the milk cup suggestively toward him] Ben: "You know what goes really well with a cookie? Another cookie!"

The marigold that ate western New York -- Ben grew it from a seed.

Ben's first portrait of us. I think it's quite flattering.

There used to be a family room under there.

Jam session -- Neil on electric guitar, Ben on drums. Clifford is the groupie.

October Photo Gallery

2011-11-07T19:07:00.000-08:00

On a hayride

A Clifford birthday

Electric guitar -- thanks to Aunt Kathy!

New scooter

More Clifford

A party guest wearing a homemade Clifford hat

Ben writes a new book; Neil takes dictation.

Still going strong at the piano

Grading some calculus quizzes

The cutest sponge on the block

Didja miss me?

2011-11-07T12:11:00.000-08:00

It's been a long time since I've posted. October was one crazy month, all right. Scratch that -- October was about three crazy months rolled into one. Thirty pounds of crazy in a ten pound bag. Here's a super quick update and a promise that I'll check in more often. (I'm also woefully behind on reading other people's blogs!)

The Big Event was of course Ben's fourth birthday, which was on a Wednesday this year. My mother and Neil's parents were here for the week. Everything went very well and much fun was had by all, but it was a totally exhausting week -- I was sick and completely lost my voice, but we still had two birthday parties to prepare for, plus Neil gave a public lecture as part of a research award he'd won, and, oh yeah, my day job. On Monday I cancelled my classes, but for the rest of the week I just had to keep squeaking at my students, and then go home and squeak at everyone there.

Then there was Halloween. Ben had been on a costume strike the last two years, so this year I managed to extract a promise from him that he would wear a costume and go trick-or-treating. (There was a small element of bribery involved.) Ben complied, in a minimal sort of way. He wore most of the cheap Spongebob costume that he'd reluctantly picked out (although he refused to wear the leggings), and he resignedly marched up to exactly five houses, carefully avoiding any which he suspected might contain dogs, and dutifully extracted some candy. He was much more enthusiastic about carving a pumpkin. Of course, we got his pumpkin too early, and shortly before Halloween we discovered that it had rotted out (and all over our kitchen rug -- yech). Turns out it's remarkably hard to get another carving pumpkin the day before Halloween, so we ended up with a largish pie pumpkin instead. We managed to carve a pretty good jack-o-lantern, whom Ben named Cleo (he named all his various pumpkins, real and plastic, after characters from the Clifford books), and a couple of days later Ben eagerly watched me dissect Cleo into pieces and bake her in the oven. I thought this might be a traumatic experience, but Ben was delighted with the spectacle. We baked about a third of Cleo into a pie yesterday (delicious!!!), and the other two thirds went into the freezer. We'll be offering up more Cleo at Thanksgiving....

That's pretty long for a super-quick update. I'll put some pictures up later when I have access to Photoshop.

Red Brown Green

2011-10-06T11:35:00.000-07:00

Anyone who knows me even a little knows that I am a music addict. It's how I was brought up, immersed in music 24/7. I spent much of my pregnancy with Ben agonizing over whether it was better to start with violin lessons or piano. It wasn't a question of if, or even when (by age 3 at the latest, I figured), but which.

So then I went and had a deaf kid. I don't know what else to write in this paragraph; you can probably guess what goes here.

When Ben was maybe a month old -- I don't remember exactly, but it was after his hearing loss had been confirmed -- some friends came over to visit and meet him for the first time. Two of them are professional musicians, and the other two are fellow music addicts. Much of our conversation typically revolved around music. We hadn't yet told them. About the deafness. So finally, after all the oohing and aahing and jokes about our sleep deprivation had subsided, we told them. Everyone immediately slipped into support and sympathy mode, but I could see the dark shock in their eyes. Or maybe I was projecting onto them what I was feeling.

What I was feeling at the time was grief. Grieving the loss of a certain vision of parenting. Grieving the loss of music in my child's life. Wondering what a life without music feels like -- it still seems so alien to me. Violin vs. piano? Suddenly seemed a foolish, naive self-indulgence of pregnancy.

Fast forward almost four years. I'm not sure what to put in this paragraph either, except that, well, duh, we figured a few things out in the meantime.

Yesterday Ben had his first piano lesson. Okay, he's closer to four than three, but technically I got it in under the deadline, with exactly two weeks to spare! He plopped down in front of Janis' piano and proceeded to play "Hot Cross Buns". We'd been working on it at home for a few weeks now. We call it "Red Brown Green," because we color-coded the piano keys at home.

It was a good lesson. He's definitely not the most naturally compliant kid around (his middle name should be Pushback), so it'll take a little doing to figure out how to keep him engaged and committed over the long haul, but I'm determined to do everything I can.

I just can't quite get over it. Yesterday he had his first piano lesson. Even if he never has another one (and I can guarantee you that he'll have plenty), it feels like we broke the tape after a marathon, and we've just been handed a gigantic shiny trophy.

Now, ask me in a couple of years when I'm pulling my hair out trying to get him to practice whether it's still so shiny. I'm guessing it will be, although I might not be prepared to admit it.

Oh, and Janis, the piano teacher, was one of those four friends who visited that day when Ben was a baby. It's kind've a nice bookend feeling. She was there at the beginning of that phase of the journey, and she's here at the beginning of this one.

My Little Self-Advocate

2011-09-25T16:43:00.000-07:00

Yesterday at the playground, a younger child was eyeing Ben's hearing equipment with interest. I could tell that his mother was a little nervous, hoping her son wasn't being rude. So I said, "Ben, it looks like O--- is curious about your equipment. Can you tell him what that is behind your ears?" O---'s mother broke in with a bright, nervous, "Oh, are those hearing aids? To help him hear?" Ben responded, "Yes, and this" (pointing to his right ear) "is a cochlear implant, to help me hear louder."

The other mother was very impressed (and relieved that it wasn't such a big deal). I was almost crying inside, I was so proud.

Later, Ben and O--- were running in big circles around the playground, and the other mother was again impressed by the fact that Ben could clearly hear and understand me even when running at full tilt away from me. Not a bad advertisement for cochlear implant technology!

It finally happened.

2011-09-19T12:04:00.000-07:00

Ben tried to pretend an ordinary toy was a gun.

It happened last Friday evening, at the math department picnic. Ben and I were playing with his air propulsion rocket when he gleefully shouted, "Let's pretend it's a gun!!!" (Yes, my child is very literal.)

My response: "No, let's not do that. I don't like guns, and I don't think they're fun things to pretend about."

Now, Ben's knowledge of guns is scant. When they are mentioned in songs, we kinda gloss over it, as in the Rocky Raccoon lyric, "Now Rocky had come equipped with a nuuuuuuuh to huuuwuhhuh legs of his rival." Call us cowards, but we just don't want to go there yet. But the kids at school talk. His preschool has an anti-gun-play policy, but I'm sure some of the kids manage to circumvent it in clever ways, and they probably make it look pretty cool.

I don't own a gun, but we have friends who do for hunting purposes, and I'm okay with that. My parents have a longtime family friend who is a vegetarian and hunts, at least partly on the premise that he's providing counterbalance to all the folks who will eat it but aren't willing to kill it. I'm not trying to take away anyone's guns or cast aspersions on gun owners. But let's be honest about it: The purpose of a gun is to tear flesh apart in a fairly violent fashion, and I'm not ready to have that conversation with Ben yet. And until I am, I don't want him getting the idea that guns have any other purpose -- most particularly that they are cool play things. A gun is a tool, an object, and in and of themselves they are not evil or even dangerous; they're just lumps of metal. But as tools they have a purpose, and when that purpose is misunderstood, people misuse them, and other people get hurt.

Now, in families where gun ownership is a valued tradition and there is an expectation that children will one day use or own guns, it might make sense to have toy guns and to encourage gun play, if for no other reason than to motivate conversations about responsible gun use. If you're a football fanatic, you're probably going to get your kid a football and hope that he or she eventually shares your enthusiasm. I guess I'm okay with all that. But honestly, guns freak me out. I don't want one in my house, and I sincerely hope Ben never has one either. At some point he will learn about death, crime, self-defense, war, hunting, life on the frontier, etc., and at that point he'll learn a lot about guns. But until he's old enough to understand them in context, there's no reason for him to be exposed to them, and certainly not in the guise of harmless play things.

Today's Bennyisms

2011-09-13T19:11:00.000-07:00

One of Ben's favorite books these days is called Opera Cat, a story about an opera singer in Milan whose cat turns out to be a virtuoso soprano as well and covers for her when she contracts laryngitis. A frequent visitor to the home is the Maestro, the conductor of the opera's pit orchestra. This morning when I was driving Ben to school, we were listening to some classical music on the radio. At one point I asked, "Do you think the Maestro is conducting that with his baton?" Ben responded, somewhat dismissively, "No." After a moment he continued, "I think it's Daniel Barenboim."

[Back story on that: A number of times we've watched this video featuring Itzhak Perlman playing the Beethoven violin concerto, with conductor Daniel Barenboim. Ben now knows to sing along to the main theme of the third movement with the immortal lyrics, "It's by Beethoven, it's by Beethoven...." Just as my father taught me, lo these many years ago.]

Tonight in the bath, Ben announced, "Tomorrow something exciting is going to happen right in the middle of school!" I signed, "What?" "Abba is going to give a concert! And I'm going to help them sing a song!"

He's the only almost-four-year-old I know who can name all the members of Abba. I can't name them all. And whence this interest in Abba? YouTube, again. John Denver -> Olivia Newton-John -> Abba. I bet you're never more than about six links away from an Abba video on YouTube.

We believe in a well-rounded musical education.

One of these things just doesn't belong....

2011-09-01T12:35:00.000-07:00

We like PBS Kids. It's a good line-up of shows, with some fun tidbits in between featuring Miss Rosa, Hooper, and (Ben's favorite) SteveSongs. We don't sit there and watch all morning, but we usually enjoy Curious George and some Cat in the Hat action over breakfast.

In one of the segments with Miss Rosa, she holds up picture cards featuring a snake, a whale, an elephant, and a dog, and she asks which one of these is different from the others. We've seen this a few times now, and we never get it "right". An obvious answer is "whale," because it lives in the ocean. But the snake is the only non-mammal, the dog is the only domesticated animal, and, well, you can ride on an elephant. My point is that any one of these could be the "right answer," and we never remember which one was right in Miss Rosa's eyes.

This hearkens back to the old Sesame Street song and game, "One of these things is not like the others, one of these things just doesn't belong...." And even when I was a kid, I found this a little bit disturbing, but I could never figure out why until recently.

Now, they're addressing an important cognitive skill, namely sorting objects according to the properties they have in common and the properties that distinguish them. But why load on the emotional baggage of "what doesn't belong," as if something that is "different" should be excluded, removed? You have a characteristic that others around you don't, so you shouldn't be here.

Not to make myself out as a pity case, but I spent much of my childhood feeling like I didn't belong. For a variety of reasons, I was one of the picked-on kids. It's always handy, in any social group, to have an example you can point to of someone who does everything wrong, who just fundamentally is wrong, and who is publicly punished for this, as a cautionary tale for others who might occasionally consider going against the grain. I had a few good friends and I had a wonderful family, so I made out okay -- and ultimately I was grateful to have a family that values authenticity and substance, rather than conformity and appearances. But on a day-to-day basis, it was rough. I spent much of my time at school feeling like everyone around me would be a lot happier if I just disappeared, so I could stop offending their delicate sensibilities.

So any suggestion that something that is different should politely remove itself from the premises is naturally going to rankle with me.

I think Miss Rosa should take advantage of a teachable moment to have a more expansive discussion. First of all, just because the snake is different in one respect from the other animals, this is cool and interesting, rather than bad. Second of all, no two of these animals are identical; each has something about it which sets it apart from the others. And this is cool and interesting. Thirdly, all four of the animals have a lot in common. In some ways, the things they have in common (they are alive, they require food, they are mobile, they are driven to reproduce, etc.) are more profound and mysterious than their differences.

