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Monday, December 18, 2006

A pretend phone conversation with real meaning

Chance and his brother both have pretend cell phones that they like to pretend to call each other from. The other night we were driving in the van and I heard the boys talking in the backseat. It was not your normal little boy conversation though so I tuned in to see what was going on. After a minute, I figured out that the boys were having a "conversation" on their cell phones.
Chance made a ringing like sound and then his brother answered his phone.
"Hello! This is Chance."
"Hi Chance."
"We need to go to the store to get something."
"We need some milk." His brother offered.
"We need bread, cheese and bananas and milk." Chance says.
"Oh, yeah." His brother verifies.

Chance's speech was so clear. And he has polite phone etiquette which is amazing since he has not been able to answer the phone at home. I have noticed more and more, that Chance is getting better with his pronunciation. He is coming along so well! I think that even some of the kids in the neighborhood have been surprised at how well Chance is articulating his speech and the things that he can say now. Some of the kids still need to realize that Chance is easier to understand and can express a more diverse range of thoughts.

Tonight we went out caroling with neighbors. Everyone made cookies to share and after we were done, we gathered around the fire pit of a neighbor to sip hot chocolate and eat goodies. When it was time to go home, Chance took off ahead of me and got home a few minutes before I did. When I got to the house, Chance's dad met me at the door and said, "Chance says that he fell and his implant came off." I asked if it was the one with a dead battery,( I noticed that one of the implants was dead at the fire pit). This would make a BIG difference as the implants have a blinking red light on them if they are working. According to Murphy's Law, the dead implant was the one that had fallen off. So, Chance and his dad and brother headed out in the dark to look for the implant. Thankfully, Chance could lead the search party right to the spot where he fell. A neighbor driving by asked what they were looking for and her son who is Chance's age got out to help search.

We thought we had the "keeping-the-implants-on" issue under control when we had the molds made. And we did until Chance's little sister took the molds off. She has a fascination with the implants. She has actually been really good for the past while at leaving the implants alone. But apparently the new molds piqued her curiosity and she took them off. She led us to one, but we have been unable to find the other one. Chance was there when his sister took off the molds so we have told him that he can say "no", if she is playing with his implants. He usually has a come apart if anyone messes with his implants. We have told the kids that playing with Chance's implants or taking them off is just like taking his ears off and is mean. And Chance usually raises such a fuse if anyone messes with his implants that we know immediately. However, Chance himself has taken the molds off and we have told him to put them back on. So, maybe he was not as devastated if someone took those off.

You know those stories that always come out when you are adults of things that you did when you were kids? You and your siblings sit reminiscing and laughing about events in your childhood while your parents say things like," I don't remember that," or "YOU DID WHAT?" Perhaps 20 years from now, we will be sitting at a family gathering and our kids will laugh about all of the things that happened with Chance's implants. I don't want to know.

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