Penelope has been speaking full sentences for ages now.
Parker is just now getting the concept of 'up' and 'down'. He's also picking up 'off' and 'on'. He associates seeing an airplane with a song that I sing when we see airplanes. He started signing, 'betise' today while lying on the airport security checkpoint floor, and enjoyed the reactions he got from his sisters. (Bêtise is the French word equivalent for 'naughty'). When he sees a cat, he doesn't say 'cat', he says 'meow'. When I say 'cow', he signs and says, 'moo'. He calls everything the color 'blue', and anything with wheels, a "car" (albeit a tractor, garbage truck, blade scooter...)
It's a long journey. I am ever the optimist, but sometimes I think we need to pick up the pace a little since his learning curve is so huge. He has a lot of ground to make up, after all.
I read somewhere once that a deaf person has to experience and feel something a hundred times more than a hearing person to actually grasp it's concept. This seems to be the case here.
I wonder how much he hears from his traditional hearing aid...and how difficult it really is for him to hear and process and interpret the sounds that he does hear with his cochlear implant....I think we expect a lot from him, when he repeatedly and perfectly says, "Mom, Mom, Mom" to get my attention, or "Daddy, Daddy, Daddy". He says somethings flawlessly like "apple", it makes you forget he's deaf at all. But when I try and get him to say "off", he just says, "ahh", as if he does not hear the "fff" ending. Am I surprised? Yes. Am I frustrated? Yes. He doesn't get it after my repeating it 20 or 30 times, while accentuating the "ff", with his fingers on my lower lip to show him the air expulsion at the same time as the lower lip vibration. He smiles and laughs at my exertion.
Abby told me today he smiles and laughs at everything. It's true.
Why? Does he know more than the rest of us? Does he find this all humorous? Is he so full of life and happiness because he's been so close to death and misery, that he simply can not find it all amazingly hilarious?
He's always been the smaller twin. He weighed less than OP at birth, she's always maintained the nickname of the "chubby twin" UNTIL NOW. Ok, we still call her the chubby twin, I think it's because she's squishy, and her hair is just-oh-so-fluffy. But for the first time since conception (likely), Parker outweighs his twin. She's still taller than him, but man, he has bulked up. He has thighs of steal. TRY HOLDING ONTO THAT SCREAMING TODDLER WITH HIS BOOTS ON! It's tough.
I watched him climb up play structures repeatedly the past two weeks the kids were out of school, amazed at how easy it was for 'normal' kids, and how matter-of-factly people around me assumed he was just another 'normal' kid. I think it's cuz his hair was long and often hid a lot of his headgear-- and that he never stays still long enough for anyone to inspect it. It's just when they see me start to sign to him, that they realize he is different, unique, special.
Which begs the question again, "What is normal?" and "Why do we try so desperately hard to be normal?"
As he gets older, I realize the stakes are higher. The range of normal will begin to diminish.
Were just plugging along, not much major to say, still making progress. Upward and onward as the say, one day at a time.