Not that Miss Rosa explicitly stated that the animal which she claims is "different" from the others is "bad." But given all the overwhelming pressures to conform that children face from the rest of society, as well as our hardwired fixation with distinguishing kin from competitor (which served us well in our evolutionary past, and perhaps today as well), it's wise to counter this with an explicit positive message whenever we can.

Of course, such a discussion would take a lot more than the thirty seconds or so that Miss Rosa has at her disposal before the next show comes on. But I guess that's why it's important for parents to watch TV with their kids. It's up to us to fill in the blanks.

The fact that my child will be the only one in his school with large pieces of plastic hanging off his head may add a little sense of urgency to this project.

Ho.Ly.Crap. He can read Korean.

2011-08-26T19:38:00.000-07:00

Okay, let me clarify. We have a whole series of books with titles like Count Your Way Through Greece. I think we have about a dozen of these. Each one features the first ten counting numbers in some language, with little related cultural details. Each one is inscribed on the cover "E. Wilson." A lot of Ben's books have "E. Wilson" on the cover. This is because my mother retired from teaching a few years ago, and proceeded to pass along much of her extensive (and that is the understatement of the century) library of educational children's literature to Ben. Since she was teaching second grade for the last couple of decades of her career, most of the books are geared toward that age range. Ben loves 'em.

On the last page of each of these Count Your Way books is a pronunciation guide for the numbers. I submit, for your consideration, the following:

So Ben's sitting on my lap looking at books before bedtime. No hearing equipment. He's spending some quality time on this last page. He points to the numeral 1 and says "One." He points to the phonetic translation and says, "Huh nuh." I start to pay attention. He goes to the next line and says, "Two ... tuh." Next line: "Three ... suh." "Four ... nuh. Five ... Tuh suh." Etc. You're getting the picture. Now, here's the really amazing bit: We've never read this book before. We've read others in the series, so he gets the general pattern, but not this one. Just hadn't gotten around to it until tonight. He has never heard me or any other human being read those words on the page. He's reading those words himself. Okay, he's not getting past the first letter in each syllable -- he pronounces that, follows up with a generic soft vowel sound, and moves on. He read the entire list this way.

My almost-four-year-old deaf child is sounding out phonetic translations of Korean number names.

Some August Bennyisms

2011-08-25T18:42:00.000-07:00

Tonight's bath time monologue: "On Memorial Day, I'm going to be too busy to go to the picnic at Overview Park. I will be traveling all day to Rhode Island to help Yajni with her kids. I need to help Yajni, M-----, and R----(*) with something tricky." When Neil asked him(**) "What do they need help with?" Ben replied, "The games they will go to play are hard. Some of the games in their house are tricky."

(*) He got their names right, but I'm suppressing a few details here.
(**) ...by bellowing in his left ear. It's not elegant, but it gets the job done when he's without equipment.

When we were reading books before bed, Ben mysteriously announced, "Sometimes I have to skip over the math parts." Now, I know he never heard me say anything like that, so I have no idea where that came from. But he was very pleased with this pronouncement, because he repeated it many times.

Ben usually operates on the principle that if Mom or Dad suggest it, It's Bad, even if it's not. This can put him in quite a bind if what we're suggesting is something that he really wants. Case in point: "Ben, do you want to take more dance lessons with Miss Kat this fall?" "NO!" We've found that the best way to deal with this is to pull back, regroup, and then re-approach the idea with a little more subtlety: "Hey Ben, remember the candy machine outside the dance class? And how you and Pascal would share some candy?" Apparently, Ben's recent Father-Son trip with Neil to visit Neil's parents was marked by several such situations, requiring a certain degree of finagling. Ben, you wanna go to the arboretum? NO! But he ended up loving the arboretum. Same deal with riding the chair lift up to hike around the top of the mountain, or driving the golf cart. So when I was in the throes of some similar discussion with Ben a couple of days ago, I reminded him of those experiences -- "Remember how much you liked riding the chair lift? Remember the golf cart?" Ben: "And don't forget about the arboretum!" [Hedy, that's the anecdote I was promising you. He still occasionally goes through the litany of the kite, the bubble wand, and don't forget about the wrong path!]

In other news, we're still coping with Mr. Stinkerpants a lot of the time, but I think he's gradually easing out of this phase. The last few days have been marked by Extreme Bossiness. There's been some upheaval at his school with new kids starting this past week (and in fact he's in a new classroom as of a few weeks ago), so my theory is that he's dealing with the attendant feelings of anxiety by trying to control his environment (which largely means us) as much as he can.

I don't want to hear.

2011-08-07T15:02:00.000-07:00

Okay, I should be getting some solid work done during this short period of time at my disposal, but I have a lot on my mind, so I will use you folks as my mind dumping ground.

So Ben has been Very Very Three lately. Technically he's closer to four than three, but I'm referring to the developmental stage, not the chronological period. Like any kid, he goes through challenging phases every now and then, when everything seems to be a battle for control and he takes extra delight in pushing our buttons. This is healthy and normal, I keep telling myself through gritted teeth. I would be more worried if he didn't do stuff like this, I mutter, reaching for another handful of chocolate chips.

A number of things I've read over the last year have helped. Y'all know my thoughts on Amy Chua's Tiger Mother book -- I was inspired by her adherence to core values, but I'm neither able nor willing to adopt her parenting strategies as such. Just for a little contrast and balance, I then read Alfie Kohn's Punished by Rewards, and I started his book Unconditional Parenting, but got diverted by other things. And now I'm reading a very interesting book about Buddhism, Pay Attention, For Goodness' Sake, by Sylvia Boorstein. What I'm taking away from all of this is the value of trusting Ben's reasonableness, his emerging ability to respond reasonably, sympathetically, and respectfully to discussion and explanation, rather than always relying on force, reward, and punishment to get through the moment. From Boorstein I'm learning the value of responding to challenge with compassion. Yes, he's being a Right Proper Little Stinker, but maybe what he really needs is a hug. That might be the last thing I feel like giving him right now, but especially at a moment of crisis, his needs are more important than mine.

A skeptic would say, Yah, he's only three, good luck with that. At any rate, that was my initial reaction. There's an old-school parenting voice in my head that still insists on the critical importance of my being In Total Control of My Child At All Times, meaning that if I say jump, he says how high, and that any deviation from this state of affairs is to some extent a parenting failure on my part. Then I ask myself, so how's that working out? Not so good, not so good. Okay, let's give this whole wacko "reasonable explanation" thing a whirl, see how it goes. Hmmm. Well, that worked better than I expected; must be a fluke. But y'know, it actually works very well almost all the time. It doesn't work immediate miracles; sometimes we don't get through the moment as well as I'd like. But it certainly doesn't seem to be less effective than force, reward, and punishment, and I feel a hell of a lot better about it.

But here's the thing. In order for it to work, you need to be able to have a discussion with your child. Often a complicated, nuanced discussion. Since my signing skills are primitive at best, this means that I need for my child to be able to hear me.

This morning he announced, "I don't want to hear today." Okay, sometimes he wants a little time without the equipment. Must be nice to be able to enjoy more or less total silence at will. We don't want for the equipment to become the focal point of a power battle, so we roll with it. Okay, it's after breakfast and it's still no go with the equipment. We're making our way through the morning, doing fine, but increasingly worried. What if he does this on a school day? After some negotiating, we decide that it's okay to go to the grocery store sans sound. All this time I'm mentally cooking up some kick-butt Reasonable Explanations for why it's important to wear his equipment during the day, and I'm sure he'd come around and agree with me, if only he could hear me. A perfect catch-22.

But I'm stuck. The parent of a deaf child, and completely incapable of communicating with him under the circumstances, beyond pathetically simple phrases like, "Need potty? Some bananas, yellow. No, stop, soon. Where Daddy?" All accompanied by overly emotive facial expressions that would make William Shatner blush.

And whose fault is this? Mine, I guess. Maybe we put too much stock in the technology. We're always telling people, No, cochlear implants don't "cure" deafness. He's still deaf. Okay, yes, whenever you're around him, he functions like a hearing child, and most of the time that I spend with him he's functionally hearing, too. But there's a fundamental, crucial, stark difference: You can always talk to your hearing child. Always. He might not listen as well as you'd like, but he can't completely ignore you, either. When my child isn't wearing his friggin miraculous cure-all equipment, he can completely ignore me. Completely. And there's not a damned thing I can do about it.

I can hear the chorus of Deaf criticism in my ear: See? Told ya. You thought the CI was going to make him into a hearing child, and fix everything. But it didn't. Yup, he's still deaf. Shoulda learned sign like we told you. Bad hearing parent of deaf child. You had a responsibility to teach your son sign, the natural language of the deaf, and you abdicated that responsibility in favor of a quick tech fix.

Well, it's not quite that simple, either. Okay, yeah, so I didn't take a year off from my life to learn a whole new language. I've learned a little, a pathetic smattering, and I keep offering it up to him. We bought the Signing Time DVDs, as well as a gazillion other DVDs and tapes. We got the books, the dictionaries, the posters. I keep trying, but, I have to admit, not very hard. And honestly, he never sees 90% of what I sign to him. He looks away. Hey, English is his primary language, and he's quite good at it. He doesn't need to learn sign. I'm the one who needs a mode of communication that works even when he's offline, not him. It's an incentive thing. And even when he's offline, it works at best 10% of the time.

So it's been a very tough day. Some difficult parenting moments, a lot of frustration, feelings of inadequacy and self-recrimination. We managed to get the equipment on him after Quiet Time, and I was finally able to deliver a fairly respectable Reasonable Explanation, during which he squirmed a lot and paid at best half-attention, but it had an impact. After that we cuddled together on the sofa and read books while listening to Simon and Garfunkel. Things are looking up.

Warning: This Post Is About Pee

2011-07-29T19:09:00.000-07:00

Now that I have your attention.... Okay, so Ben is doing very well overall on the toileting front. By far the most welcome recent development has been Peeing Standing Up, with the prerequisite skill of Good Aim. It's pretty cool -- we no longer need to cart around the insert, he doesn't have to come into full body contact with nasty public toilets, and he can take care of the entire operation more or less by himself from start to finish. Which is not to say that he always does. If he's trying to push our buttons or slow us down when we're in a hurry, he'll suddenly become completely helpless. But if we basically ignore him, he'll get back to business on his own.

Why am I telling you this? Be patient. I have to get a little graphic first, before I can make my point. So, you probably know what I'm talking about when I refer to, shall we say, froth. Ben is quite intrigued by this. He came up with a little song about it. It goes like this: "Bubbles in the old, not in the new." I guess it's more of a chant. It stems from his observation that the froth-laden fluid in question is replaced by comparatively froth-free water during the flushing process. Yeah, I know. Ewwwwwww.

And you know how he's gotten into the Rolling Stones lately? He has decided that he is a member of a band called the Rolling Rock, which may come as a shock to his former band members in The Milk (which I just realized I never blogged about -- I've been remiss). So tonight, as he was lying back enjoying his bath, he announced that the Rolling Rock had a new song, which he proceeded to perform for us: "Oh you can't always have bubbles in the new. Yeah you can't always have bubbles in the new. No you can't always have bubbles in the new. But if you try sometimes you just might find, you have bubbles in the old!"

If you've managed to keep reading this far, I'll reward you with the following news item, which I guarantee is 100% pee-free: Ben has suddenly gotten heavily into painting. I love this. It's been going on for a couple of weeks now. He spends a long time on each painting, which is always an elaborate multimedia construction, typically incorporating poster paint, finger paint, glue, watercolor, and a dinosaur stamp he got as a birthday party favor. And he sings the entire time. This afternoon he announced, "Let's take our snack up to the attic [where the art studio is] and ... PAINT!!!" Really, he was just about bursting with excitement. Even better, now he wants me to paint with him -- i.e. at my own easel, next to his. You have no idea how happy this makes me.

Hast thou slain the Jabberwock?

2011-07-18T20:22:00.000-07:00

It was inevitable. Ben is into the Rolling Stones now. Tonight he and Neil were watching Stones videos on Youtube, and Ben observed, "Somebody must have getted onto Mick Jabber's cloud."

In other news, Ben finally wore his hearing aid again today, after being without it for more than two weeks. So things are back to normal, equipment-wise.

Found the culprit!

2011-07-05T18:28:00.000-07:00

It's wax. (Good guess, Leah!) I took him to the pediatrician this afternoon. No infection anywhere, just a big ol' gob of nasty wax plugging up his left ear. Big enough that it was pressing against his inner ear and causing pain. So we had our first experience with Debrox drops tonight. If my childhood is anything to go by, it won't be our last. (I was a waxy kid.) He didn't like them, to put it mildly. We're supposed to put them in twice a day for the next 4-5 days. Gonna be a long 4-5 days.

Usually, when we're getting ready for bathtime, we take off his CI first (he can't really get undressed with it on) but leave the hearing aid in until just before he hits the water. In a quiet home environment he can hear us pretty well with just the aid, and this greatly facilitates the rest of bath preparation. Tonight, of course, he didn't have the aid in, and silly me I forgot this. And proceeded to get quite angry with him for "not listening" as we finished getting undressed. Granted he was overtired (after being up late last night for fireworks, and -- as usual -- no nap this afternoon) and acting out a bit, but you can imagine the Mom Guilt that set in when I realized my error.

Speaking of metaphysics....

2011-07-03T19:19:00.000-07:00

Tonight before bed, Ben announced, "This ... is this," pointing first to one book and then to another. After reflecting on it for a moment, he explained. "You know why I said that? Because they are both books. That's why I said, 'This is this.'"

Maybe Neil can step in with an exposition on the strengths and flaws of this argument.

Ben went without his hearing aid today. For several weeks he's been getting more and more tetchy about anyone touching his left ear, especially to put the aid in or take it out. At one point Neil thought he saw a little redness just inside the outer ear canal, but I can't see it. At his last audiological appointment we decided not to get a new ear mold, even though we'd been running on this one for over six months, since it still fit so well. (I do not miss the early days, when his ears grew so quickly that we had to go to Buffalo every two weeks for new molds.) Maybe the latex is starting to degrade -- although we don't see any visible signs of it. A mystery. Anyway, today he actually started crying in pain when I tried to put the hearing aid in, so I desisted. On Tuesday we'll follow up, either with the audiologist or pediatrician. And of course, his CI was beeping all yesterday and today -- not clear whether the battery was in poor contact or this cable is starting to die. Impeccable timing.

Fresh Bennyisms

2011-07-01T18:46:00.000-07:00

1. Tonight, at the beginning of his bath: "Did you know that there's a day that is no longer in the world? It used to be, but they took it out. It's the first Sunday." Very metaphysical.

2. At the end of his bath: I don't remember the exact wording, but he explained that in two days we will go back to Toronto and stay at the same hotel we stayed at in May, but we aren't going to drive there, instead we will look at the hotel on the computer and then go into the computer and just be there right away.

What is this thing you humans call ... pho-to-shop?

2011-06-26T11:56:00.000-07:00

Awesome!!!

2011-06-24T19:53:00.000-07:00

1. Tonight, after Ben got into bed, he put his arms out toward me and said, "I need a hug. This is going to be a really long hug. Know why? Because I love you."

2. The New York State legislature just voted to legalize same-sex marriage -- woo-hoo!!! Yep, I'm a proud New Yorker right now.

It's a good night for families everywhere. All kinds.

Great video -- our CI surgeon

2011-06-23T12:13:00.000-07:00

Here's an excellent video featuring an interview with Dr. Roland, Ben's CI surgeon. Among other topics, he gives a nice description of how a CI works. Enjoy -- and turn those ipods down!

IEP under development

2011-06-22T19:19:00.000-07:00

We had our second annual CPSE meeting a week ago last Tuesday, and it went very well over all, in the sense that we got the services we wanted and the goals sound like they're shaping up nicely. The downer was that New Issues are emerging. No big surprises -- these are things we've become increasingly concerned about over the last year or more. Still, it's a little depressing to hear the various teachers and therapists waxing poetic about it all.

The short story is that we're throwing some physical therapy into the mix, and also working to address his Extreme Shyness (a strong disinclination or inability to interact with peers). A year ago, in the comprehensive evaluations before his first CPSE meeting, he was showing a mild delay in several gross motor skill areas, and the delays have become more significant since then. For instance, he can't jump. When he's told to jump, he'll take kind've an aggressive two-step, but he doesn't get any actual air time and he can't keep his feet together. I won't go through the whole list of Things He's Supposed To Be Doing By Now But Isn't, according to the therapists, because it's dull and depressing, but we're confident that everything will be okay in the long run. It's small stuff, really, that should be amenable to PT, and hopefully we'll get ahead of it before he's in kindergarten. Also, none of it is related to his hearing loss -- Connexin-26 deafness is non-syndromic, and the only effect is the deafness itself. In fact, you gotta wonder if the physical delays really fall within or pretty close to the normal range of development, and nobody would be worrying about them if he weren't being so closely monitored because of the deafness.

I'm more worried about the Extreme Shyness. This probably is due at least in part to his deafness, or at least exacerbated by it. Now, I was Extremely Shy at that age, too, and in fact I never really outgrew it, just learned to compensate better for it. It made for a pretty rough ride in elementary school, where I was always on the social outskirts and often the target of Kids Being Kids. Not fun. I'm sure that a good portion of Ben's shyness is just innate personality, his unfortunate legacy from me. And it would be fruitless and ill-advised to try to change his personality. But there is also reason to believe that his social anxiety is intensified by the difficulty of hearing in noise and trying to focus on a single sound source when surrounded by many speakers. His teachers painted a grim picture of him being withdrawn and mute when in a group setting, refusing to answer questions even when he can hear them and knows the answer, unwilling to engage in conversation or interact with peers. From various things that his teachers and daycare providers reported over the last few months, I was starting to worry a little about high functioning autism or Asperger's, but actually there's no real reason to suspect anything like that at this point -- in less threatening environments he doesn't display any of those behaviors, and to the contrary he totally gets humor, emotion, talks with inflection, makes eye contact, shows empathy, etc. So we're all putting it down to social anxiety made worse by poor hearing in group settings, and some of his speech/language goals over the next year involve initiating and sustaining peer contact. I have no idea exactly how they're going to work on that, but it'll be interesting to find out.

It's a bit of a change from a year ago, when all the evaluators were singing his praises, he tested fantastically on everything (except the mild gross motor delays), and we had to work hard to convince the special ed director that he needed services in the first place. This year we had a new special ed director who again needed some convincing, because he still performs so highly on the sorts of speech and language skills that she usually pays attention to, but once everyone started talking about all the Emerging Issues, it was a pretty easy sell. Unfortunately.

One result of the meeting was a formal PT assessment, which took place two days ago. Once that report is written up, we'll have to reconvene the committee to discuss PT goals and services, and hopefully finalize some of the language goals as well. But we're optimistic that we're going to get a good IEP out of this.

This evening, he used the toilet All By Himself. From start to finish. I wasn't even in the room. He needed a little help at the end when he got his shorts halfway up and discovered they were on backwards, but still, you gotta be impressed. Before that, he and I were engaged in a game of "Pizzicato or Arco?", where I tell him to play his violin pizzicato and he smirks and uses his bow instead, or vice versa. And at times like those I realize, hey, the kid's all right. Relax already.

Two Bennyisms

2011-06-14T20:24:00.000-07:00

1. Last week, before Ben's appointment with his CI surgeon, he went off to the bathroom with Neil. When he returned he announced, to everyone's delight, "I peed in the urinal!!!" (First urinal usage -- yay!)

2. Tonight, while playing with his shaker eggs, he started singing Paul Simon's "Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard." He explained, "It's because the shaker eggs sounded like the tone of that song."

In other news, we had a successful IEP meeting this morning. Details to follow.

Fifty ways to take a bath....

2011-06-13T13:12:00.000-07:00

Here are some pictures from our recent trip to NYC for Ben's third annual follow-up appointment at the NYU Cochlear Implant Center. He entertains himself (and George) in the car:

Walking with his father and grandparents in Riverside Park:

One thing we love about NYC playgrounds -- metal slides!!! (No static! CI-friendly!)

On our last night there, Ben was singing Paul Simon's "Fifty Ways to Leave Your Lover" in the bath. It was pretty cute! No pictures -- this is a family blog, after all.

Standing Out

2011-06-04T19:56:00.000-07:00

I am officially okay with the fact that total strangers stare at my child, trying to figure out what's "wrong" with him. I'm not actually okay with this, but I resigned myself to it a long time ago. He has large pieces of plastic and metal hanging off his head. People are people. I'd stare, if I didn't know what it was. When I see something I don't understand, I look a little longer. We're hardwired to do that.

But it still gives me a very strange sensation when I notice people staring -- which, in a crowded city like this, is every few minutes. A strange combination of fierce mama bear defensiveness, pride, and slightly dizzying self-consciousness. Adults don't stare for long, because it's rude, and most of them come to their senses very quickly and avert their gaze -- having pegged him as a child with some sort of disability, probably deaf (if they recognize the hearing aid), they feel pity for him and for me. It's really weird walking down the street or hanging around a playground and knowing that you are the object of other people's pity. It's kindly meant, but it just feels weird.

It's a very fleeting sensation and we've learned to ignore it most of the time. For all I know people have been shaking their heads in a vague sort of pity over me all my life, and I never noticed it -- I am after all a math geek with particularly weak fashion sense. Weird.

New Jersey Bennyism

2011-06-02T18:53:00.000-07:00

While driving down Route 17 on our way to NYC today, Ben piped up: "Daddy, you're going to beat Sebastian Vettel!"

Ben has his third (!) annual follow-up appointment on Monday with his CI surgeon -- the amazing Dr. Thomas Roland, one of the best. In the meantime we're going to take in a little City action.

Read Tammy's post

2011-06-01T06:01:00.000-07:00

You gotta read this.

Don't know what else to say about it.

Just sayin'....

2011-05-28T18:29:00.000-07:00

Human beings have been vomiting for about 6 million years (off and on), and for the vast majority of that time they didn't have washing machines.

Just makes you think, y'know?

(Yeah, Ben's a little sicky.)

Couple more....

2011-05-26T18:51:00.000-07:00

Yesterday: "Is today the actual day of you guys's anniversary?" [The answer was yes. We loved the "you guys's" construction!]

Last night at the beginning of dinner, Neil put plates on the table and said, "Is there anything else we need from the kitchen?" Ben's response: "We're all set, thanks." [I guess we've been going to too many restaurants lately!]

Two Toronto Bennyisms

2011-05-21T11:05:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, driving along the Gardiner Expressway: "It seems that every other light is turned off." [He was right -- every other street light was turned off.]
This morning, when Neil opened the curtains and Ben was suddenly in full sun: "There is sunlight on my shoulder, and it isn't making me happy at all!" [Think John Denver, "Annie's Song."]

Poor Dixie Down!

2011-05-19T18:50:00.000-07:00

A little over a week ago, Ben got his first guitar. It was a big hit, right from the start. Usually when I go to pick him up from daycare, he's so involved in playing that it's like pulling teeth to get him out the door. But every day last week he marched right up to me and said, "Let's go home so I can play my guitar!" We'd get home and I'd still be down in the kitchen fixing a snack, and he'd already be upstairs rocking out.

As you know, if you've been following this blog, Ben is a serious John Denver fan. On our greatest hits collection, there's a track where John Denver covers The Band's song "The Weight." This led us to watch YouTube videos of The Band's original version, plus their various other hits. That explains Ben's song line-up for this impromptu gig.

My Mother's Day

2011-05-10T06:34:00.000-07:00

This is how it started: I was in the kitchen making biscuits (it was a Formula 1 race day). Ben ran in, put his arms up to indicate that I should pick him up, and announced:

"This is your Mother's Day hug!" [big hug]
"This is your Mother's Day kiss!" [sloppy wet kiss]
"This is your Mother's Day back rub!" [back rub]
"This is your Mother's Day cuddle!" [cuddle]

Yeah, life doesn't get much better than that!

Here's the "John Lennon Hotel" that Ben built while we were watching the race. He usually builds animal hotels, to house his large collection of small plastic animals, but this time he decided that John would be the featured guest. Note John's banana slug button.

Later in the morning we went for a Mother's Day walk, during which Ben addressed everyone we met with a hearty, "Happy Mother's Day!!!" The two school-age boys down the street who were out riding bikes were a little nonplussed by this, but the neighbor woman two doors down was tickled.

Here's a random shot from last week. It was the first warm, sunny day we'd had in awhile, and Ben was trying on last summer's sunglasses before we headed out to a playground. This of course meant that he had to go get his ukulele, for full effect.

He must be operating on a whole different plane

2011-05-01T20:10:00.000-07:00

Starting at about 7:30 this morning, Ben woke up laughing. He continued to giggle sporadically for the next half hour. When he finally got up, he told us a joke that apparently had come to him in a dream. It goes like this:

Where is the ball?
It got stubbed on a toe.
Why did it get stubbed on a toe?
[big punch line coming up; break into pre-emptive helpless giggling]
It is because you keep moving the bat!!!

Yes. That's the joke. No, we don't get it. But that is the joke, and he proceeded to recite the entire thing, without deviation, at least 50,000 times during the rest of the day. Even tonight, roughly 12 hours after the initial recital, he was completely unable to contain his hilarity as he built up to the final punchline. At least he knows how to entertain himself!

The holidays in pictures

2011-04-25T07:53:00.000-07:00

Ben carefully places an egg on the Seder plate on the first night of Passover. We didn't have a real shank bone, so that's a cut-out of a picture that Neil found online.

On other nights, we do not dip even once. But on this night, we dip many, many, many times. Apparently, dipping gnocchi in salt water is our new Seder tradition.

On the second night of Passover, we had friends over for a Seder (hence the good tablecloth, and the kids table in the background). Here's Ben chomping into a lemon-shaped candy.

In his Easter basket, Ben got a new magnifying glass and some more rocks for his rock collection. Yes, this is the kind of nerdly family we are. Ben seems to fit right in.

As if that weren't enough, he also got a set of tangrams. Oh, yeah, and a chocolate rabbit and lots of other candy of a traditional Easter nature. We're math geeks, but we also like our chocolate.

We went over to Jackson's house for a wonderful Easter egg hunt and Easter dinner. I don't have any pictures of that yet.

More from our budding philosopher

2011-04-10T10:56:00.000-07:00

This will take a bit of explanation.

Ben has a large collection of small toy cars, and most of these have real wheels that turn on axles. Y'know -- Matchbox and things of that ilk or a little bigger. He also has a set of "squirties" -- those soft plastic bath toys with a little hole somewhere so you can fill them with water and then squirt your child silly. Many of these are in the shape of vehicles -- car, firetruck, submarine (of course), etc. These do not have real wheels, so Ben refers to these as "fake" cars. We usually keep them in the bin with the rest of the cars, because, frankly, we don't like using them in the bath -- it's hard to get all the water out of them, and we aren't fans of mildew.

So last night he was playing with his wide assortment of vehicles, and he declared "This is a real person who likes to play with fake things."

He just needs a beard with bits of food in it*

2011-04-07T19:00:00.000-07:00

Today Ben's daycare was closed for staff meetings, so after preschool Ben got to sit in on one of Neil's office hours. Neil was giving an exam in his logic class later in the day, so he had plenty of anxious customers. As if their pre-test anxiety wasn't high enough already, Neil taught Ben to say to them, "Your statement is the negation of a tautology."

For logicians, them's fightin' words. Seriously, if a logician ever says that to you, consider yourself served.

It was pretty cute.

Later, we all had lunch together over in the Math Department, where Ben and one of my colleagues (a fellow John Denver fan) gave us a rousing concert.

*If this title makes no sense to you, it's because you know relatively few professional logicians. Count your blessings. My father once threatened to disown me if I became a logician. I think he was joking, but I've never been completely sure.

School pic

2011-04-05T08:59:00.000-07:00

Here's a cute picture of Ben in his speech therapy session this morning. The director of the preschool sent it to me.

How is this night different from all other nights?

2011-03-31T19:43:00.000-07:00

We've been practicing our Four Questions for Passover. This evening, Ben set up an obstacle course for himself in the hallway, consisting of maracas, tambourines, a drum, and sundry other instruments. He then proceeded to run up and down the hall, darting in and around the instruments, and announcing, "All other nights we don't make an instrument course, but tonight we make an instrument course."

Deaf kids can yodel

2011-03-30T10:34:00.000-07:00

Well, mine can, anyway. Almost. As you know, Ben is Big On Music, which is putting it mildly. I think of distances around town in terms of how many CD tracks we can get through on the journey. It's a small town, so it's usually at most two. From daycare to home, it's about 1.5, depending on the CD. Yesterday when I picked Ben up, he was clearly in the mood for more than 1.5 tracks worth of John Denver, so I suggested a little drive in the country.

It was a gorgeous day -- deep blue sky, strong sunlight, the snow starting to recede in the fields. Still cold, but a beautiful early spring day. We were driving along, and there was Ben in the back seat, belting out John Denver songs at the top of his lungs -- and not just loudly, but joyfully, with over-the-top exuberance. Where he's still a little unsure about the lyrics, he fakes it pretty well. And we got to the part in Calypso where John Denver is more or less in yodel mode -- it's not quite Alpine pyrotechnics, but he changes from chest voice to head voice and dances around some pretty wide intervals. And yes, that was my (deaf) son in the backseat, yodeling right alongside. Not quite pitch perfect, but pretty darned close. I looked in the mirror and saw his eyes beaming with happiness as he yodeled away, watching the countryside fly by.

He couldn't see my face, and the fact that I had tears of joy and pride streaming down my cheeks.

When we got home, I turned off the ignition but left the key in long enough for the two of us to sing all the way to the end of Take Me Home, Country Roads. Then, still high on music, we went inside and had a snack. Pretty good day.

Pics and the latest Bennyism

2011-03-24T19:13:00.000-07:00

We've been talking about different ways to say hello. When Neil walked into Ben's room this morning to get him up, Ben greeted him with, "'Ssup?!? Ni hau ma?"

Here are two pictures from our trip to Hunter last week. The second one shows Ben entranced by a DVD of La Traviata, the Verdi opera. If you're familiar with the opera, you'll know that it has a little adult content here and there. Okay, so the heroine is a high-end prostitute, and the plot centers on her love affair with a baron who is cheating on his wife. But there's nothing graphic (it is opera, after all), so if you don't know Italian and can't read the subtitles, then it's pretty much smooth sailing, even for a three year old. In any case, Ben seems to be a convert.

Another deaf athlete with a CI

2011-03-21T08:38:00.000-07:00

This is a neat story about a high school football player (in Columbus, OH, family members!) who has a specially designed helmet to accommodate his CI. I'm a little iffy about a kid with a CI playing a heavy-duty contact sport, since a blow to the head carries all the usual risk plus the additional risk of damage to the device, but it's nice to know that it's an option.

In other sports news, Ben went skiing last week -- twice! I'm at the office right now, but I'll try to post a picture tonight. He doesn't yet have the musculature (or the incentive) to hold himself up very well, so Neil ended up with a sore back from supporting him all the way down the hill. But it was a very successful first exposure. By next winter, Ben will probably be ready to do more on his own. In any case, he had a blast!

Speaking of helmets, we'll have to figure something out for skiing. Lots of CI kids ski, and the helmet fits pretty well over the equipment, especially if you wear one of these underneath to keep the headpiece from shifting out of position. Since Ben was completely under Neil's physical control the entire time, we didn't bother with a helmet this year.

Oh, and it turns out that Ben's an opera fan. More on that another time.

Recent Bennyisms

2011-03-18T13:27:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, upon walking into the ski lodge: "I've been to this restaurant before."
A few minutes later, when asked what he wanted for lunch: "I'd need to look at a menu."
Last night, we were playing "Down for the count," where we'd flop down on the bed, count to ten, and then announce that we were (surprise) down for the count. A few minutes ago, after getting up from Quiet Time, Ben flopped down on the bed and said, "Down for the count!" Then he pushed himself up and said, "Up for the spell!"

Meltdowns all over the place

2011-03-14T07:26:00.000-07:00

I'll go from minor to major. I have a cold -- had it for a few days. It was probably sitting around in my system all week, but it was properly launched by the two hours we spent at Chuck E. Cheese on Thursday evening for a birthday party. That is not an environment conducive to good health and clean living. Nuff said. Anyway, my sinuses are like blocks of cement, and I just want to crawl inside my cup of tea and drift off to sleep in the hot, steamy water. Tedious, but not life-threatening.

Connor's seizures are out of control again. They haven't really been under control for many months now, although they've waxed and waned. Right now they're waxing big time. I don't know if you're familiar with Connor's story, but his seizures are life-threatening. He's an amazing kid with a fragile body and an incredibly strong family to make up for it. If you have a moment, stop by Jess' blog and leave a word of support.

The news out of Japan just keeps getting worse and worse. Nuff said, because I don't know what else to say. Lives not only threatened, but thousands lost already.

Dear old Mrs. Leach

2011-03-09T06:07:00.000-08:00

Don't you hate it when your child is trying really hard to tell you something and you can't make out what it is? Ben's articulation is very good for his age, but he still makes all the usual consonant substitution errors, like /d/ for /th/ and /w/ for /l/ and /r/. He also has a tendency to mumble when he's self-conscious or unsure of himself -- something we all do to some extent.

Anyway, this morning while I was driving him to preschool, Ben made a long and solemn pronouncement. The engine was running, the heater was blasting, and of course I couldn't turn around to look at his lips, so I couldn't make head or tail of it. After many repetitions, I could tell that it was mostly a question, and it had the word "teach" in it. Was he asking about his teachers? No. Was he asking about what I'm going to teach today? No. I quizzed him left and right, and he kept repeating the sentence, to no avail. Something about "great teaching" and "forget". Finally he brightened and said, "I wemembuh -- it was Mrs. Weach."

Ahhhhhhh!!! This is what he had been saying: "Who was your fourth grade teacher? I forget." As soon as he answered his own question, it all made perfect sense to me.

A few days ago, we were talking about Ben's teachers, and for some reason I went off on naming all my elementary school teachers. Now, dear old Mrs. Leach was a sweet person, but she was hardly the best that the Rockbridge County Schools had to offer, and I did indicate, during our conversation a few days ago, then I did not look back on the two years I spent with her (4th and 6th grades) with great satisfaction. This obviously made quite an impression on Ben.

Dear old Mrs. Weach.

Sweetness and light

2011-02-27T18:17:00.000-08:00

I might have given the false impression that life with Ben is nothing but one battle after another these days. Well, he can be a little stinker sometimes, and I'd be worried if he weren't. But he's still one heck of a sweet and amazing kid. Tonight, while we were cuddling before bed without his equipment on, he laboriously worked his fingers into the "I love you" sign, thrust it up into my face and said, "Look, Mom, it's an I love you sign!"

Shortly before that, when Neil came in to say good night, Ben asked him if tomorrow is a school day. Neil signed yes. Ben then pretended to cough, pointed to his throat and said, "My throat's a little sore. I'm not feeling so well." Little stinker.

Tiger Mom (Episode 2)

2011-02-20T12:44:00.000-08:00

Okay, so this installment has more to do with the nuts and bolts of parenting a three year old. Not that I've mastered this art, by the way. But it is, understandably, a current preoccupation of mine, so I'll expound on some of what I've learned so far.

First, a quick poll: To spank, or not to spank? Speak up, and unless you assert that you routinely pummel your child with blunt objects just because it builds character, we'll try not to judge. I'll start: I have spanked Ben a couple of times. It's more along the lines of what my mother always referred to as a "love tap" -- and with only a little bit of irony. In other words, a swat on the butt that can be felt but is nowhere near hard enough to cause damage or actual pain. Of course, if it's just a glancing caress, then obviously it has no deterrent value whatsoever. The other crucial thing is that it shouldn't be how I vent my anger. That's not to say I'm not angry when I do it, but before I raise my hand, I should pause, reflect carefully on what I'm planning to do and how, calculate how to do it so that it's a formative and instructive experience for my child, and only then go forward with the spank itself. It needs to have that element of emotional detachment, reflection, and calculation. If it's to be done at all, it's because I truly believe that it's in Ben's best interest, rather than because I'm so steaming mad that I just have to take a whack at something. Another important lesson I'm teaching him at this stage is that while anger is a natural and healthy emotion, it's never okay to take out our anger on people or things. Hitting him out of anger is wrong for so many reasons, not least because it would teach him a contrary message about anger management.

I sound like an old hand at it, but honestly, I've only done it twice. And I wasn't too thrilled about it either time. I think it's best to avoid it if at all possible, but if there's a circumstance where it seems like it will advance the cause better than anything else, then it can be done in a non-abusive way. And I gotta say, it was remarkably effective at adding some real teeth to my other, preferred form of behavior management.

That being the handy "Do I need to get angry?" line. So let's talk about anger for a moment. I have a friend who is an excellent parent of a six year old, and I have turned to her for parenting advice on a couple of occasions. This friend is a very mellow, warm, positive person. She told me that when she was growing up, she saw almost no anger in her household (I gather that her parents did all they could to shield her from it), and so it was quite a shock when she started encountering it on the outside, and it took her a long time to figure out how to process her own anger, especially after she became an adult. So one of the things I've incorporated into my parenting is an authentic (but age-appropriate) display of healthy emotions.

One of the main jobs of a three year old is to push his parents' buttons. Seriously -- it's an important developmental phase, where the child establishes a sense of identity separate from that of his parents. Remember that a newborn doesn't understand that other people exist, and even after he figures this out, those people are just blobs, like the crib and the light fixture, except that one of them has tasty boobs; there's no understanding that they are beings that are both similar to and yet separate from him. That is a lesson that is a long time coming, and it's an essential precursor to developing empathy, sympathy, and a whole host of other social skills. My point is that preschoolers really know how to make us angry, and this is not, on the whole, a bad thing.

Which is fine, but at the same time, we have a responsibility to curb bad behavior and reinforce good behavior, and therein lies the mystery. How?!? Your child is using everything in his procrastinatory arsenal to avoid putting his pajamas on -- not because he really has any objection to wearing pajamas, but because he knows that you want the pajamas on and, therefore, he doesn't. His arsenal includes such tactics as whining, fussing, throwing himself on the floor, insisting that he wants the other parent to do it, insisting that he wants to do it himself, insisting that he needs help, insisting that he wants to do it in the other room, insisting that he needs to go potty, discovering an urgent need to put all of his stuffed animals into a new configuration, developing an intense interest in counting things on the dresser, etc. And you're getting angry. Something that should take thirty seconds is stretching out to five minutes, and there's no end in sight. You gotta do something, but what, how, and when? Do you come down hard at the first sign of trouble? Do you pretend to be unimpressed and unprovoked, so as to take the wind out of his sails? Do you invoke some system of rewards and punishments, and if so, how did you establish that in the first place?

As rookie parents, we muddle along as best we can, learn from our mistakes, and hope that gradually some method emerges from the madness. So far, the thing that seems to work best for me is, "Do I need to get angry?" If he's not too committed to the infraction, he'll say no immediately and the problem behavior ceases. Otherwise, I let the anger start to ramp up, and I keep him informed as to its progression: "Ben, do you see my face? I'm getting angry here. Can you hear that I'm raising my voice now?" And almost always there's a point where he recognizes that he's pushed me too far, and he's willing to cease and desist. But there were those two occasions where we never seemed to find this point. Since I can't simply ramp up the anger forever without some sort of destination in sight, I warned him that he was headed for a spanking. I explained what a spanking was. The first time, this actually piqued his curiosity, and, well, I satisfied his curiosity. The second time, he remembered that it was something that he really didn't like, and it was almost an effective deterrent, but he soldiered on -- with the inevitable result. (You certainly can't make a threat like that without following through on it.) I'm hoping that we've now learned that we don't want to go all the way down that road, but I wouldn't be surprised if we have to relearn this lesson a few more times.

This post is far too long already, so I'll seek a little closure here and take up the thread again later. Two key things about using your anger as a behavior modification tool are that it can't come out of nowhere, and it has to be connected to the bad behavior. You can't just play Nice Mommy until that moment where you snap and suddenly become Mean Mommy; the child has to see you ramp it up gradually, and know where it's going. After the moment has passed, I'll usually have a debriefing with Ben: "I didn't like yelling at you, but I was feeling very angry because you were doing X and you weren't listening to me." Also, what does this have to do with Tiger Mothering? Not much -- except that I wanted to explain some of my thoughts about basic behavior management and how to handle noncompliance, before I talk about some of my hopes for the future and what (if anything) I plan on doing if I meet a little resistance along the way. Look for Episode 3, in theaters soon.

One last thing. Imagine the whole scene with the pajamas, and throw in the fact that your child is deaf and (under the circumstances) very pleased with himself about that. My signing is improving, but I'm not yet at the point where I can sign, "Get the freakin' pajamas on before I blow." We haven't sussed this one yet. We're getting much more capable and confident with discipline during the day, but when the equipment comes off, it's a whole new ballgame.

The Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother (Episode 1)

2011-02-15T18:50:00.000-08:00

Some of you might recognize that as the title of the controversial new book by Amy Chua. An excerpt was printed in the Wall Street Journal, everyone threw a hissy fit, and Chua herself received death threats, even after her older daughter published an open letter in the New York Post defending her mother.

Why? Well, the way the book has been hyped, it's an exaltation of Chinese parenting in contrast to western parenting, and full of horrifying stories of how Chua threatened to give her daughters' toys away if they didn't practice their instruments (piano and violin) for six hours a day, or how she would demean and insult them into bending to her iron will.

Except that it's not. It's actually a really good book, and I highly recommend it. I read the WSJ excerpt and was intrigued; reading between the rather sensational lines, I could see some glimmers of wisdom, and a lot of it resonated with me and reminded me of aspects of my own upbringing. Also, it goes right to the heart of some parenting issues that I've been grappling with for the last few months (more on that in Episode 2). I'm certainly not going to adopt Chua's parenting model lock stock and barrel, but reading about her experiences gives me renewed confidence to adhere to some values that my parents instilled in me, but I wasn't sure how to instill in (impose on?) Ben.

A few words of warning before you read the book. First, you have to get on board with Chua's self-deprecating style of humor. The book is hilarious; I find myself laughing out loud on just about every page. Even if it's not obvious at first, almost all of the jokes are at her own expense, as she looks back with irony at how her approach to mothering has evolved over the years. Second, the story really is about that evolution, and how she is trying to stay true to her core parenting values while adapting to the reality of her daughters' radically different personalities. Third, this is extreme parenting, folks (at least from a western point of view); feel free to take it down a few notches if you want to try implementing aspects of it yourself. For example, if you feel that six hours of piano practice is a little much, scale it back to five. After all, the kid is only three. (Just kidding. Ben is three, and I don't make him practice more than two hours a day.) (Just kidding.)

My parents started me on violin lessons when I was four. A four or five year old doesn't typically make astounding progress in a hurry. You're basically in grind and squawk mode for a few years. However, I believe it lays the groundwork for the kind of discipline and musicality required for later success, and I am eternally grateful to my parents for providing me with this opportunity. When I was about seven, I decided that I was done with the violin. I didn't enjoy it anymore, and practicing was a time-consuming chore. I'd given it a fair try. Sounds very reasonable, no? Reasonable parents would have agreed with me, and let me give it up and devote the time to something more enjoyable. My parents were not reasonable, and they absoutely refused to let me quit. I recall some rather unpleasant discussions of the matter. To make a long story short, within a few years I was back in love with the violin, and being able to play it well has enriched my life ever since. (In the interest of full disclosure, they did let me give up the flute, but only because something had to give and we all decided I should devote more time to the violin.)

Not only that, but I wasn't allowed to watch any TV until all my homework was done and I'd practiced the violin for an hour. And even then, it was only a little TV, under parental supervision. Yeah, I balked occasionally at this sort of thing, because it was more restrictive than in my friends' households (although less restrictive than Chua's), but even at the time I appreciated the value of it. Oh, and my parents insisted that I get straight A's, too. Being bright didn't get me off the hook; if I was capable of it, then I'd darn well better do it, and no whining about being "bored" or under-challenged. And if I had a lousy teacher, that was no excuse either -- it was still my job to learn the stuff and perform well. (In the interest of full disclosure, I didn't always get straight A's. And man, did I hear about it when I didn't.)

My point is that some of the most important things that my parents did when raising me are basically Tiger Mother things. Some of the key lessons they taught me, such as the value of hard work and delayed gratification, are Tiger Mother lessons. They unapologetically accepted some of the principles that Chua puts forth, such as the fact that children do not always know what's best for them, and that parents have the responsibility to override their children's short term whims and impulses in favor of their long term interests. That doesn't mean you say no all the time, or that you should squelch their budding individuality and sense of autonomy. But saying no under the right circumstances (and in the right way -- that's the part I'm still figuring out) can be the most loving thing you can do for your child. I'm not talking about easy stuff, like, "No, you can't run out into the road, even though you really want to." I'm talking about hard stuff, like, "I know this is the first school dance that you've actually been invited to by a real boy, and you've been looking forward to it for a month, and you and your mother bought a gorgeous red dress and your date is picking you up at seven, but I'm looking at this report card that you brought home today and I just don't see it happening." (Just speaking hypothetically here. Not.) (Okay, so I was bitter about that one for awhile, but I'm totally over it, and that was one pretty impressive piece of parenting, I gotta say, in retrospect.)

Ben's joke and song

2011-02-14T14:10:00.000-08:00

Ben's joke: How many gorillas does it take to change a light bulb? One, but it takes a lot of light bulbs. (He learned this from the most recent Prairie Home Companion joke show.)

Ben's song: "Mommies and daddies, daddies and mommies, every son's mommy, every daughter's daddy." (This is sung to part of the melody from the song "Sisters and Brothers," on the Free to Be album. The original lyric is "Sisters and brothers, brothers and sisters, every father's daughter, every mother's son," so Ben's version is actually a pretty clever play on that. There's another song on the same album called "Parents are People," which features frequent mention of Mommies and Daddies, so I'm sure that played an inspirational role.)

Happy Valentine's Day, everyone!

Deaf for awhile

2011-02-07T14:12:00.000-08:00

After I got Ben up from his "nap"* yesterday, I asked him (in sign language) whether he wanted his hearing aid and CI. He said, "No, not yet. I will be deaf for awhile."

So we hung out in his room and played, I signed and he spoke, and he had a merry time being deaf for awhile. Then he asked for his equipment. I put it on and he went back to being hearing.

I thought this was really nice. He has a choice of two ways of being in the world. It's clear that most of the time, he prefers to be hearing. But I feel good about the fact that he's not opposed to being deaf, or frightened by it, and in fact sometimes it suits his mood. Mind you, he won't always get to choose -- he doesn't get to take off his equipment in the middle of 4th grade Social Studies just because he isn't interested in hearing how a bill becomes law. (Some of us might like to have that option, but I'm not going to let him exercise it.)

Maybe I've just succumbed to criticism from the Deaf community that in deciding to give my child access to sound and to raise him orally, I'm operating on the premise that deafness is shameful and intrinsically bad, and I'm instilling that sense of shame in him. (I'm not doing either, by the way.) Could be -- I'm very sensitive to criticism. Even if that's the case, maybe it's a good thing, if it makes me more thoughtful about my own attitude toward Ben's deafness and how it shapes his developing awareness of it. Whatever. Seems like he's on a pretty healthy track right now.

*Yeah, he's just about given up naps -- mostly. We still insist on a period of Quiet Time, as they do at daycare, where we take off his equipment and he lies quietly in bed, and every now and then he'll surprise us by falling asleep. But we can never count on it. Sigh.

B-B-B-Big Boy Bed!

2011-02-05T19:16:00.000-08:00

Ben's current favorite video is an old VHS tape (another hand-me-down from my now college-age niece) from a series called "Geo Kids," put out by National Geographic in the early nineties. Among its musical features are such natural history hits as "Kook Kook Kooky Kookaburra" and "Animal Doo-Wop". The latter is great for phonological awareness, with lyrics like "P-panda, F-f-f-fish, T-t-turtle, L-l-l-lizard." Ben loves this. He has started adapting the technique for lyrics from other songs ("Sh-sh-sh-she w-w-woves you, y-y-yeah, y-y-y-yeah, y-y-yeah!" and "W-w-w-wocky M-m-m-mountain High, C-c-c-colorado"). And another thing: He's been on a huge John Denver kick recently. In fact, he insists (seriously, insists) that we call him John Denver. This caused a little confusion at daycare the other day. It all started shortly before Christmas when he became addicted to a CD of the John Denver Muppets Christmas special. One youtube video led to another, and now he's singing "Rocky Mountain High" in the bathtub. His tastes are eclectic, to say the least.

We finally made the transition to the Big Boy Bed last night (after Neil spent most of Friday assembling the blasted thing), and all went well. After he got home, we told him there was a big surprise waiting in his bedroom. He had pretty much figured it out by the time he was halfway up the stairs (we'd been showing him pictures of it and talking about it all week, while waiting for it to arrive), and he was one giant ear-to-ear grin when he saw it in person.

After some thought, he rearranged all of the trimmings in a configuration more to his liking.

Tonight's Bennyism

2011-02-01T19:57:00.001-08:00

"Ooops -- I have two weak parents."

There was actually a context for this, but it's too complicated to explain. I figure it stands alone.

Bimodal basketball player

2011-01-29T18:31:00.000-08:00

My Aunt Kathy sent me this article about a deaf college basetball player who wears a hearing aid and CI. Really interesting -- touches on the whole Deaf/oral debate, his experiences when first implanted at age 14, and the way he copes with stadium noise. Enjoy!

Last night's Bennyism

2011-01-27T08:22:00.000-08:00

Neil: Philosophy is about everything.
Ben: It's not about everything. It's about some things.

There was another really funny one from this morning, but it's too anatomically explicit to post here.

Coming to grips with it all

2011-01-24T12:17:00.000-08:00

As Ben's parents, we probably made peace with his deafness and all the equipment a lot sooner and more completely than anybody else -- friends, family. As close, supportive, and involved as they have been, we're the ones who were there for the hearing tests and were told, "He's deaf.*" We're the ones who researched the technology and the devices, sent him off to surgery, enjoyed the thrills and spills of activation and therapy and watching him reach all the milestones. We're the ones who clean and store the equipment every night, and who maintain that constant vigilance -- did the headpiece come off? Is something not working? Is there too much static here? And we're the ones who live with that sword of Damocles hanging over our heads, the specter of infection or device failure, and the need for more surgery. Because we're immersed in that world, it long ago became our reality, our New Normal. For everyone else, I think there's still just that tiny element of surprise and unease.

On the other hand, as his parents, we'll probably never make peace completely with it. Every now and then, after months of New Normal, it'll suddenly hit me all over again like a lightning bolt: I had a deaf child. How did that happen? My child has a very serious disability. One of his five senses is dysfunctional, nonfunctional, and it's only with significant technological intervention that we can recover some measure of that sense. It's okay; we're cool with it; he's doing really well. But ... wow. And then I realize that there was a little piece of it that I still hadn't come to grips with. I guess it's something we'll just have to approach asymptotically.

*The clinicians don't say "deaf," of course. They say "hearing impaired." As in, "Your child has severe sloping to profound bilateral sensorineural hearing loss." I just say "deaf." I like it better.

Some more....

2011-01-23T12:18:00.000-08:00

1. While noodling away all over the piano keyboard: "This is a John Lennon song, but I'm changing the words a little bit."
2. "I want to go back to Cape Cod. It's a good place. It isn't not good. It has good show quality."

We're still trying to figure out what he means by "show quality". Neil quizzed him on it pretty closely, but it's still a mystery. But we love the double negative. This kid has no problem with abstraction and formal structure; he's gonna love studying grammar in school. (I did. No, seriously, I really did. Diagramming sentences was my idea of a good time.)

Coupla Bennyisms

2011-01-22T19:12:00.000-08:00

Three posts in one day?!? It's either feast or famine here, folks. Both of these are from today:
1. While playing with a Jacob's ladder: "Jacob left this here. I don't know why he did that. But he left it here for us to share."
2. Ben: "Curious George and a boy are riding in a balloon." Neil: "Are you the boy?" Ben: "No! I'm real, and the boy is made up." [Silly Daddy!]

Another video....

2011-01-22T18:57:00.000-08:00

This is one of my favorites. My niece Megan shot this on Christmas morning and then edited it together into a really nice little video. I added captions for the dialog relating to Ben, but made no attempt to capture all the other banter and the noise of unwrapping presents. (If you follow my father's comments about getting a first class male, you'll get some appreciation for the kind of environment in which I grew up -- and it didn't warp me at all; I'm perfectly normal.) Now, how many of you know what "Mississippi hot dog" refers to?

"Special Cousin Anna" is one of Megan's close friends, and a couple of years ago she spent Christmas with us. Since Ben was just learning relational terms like "cousin," we gave Anna that honorary title so that Ben could fit her into the framework.

Sledding with the gang

2011-01-22T13:21:00.000-08:00

Here's a great video from a couple of weeks ago. We met up with some friends to go sledding on 3 Man Hill on our local college campus. This was after we had already spent the morning at Jackson's house making bird treats. They have a wonderful tradition of putting their Christmas tree up in the backyard, after they're done with it for the holidays, and hanging bird treats all over it. The boys had a lot of fun spreading peanut butter on graham crackers and then dipping the works in birdseed.

So anyway, after that we headed out for some sledding. Featured are Jackson and his moms Rachel and Susie, Etta and Desmond and their dad Todd, and of course the three of us. I captioned a lot of it, but there's some background chatter that I didn't try to get. Enjoy!

Gettin' back into the rhythm

2011-01-20T14:54:00.000-08:00

Yes, we still exist. (My father would immediately question whether we're unique. He's a math geek, too.) And it's not like I haven't had time to blog. Okay, I've been busy (I'm always busy, and so are you), and I've been sick, but still time isn't the issue. I've had some pockets of time here and there to blog. I just ... haven't felt like it. No offence. I love this blog world and all the people I've met -- it's become an important part of my life. I guess I just needed a little break.

But I'm back, baby! Prepare yourself for some seriously cool blogging action. Yeah, pictures, videos, amusing anecdotes, and more than your fill of Bennyisms. We think he's had a bit of a growth spurt recently -- physically, cognitively, and emotionally. He just seems to be looking at the world in a whole new way, and processing it differently. Neil spent a week in Utah skiing with his brother, and during that time I got to test my solo three-year-old parenting skills -- and I must say that we did very well. That right there could be a blog post. I'm not lacking for material here.

Well, okay, so I can't promise you the most thrilling blog in the sphere on a daily basis. But I do promise to check in more regularly. In fact, I vow to have an actual post (with content and everything, as opposed to this sort of semi-apologetic rambling) by Saturday at the latest. See ya soon!

Merry Christmas

2010-12-24T20:55:00.000-08:00

It's Christmas Eve. The Boy is asleep. The tree is dripping with ornaments and the bottom half is buried beneath far more presents than can possibly be good for any of us. My parents have gone to bed, and Neil and I are enjoying a few minutes of quiet reading before heading toward bed ourselves. It's very peaceful here. I wish it were this peaceful, safe, and sweet everywhere in the world.

Early morning Bennyism

2010-12-15T06:00:00.000-08:00

When Neil went in to get Ben up this morning, Ben's first words were: "Peter Paul and Mary walked into a bar. 'Ouch!' they said."

So, you think he's ready for his own HBO comedy special?

Couple recent Bennyisms

2010-12-13T07:33:00.000-08:00

1. There's a book of Beatles songs sitting on the music stand of the piano. (Don't tell me this surprises you.) Ben points to the piano and says, "Let's play some Beatles." We sit side-by-side on the bench, and Ben doodles away on the keys. He pauses and says, "This is an old-fashioned song called 'It's All Too Much'."

2. "Yellow Submarine needs to be watched by someone." [It's good to know he's developing a volunteer spirit already.] [His ploy didn't work, by the way.]

First Night of Chanukah, 2010

2010-12-12T19:51:00.000-08:00

Okay, Chanukah's been over for awhile, but I didn't get a chance to add captions until now. Enjoy!

Awwwwwwww...

2010-11-21T19:14:00.000-08:00

Me: Would you like for me to put a CD in?
Ben: Yes, music helps me feel warm.

[That's my boy....]

Last night's bathtime monologue

2010-11-08T06:38:00.000-08:00

"It's not ours, but there's a baby inside my tummy. When it comes out, we'll have to do everything the baby wants. We should be really quiet when the baby wants to talk. It isn't ours, but there's a baby inside my tummy. That's why it's so squishy and hard. My tummy is like a house for the baby."

We have a couple of friends who are pregnant, and Ben is well versed in the age-appropriate explanation that we concocted for him. I have no idea how the "it isn't ours" element crept in. The house analogy is entirely his own invention, as are the strictures on the deference that should be paid to the baby. Neil and I were just about rolling on the floor during this speech.

In other three-year-old parenting news, we're finding good ways and renewed confidence for handling the non-compliance issues that I blogged about recently. We do tend to couch things in terms of choices and consequences, but we're increasingly comfortable with taking a firm line that basically represents a "because we're the parents" attitude. An example: "Nope, we're gonna put the pants on now. Yes, I understand that you don't want to. You've made that very clear. But we're gonna put them on now. You can choose to make this quick and easy, or you can choose to fuss and thrash, and that will make it more difficult for both of us, but it doesn't change the fact that we're putting pants on now. Okay, good choice -- one leg in...."

Also, we have fairly successfully weaned off the pacifier. As a baby, Ben was Not A Good Sleeper, and we found that the pacifier (or "ba-ba" as he calls it) was pretty much essential. Somewhere around twelve months, we reduced ba-ba usage to sleep time only, and we've felt for awhile now that the time was upon us to pull the plug altogether. We had enough travel over the summer and big transitions for the fall that we put it off until last week, but we finally braced ourselves for the inevitable. After consulting with friends, we devised a plan (which involved a lot of preparation, talk therapy, and one instance of massive bribery), and we carried it out. We were prepared for several nights of non-sleep, but in fact he has been sleeping at night perfectly, even better than before (because he no longer cries out when he loses his ba-ba at night); we are flabbergasted by how easy that was. Nap time has been a different story. He has yet to take a nap since the Great Weaning. Seriously. It's been almost a week now. We're hoping that this is just a temporary transition rather than a permanent lifestyle change.

"My Deaf Family" pilot

2010-11-03T07:27:00.000-07:00

You gotta watch this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-Gc85nQK8w

It's a pilot for a new reality show about a family with two Deaf parents and a mix of Deaf and hearing children. It's great! I really hope it makes it to TV. I've never been into reality shows in the past, but I would definitely watch this one.

Last night's Bennyism

2010-10-25T11:16:00.000-07:00

"Hearing is fun. Not hearing is not fun."

And now he's really three!

2010-10-19T19:29:00.000-07:00

Happy Birthday, darling sweet wonderful Ben!!! The celebratory tone was slightly muted due to the fact that the Birthday Boy was sick. Yes, on his birthday. He started showing signs of an ear infection (his first ever, I'm glad to say) yesterday at daycare, and by early evening, he was a Very Unhappy Camper. Today we kept him home and took him to the pediatrician, who put him on antibiotics. By this evening, he was showing a bit of progress, and we're hopeful that might return to preschool on Thursday.

The upside was that he got to spend a lot more time with his visiting grandparents today than he otherwise would have -- as did I, since I had to spend at least part of the day at home with him. My parents have been in town for a couple of days, and Neil's arrived this evening. So Ben is surrounded by love, attention, cuddles, balloons, and (as of this evening) a riotous cacophony of presents and wrapping paper.

Ben, I can never get over the unbelievably great fortune of having you in my life.

P.S. Thanks for all the comments on my last post -- I'll have an update soon on How We're Coping.

Help! I have a 3 year old!

2010-10-11T19:35:00.000-07:00

Well, no, he's not three yet. Almost. But he's certainly gotten a jump start. Lots of parents have told me that "Terrible Twos" is a vicious lie; the threes are far worse. Now, when Ben turned two, he did take it up a notch in terms of testing limits and sometimes actively resisting us. But we figured out good ways to respond, and I was patting myself on the back for having survived the "Terrible Twos". Until a month or so ago. Oy, ve. Some days it feels like everything is a frickin' battle. His favorite word these days is "NO!", and if his mouth is full or he's too busy singing (which is often the case), he'll sign it just as vehemently. And while I am profoundly glad that he takes so much pleasure in music, it's also his defensive shield against anything he finds distasteful or anything that represents parental will. And you know, it's kinda hard to tell your deaf child whom you feared would never be able to enjoy music to stop singing for pete's sake and listen to you.

So what do the parenting experts say? Be consistent. Yeah, I get it -- don't make empty threats; if you say no, stick with it; don't give in to tantrums; etc. In other words, a long list of "don'ts". What I really need are some good "dos". Exactly what do you do when you've got to get out the door in ten minutes and your child refuses to let you brush his teeth or put his shoes on and throws a screaming fit when you even suggest that he needs to wear a jacket and also insists on singing the entire Peter Paul and Mary repertoire every time you try to explain the consequences of his poor decisions? Seriously, I'm asking. If any of you have any suggestions, I would love to hear them. Losing my temper and shouting doesn't work; trust me, I've tried that.

Well, it works for a short time. But it makes me feel pretty lousy (not to mention Ben), and it's not sustainable -- over time, we would need to get even more demonstrably angry with each new incident to have the same effect.

So far this is the best advice I've gotten, from several sources:
1. Give choices. A short list of concrete choices, enumerated on your fingers, including the final option of "Or do you want Mommy to choose for you?"
2. Explain the natural consequences of poor choices. "If you keep stalling, we won't have time to play before dinner. So you can choose to put your pants on now, or you can choose to wait a minute until you're ready, or you can choose to wait longer and not be able to play."
3. Don't be in such a rush. Either give up on getting out the door in ten minutes, or try to start the process a little earlier.
4. Take the drama out of it. Instead of responding with annoyance and anger, remain completely unimpressed by any demonstrations of violent three-ness. Register an expression of wan disinterest.

These are all great tips, and we've managed to implement all of them occasionally to good effect. But they're beastly hard to implement all the time. So I'd love to hear your advice. Please. Do I sound desperate?

The truth about tenure

2010-10-06T06:59:00.000-07:00

Okay, this may seem a little out of place on this blog, but I still think you should read it and share these ideas with others. I'm a huge believer in academic freedom and the value of an environment in which an open, honest, and intellectually rigorous exchange of ideas can take place. I have the outstanding privilege to spend my working hours in such an environment, and I fear that fewer and fewer people (including our kids) will have such an opportunity in the future. Please resist the anti-tenure propaganda, and talk to others about it.

Speech Therapy Report

2010-10-01T19:05:00.000-07:00

Ben has a new speech therapist who provides services at his preschool. Today we got the first of her weekly therapy reports. I have no intention of inflicting them on you every week, but I figured this first one might give you a sense of what she does. He gets pull-out/push-in speech for thirty minutes three times a week.

Ben's Goals:
1a. Benjamin will auditorily discriminate the target sound from an error sound 8 out of 10 trials.
1b. Benjamin will produce target phonemes in isolation with prompts with 80% accuracy.
1c. Benjamin will produce target phonemes in imitation of clinician in all positions of words with 75% accuracy.
2a. Benjamin will be taught through models and imitate self-advocacy strategies 4 out of 5 trials.
2b. Benjamin will use self-advocacy strategies to strengthen hearing accuracy in noisy environments 3 times in a 30 minute period with cues as necessary.
2c. Benjamin will use self-advocacy strategies to strengthen attention to questions, directions, and conversation in noisy environments 3 times in a 30 minute period with moderate cues.

9/28/10 @10:30: Today we pushed into shelf work. He was able to use such strategies as stopping what he was doing and listening to the teachers' directions. He benefited from me saying "Stop, look and listen." He's starting to become more comfortable with his classmates. Ben was interacting, asking questions while a few of us played store.

9/29/10 @8:30: Today I pushed into yoga. Ben was able to independently transition in between activities. He had no difficulty attending during circle while there was background noise (ex. teachers leaving the classroom, classmates talking).

10/01/10 @10:30: Today I took Ben out of the classroom to work on our /f/ sound. We had fun finding /f/ pictures and objects in my magic bag. He's doing a nice job at both imitating me with the /f/ sound in isolation and at the word level. He loved looking at the headphones that I brought in.

Got another Bennyism for you

2010-09-30T11:40:00.000-07:00

Ben decided this morning that he wanted butter rather than cream cheese on his bagel. This is not news -- he's been leaning toward butter lately. He wanted to "help" Neil apply said butter to said bagel, so he went and got his little plastic stool out of the bathroom and dragged it over to the kitchen counter. Again, not news -- he often does that when we're preparing meals. This is the cute part, where he announces, "I'm going to involve myself with the bagel, and I'm going to involve myself with the butter."

Today's Bennyism

2010-09-21T06:05:00.000-07:00

On the way out the door to preschool this morning:

Neil: "Say good-bye to Mommy."
Ben: "Bye Mommy! You stay here and take care of the kitty cat while I'm gone."

And another....

2010-09-16T07:54:00.000-07:00

This article was sent to me by a friend and colleague who is an anthropologist. She uses it in several of her courses. It's about efforts by some parents to select for certain conditions (that most people think of as disabilities, such as deafness and dwarfism) during pre-implantation genetic testing. I'm not sure what to think. How about you?

For your reading pleasure....

2010-09-16T06:18:00.000-07:00

The following two items appeared on other people's blogs yesterday, and they're fantastic -- you gotta read this stuff.

First, Jodi posted a link to this great article by Josh Swiller, a CI user who taught for awhile at Gallaudet, author of The Unheard: A Memoir of Deafness and Africa. We saw him speak at the CI convention in Sturbridge, MA, summer of 2009.

Second, Susannah put this up. Pithy, hilarious, validating -- a must-read:

The New Normal

2010-09-08T19:49:00.000-07:00

Well, we've started preschool! Ben started at his new daycare facility yesterday, but his IEP didn't start until today (first day of school in our district). We made a short visit to the preschool yesterday, just to suggest what his daily schedule is going to be like (the typical kids were there -- Jackson greeted him from afar with his usual enthusiastic "Benny boy!"), and then I took him to daycare, following the route that the "school bus" (minivan with multiple carseats) will take. All went well, except that I forgot to tell the daycare providers that he still sleeps with a pacifier (I know, I know -- we're going to wean him off that soon -- terrible for oral motor development), and they didn't see the pacifier in his pack and figure that out until it was too late -- long story short, Ben didn't sleep a wink. He was in fine spirits when I picked him up, but by the time we got out to the car the exhaustion kicked in, and he was a right terror for the rest of the afternoon and evening.

And this morning we went to preschool, just like a big kid, with our big kid backpack. We made it there by 8:30 (just barely -- still working out some kinks in the morning routine), and Ben was again greeted enthusiastically by Jackson and the teachers. Apparently he had a good morning there, despite the fire drill less than half an hour later (and I'm still fuming that they scheduled one on the very first day of school for all the special needs kids -- pretty insensitive; I will be sending a Concerned E-mail to the Appropriate Party). Bus ride was fine (he reports that the bus driver is a woman, and he called her the Bus Captain), hand-off to daycare providers was fine, and (most importantly) he napped! So all in all it was an excellent day. I am sooooo happy and relieved.

Good Benny quotes

2010-09-04T13:50:00.000-07:00

Ben's most recent joke: "What's a mudroom with no mud?" "I don't know." "A no-mud mudroom!"

Yesterday, we met with his afternoon daycare teachers for the last time before he starts there next week, to discuss his hearing equipment and let them practice taking it on and off. Before we went over there, Ben reminded us that we were going to go see Monique and "explain how I hear." The cool thing about that phrase is that he came up with it on his own; we're quite sure we haven't used it ourselves.

Great IEP resource!

2010-09-03T07:36:00.000-07:00

This was posted on cicircle. It has a bunch of "conversation stoppers" that might get thrown at you during an IEP meeting, discussion of the hidden meanings behind these, and suggestions for tactful, effective ways to respond.

Equipment Handout

2010-08-31T11:16:00.000-07:00

Here are links to the equipment handout I mentioned on cicircle, that many of you have asked about. If you have MS Word and want to open a .doc version of the file, go here. If you would rather open a .pdf version, go here.

I prepared this for the teachers at the preschool and new daycare where Ben will be starting next week. Feel free to use and modify it as you like.

Time of transition

2010-08-28T14:09:00.000-07:00

Our fall semester started last Monday, so summer vacation is officially over. Today we made what may be our last trip to the zoo this year. A disturbingly large portion of the local foliage is starting to turn color -- not because cool fall temperatures have set in, but rather because the summer was so hot and dry that many trees have just given up and packed it in for the season.

It seems like just yesterday we were at Cape Cod, with Ben announcing that he had been out "waking with Fwed" -- i.e. raking dead seaweed off the beach with Uncle Fred.

Ben has one more week of daycare with his current provider, and then he starts preschool. He'll be in preschool in the morning, until 11:15, and after that he will be bussed over to his new daycare facility on the other side of campus. So he'll have two new classrooms and two new sets of care providers to get used to at the same time. We've already toured both facilities once and met the teachers. We have follow-up visits scheduled for next week. The afternoon daycare teachers made a welcome book for him with pictures of the room, themselves, the playground, etc. I made a similar book for his morning preschool. He loved both classrooms, bonded a little with the teachers, and is (at current writing) very enthusiastic about the whole project. We're also excited about the programs and impressed by the classrooms, and simultaneously very nervous about how all of this is actually going to go down on game day. I'll let you know.

And because we just don't have enough change happening at once, we're also taking a stab at toilet training. Real toilet training. As in Big Boy Underpants, carrying the potty around from room to room, and a shocking amount of unabashed bribery. And it's working, much to our great surprise. We started on a Friday after daycare, and during the course of the evening he used the potty twice and had three accidents (puddles). By the end of the weekend, he'd added only one more puddle, and a lot more potty usages, prompting my mother-in-law to announce that it's the Pots vs. the Puds -- gooooo Pots! And I don't think we've had a single puddle since. Not that we've been in underpants nonstop all week -- we don't fight him too much when he'd rather wear a diaper, although we're often pretty successful at negotiating for a switch to underpants shortly thereafter, and of course we're not making any attempt at sleep-training yet. And I wouldn't be surprised if we see a little regression when we make the transition to preschool. Still, we're pleased.

Here's a rough transcript of a conversation I had with Ben on the swings earlier this week:
Ben: "I asked Miss Pamela [daycare provider] if she had any musical instruments."
Me: "Did she?"
Ben: "Yes, she has a saxophone. Because J--- [Pamela's son] is going to play it."
Me: "Oh, and doesn't J------ [Pamela's other son] play the guitar?" [He does, BTW.]
Ben: "No, Miss Pamela played the guitar. And E-- played the drums and B----- played the bongos." [E and B are fellow daycare toddlers.]

See, he started off with what was probably a factual account of a conversation he'd had at daycare, and it morphed into a description of a fantasy concert featuring the whole daycare cast, inspired by one of his favorite books (Moses Goes to a Concert, by Isaac Millman, in which Moses' classmates get to play sundry percussion instruments such as bongos and tubular bells). You gotta love that toddler outlook in which fact and fiction blend so seamlessly.

At the zoo this morning, we encountered a family with two school-age children, both wearing cochlear implants. I was torn over whether to intrude, but I worked up the courage to approach the mother and point out that Ben has a CI, too, and we had a nice little chat about it. Afterward, I was kicking myself for talking with the mother about her children, in the third person, right in front of them. So why didn't I address the kids instead? Something like, "I see you have a CI. That's terrific! My son has one, too!" But nope, I make a beeline for the adult. Well, live and learn -- next time I'll handle it better.

Some pics...

2010-08-10T20:01:00.000-07:00

Here are a few pictures from the Wilson family reunion in Ohio at the end of July. The first two are from a short hike that we took, very characteristic of Ben and my father.

Then there's a shot of Ben with Madeline and Alicia, and the famous "Claws" pic of Neil with Madeline and my niece Megan. I honestly don't know what was going on there, and I'm probably better off that way.

Some video....

2010-08-10T19:40:00.000-07:00

Here are a couple of great videos of Ben. The first one is older, from late June. There's a little subterfuge at the beginning; Ben tends to clam up when he knows we have the video camera rolling, so Neil quietly turned it on without telling him, and then disavowed all knowledge of this later, leading to some confusion on Ben's part as to when the movie actually starts.

The second one was taken by my cousin Madeline during our recent family reunion in Ohio. She and her sister Alicia taught Ben this little song. Another highlight of the trip was when Alicia played Beatles songs on her guitar by the campfire, and Ben sang along.

A lot of calendars

2010-07-29T07:13:00.000-07:00

Well, three, to be exact. Sorry I've been away so long -- I've been faithfully following everyone else's blogs, but I just haven't had the time/discipline to sit down and post here. Here are April, May, and June calendars. We're just about to pack up and head to a family reunion in Ohio, so I don't have time right now to add any commentary -- I might get a chance over the weekend. But in the meantime, here's some of what Ben has been up to over the last few months.

Fascinating idea....

2010-07-28T09:15:00.000-07:00

Check this out: http://babieswithipads.blogspot.com/

It's a blog writen by an educator of special needs children, documenting how she uses iPads with them.

Much more blogging to come -- I've been very delinquent lately.

Some Cape Cod pics

2010-07-06T19:32:00.000-07:00

Two quick Benny Quotes

2010-07-04T13:27:00.000-07:00

Yesterday evening: "I think that today is a special day where everybody doesn't listen to their mothers and fathers."
This afternoon: Neil: "Would you like to swim in your kiddy pool after your nap?" Ben: "Yes!" A short while later... Ben: "After my nap, I think I will be a cat." Neil: "Why?" Ben: "Because I will swim in my kitty pool."

What a difference a week makes...

2010-06-28T11:46:00.000-07:00

I am sooo behind on blogging -- much to report on, and almost three months' worth of calendars to put up -- but here's a little something to tide us over. (Call it a "splash and dash" -- an unfortunately dated reference to Formula One racing, now that they no longer allow refueling.)

Our week in Cape Cod was blissful. The weather was perfect, Ben adapted beautifully to the surroundings and the new experiences, and we all had a great time. I even acquired a modest tan, which those who have seen me will realize is a significant accomplishment -- pigmentation is not my forte. Ben takes after his father in that regard, and within a couple of days he was sporting a tan line at the top of his swim trunks that the Coppertone baby would envy. And this despite the fact that we kept him (and ourselves) positively dripping with very strong sunscreen the entire time. We maintained the policy of taking all hearing equipment off when Ben actually went in the water, and this went so much better than I feared (and much better than our few experiences last summer). We always talked to him ahead of time about what we were going to do, what it would be like, what our expectations were, and reminded him of a few key signs. And he was cool with it. He responded well to our attempts to sign with him, and that was a lot more effective than I would have predicted. (I'm increasingly convinced that we're taking exactly the right approach with him -- he's entirely oral, and he talks nonstop even when his equipment is off, but we're also teaching him ASL on the side, and there have been many occasions where that has turned out to be very useful.)

And this morning we had our CPSE meeting. It sounds so simple when I say it like that, but man, what an ordeal. It actually went very smoothly and ultimately we got everything that we wanted, but I'm glad that we put so much time in advance into preparing for it. There is a lot of variation in how the IDEA is enforced. Some districts take the approach that if a child has a qualifying disability, he is automatically entitled to an IEP. Not ours. (In their defence, the IDEA does specifically say that a child must have both a qualifying disability and a demonstrable need for special education.) Our special ed director usually requires that a child be two standard deviations below grade level (or 1.5 standard deviations in two areas), and she made it clear that she had never before considered a child for special ed who tested as high as Ben does. She described it as a very unusual case, and she wanted a rationale from several parties as to why he was entitled. But a good rationale was duly produced, and after a little agonizing, it was agreed that he would get an IEP and that he would be placed in the Youngerman Clinic integrated preschool as an identified child, with continuing SLP services -- exactly what we wanted. (The fact that his best bud Jackson will also be in that preschool as a typical child had, of course, no bearing on the desirability of the placement!)

So, whooosh -- strike another major item off my summer To-Do list!!! (Only 50,000 more to go....)

Back online, and hangin' on the beach

2010-06-20T12:10:00.000-07:00

Ben has had full sound since Tuesday afternoon. We used the loaner processor from then until Thursday, when we exchanged that for his new one (under warranty). He has been a much happier camper ever since. On Friday we drove to Neil's parents' house in the Catskills, and then on Saturday we all drove out here to Cape Cod, where we're renting a beautiful house right on the beach for a week. Ben was at first a little skittish about the feel of sand inside his shoes, the cold water, the wind, but he quickly got used to the elements and has been having a blast.

It is an indication of my in-laws' deep trust in me that they have left me alone in the house (except for a napping Ben), seemingly without any concern that I'm going to rescue the lobsters from the fridge and release them back into the ocean. I'm a vegetarian, but I guess I'm not a very militant one. Sorry, lobsters; your fate is sealed. I think I'll stick with salad, though.

Still in a holding pattern

2010-06-15T11:52:00.000-07:00

Well, the new headpiece came right around lunch time. We took it over to Ben's daycare and tried it ... and no good. Didn't fix the problem. Even though we had explained to him that it might not work, he was still very disappointed. (And us bursting in on him at daycare, and then leaving again, was a very confusing disruption -- the tears were starting to well up as we left. It's been a difficult day.) Neil just took off a few minutes ago to take the processor up to Buffalo. Our audiologist is currently loading Ben's programs onto their loaner processor, so at least Neil will walk away with a working processor that we can use. When she gets a chance, she'll try to determine whether it was just the maps or the whole processor that got zapped.

I think it must have been the plastic slide. We went to a party at a friend's house Saturday evening, and Ben went down a plastic slide about a dozen times or more. And in general, plastic slides are a source of anxiety for CI parents, because of the static discharge. A generation ago, it was not unheard of for a big static discharge to damage the internal implant, requiring surgery. These days the internal implant is very well protected from static, and I don't think anyone's lost an implant due to static since the 90's. Every now and then a really big discharge will wipe out the program the child is currently using (which is not too big a deal -- you can switch to another program and use that until you can get to the audiologist), and I did read on cicircle about a processor getting fried on a slide earlier this spring. But given the relatively low level of risk, most parents decide to let the kid ride the slides, although it's a good idea to ground him when he gets to the bottom. We always do that, and sometimes there's a pretty significant shock -- those slides really do build up a lot of static.

But this past Saturday, it was very humid, and I wasn't detecting any static build-up at all. (Usually you can feel your arm hairs rise as you get close to the plastic.) And I was still ritualistically tapping him out (almost) every time he went down -- I might have let it slide (no pun intended) a couple of times. So it's a little hard to believe that that's really the cause of the problem. On the other hand, it was shortly afterward that we detected it. Coincidence? Static? Sweat corrosion? (That might have explained a faulty headpiece, because he was certainly drenched by the end of the day, but his processor was well-protected and dry inside the harness under his shirt.) Hard to say.

Anyway, I hope we have a working system by the end of the afternoon.

Not a particularly good day....

2010-06-13T20:09:00.000-07:00

We're having CI Issues. Not too major, and hopefully they'll be resolved soon, but it's still stressful and a hassle. The short version is that it looks like there's a problem with his headpiece (or "coil", for you Cochlear users out there), although the diagnosis is not conclusive. The good folks at Advanced Bionics are going to call again in the morning to see if there is any news on the symptoms, and then probably just send us a new headpiece by overnight mail.

One consequence is that the poor guy had to spend the morning without his CI. He does very well with just the hearing aid, and it was amazing and encouraging to see much he could hear and understand. But it was clearly disorienting for him, and he kept fussing, "I want my headpiece! I want my headpiece now!" After said headpiece spent a few hours in the Dry&Store, we tried it again to see if that fixed the problem, but alas, it did not. However, Ben reported that everything sounded fine to him, and so we went ahead and let him wear it for the rest of the day. It wasn't clear how well he was actually hearing with it, and in any event the indicator light was still flashing red all day, so there's something wrong. I'll share the ending of this story once I know it myself.

Speech and Language Assessment

2010-06-09T15:00:00.000-07:00

Ben just had a formal speech and language assessment, as preparation for determining special education eligibility. Wow. The SLP who administered it is not Ben's speech therapist, and in fact she had never met him before. In both receptive and expressive language, he was testing at the 4.5 year age range, and at that point she would stop testing him and move on to the next category so that he wouldn't fatigue too early. She also assessed his articulation, and noted the same fronting and consonant substitution errors that his regular speech therapist has been working on with him, but also that he was highly intelligible. Despite all of the very long, exhausting tests, Ben stayed focussed and even had a lot of fun with it. Whatta guy.

At one point, the SLP pointed to a hand-drawn picture of a baby and asked, "What is this, Ben?" Ben studied it for a long time, and I was beginning to think that he didn't understand what he was supposed to do. And then he responded, his voice heavy with doubt, "Well, it's supposed to be a baby." Everyone's a critic!

I'm looking forward to reading the report, which she'll send us in a week or so.

Tips for improving Auditory Working Memory

2010-06-09T08:14:00.000-07:00

Rouchi had a link to this post, which has tons of fantastic tips for improving auditory working memory (AWM). A lot of it comes down to what educators commonly call "chunking," i.e. breaking complex ideas or tasks into small pieces that are more easily processed and remembered (like the way we customarily break SS numbers into three small chunks). You can help a child improve AWM by gradually increasing the number, length, and complexity of the chunks.

Gonna Rock Down to Spadina Avenue

2010-05-26T19:45:00.000-07:00

We just (well, two days ago) got back from a quick jaunt to Toronto to celebrate our seventh wedding anniversary. In our pre-Ben days, Neil and I were in the habit of taking a little trip each year for our anniversary, but we took a little hiatus from that in Ben's early years. This year we decided to take it up again, and we all had a great time. We drove up after lunch on Saturday, got checked into the hotel in the late afternoon, and then hung out for a little before heading out for a nice Indian meal. We spent much of Sunday down at Harborfront Center (sorry -- "Harbourfront Centre") enjoying a kid-oriented circus festival. After nap, we took a very nice walk along College Street, meandering in and out of the U Toronto campus, and we ended up in Little Italy for dinner. On Monday morning we went to the Royal Ontario Museum, which was great. Ben was all primed to see dinosaurs, although he seemed a little disappointed that they only had skeletons on display, sans flesh, very unlike the colorful and talkative dinosaurs on Dinosaur Train. He really enjoyed the display of minerals and rocks, and we got him some more rocks for his rock collection in the gift store. He also had a great time "digging" for dinosaur bones using a wide paintbrush in a sandbox. His Aunt Kathy will be proud.

The only serious trauma was trying to change his diaper in the restroom at the ROM. He's had this thing for a few months now where he just freaks out when we change his diaper in a public restroom. As soon as I try to lay him down, he siezes up with fear, red and shaking, and screams his lungs out. It doesn't seem to be a behavior problem, or an attempt at manipulation; it's genuine terror. And it's terribly inconvenient and embarrassing. I'm usually able to distract and calm him with a story or song, but this time nothing worked. As far as we can tell, he's afraid he's going to fall off -- never mind the fact that at home, on his own changing pad, he rolls and flips around like a fearless acrobat, so that we have to stay within arm's reach the entire time. Anyway, there he was, beet-red and screaming bloody murder, and we're about to leave and get in the car and drive four hours home, so it's now or never for the diaper. I tried everything -- distraction, talk-therapy, bribery, you name it -- and it was no go. So I finally just plowed ahead, changed the darned thing, and tried to ignore all the people staring at me as if I were either a monster or the most incompetent parent they'd ever seen. Oh, well -- can't win 'em all.