Twenty four eggs and an angel food cake

I love getting to know Chance as the years go by.  He is an amazing person and I feel honored to take this journey with him.

Chance has taken an interest in cooking.  This week he decided to make a cake as a treat to share with his friends during their late night (a night filled with games, food and or movies where the kids stay up later than normal with their friends).

He did not just want to make any cake, he wanted to make an angel food cake, his favorite kind.  We didn't have a boxed mix of angel food cake so I suggested that Chance make one from scratch.  He had done this with his dad once several months ago.

Chance was excited about this idea and set to work.  The recipe from Alton Brown that was used when

Chance made the cake with his dad was in our cookbook.  It had been so delicious the first time, we made it a permanent fixture in our dessert section.

A homemade angel food cake requires 12 eggs.  That's right, a hefty dozen.  But you get lots of fluff for your dozen.

I was in with Chance's sister when Chance walked in and said,"I totally failed."

When I asked him how he failed, he explained that he had forgotten to separate the egg yolks from the egg whites before he added the eggs.

That did constitute a fail with an angel food cake.  But I thought Chance should try again and told him so.

"You'll let me use 12 more eggs?!" He said in wonderment.

As luck would have it, some neighbors of ours were selling eggs from their grandpa's farm and I had just purchased two dozen.

Alton Brown also suggests that you use the freshest eggs you can find:)

So Chance gave the cake another go.

Only this time he did not take any chances(ha!ha!).  He got online and looked up the Alton Brown video on how to make his angel food cake.

Chance would watch a clip of the video, go over and replicate what Alton Brown said to do, and then come back for the next video clip.

It is important to Chance to do well in whatever he endeavors to undertake.

This cake-making endeavor is a good example of how Chance does things.  He finds something he wants to do and works to excel at it.

The cake turned out delicious.  His friends got the lion's share of the cake, but I managed to get a slice for myself before it left the house.

Chance is going to succeed in whatever he decides to do in life, and I am excited to be on the journey with him.

If you snooze, you lose...at least at a scout camp out

Chance had a scout camp out this week end.  He packed his backpack, rolled his sleeping bag, and made sure he had enough food to survive in the wilds overnight.
The scouts played capture the flag and stayed up until the wee hours of the night. Who goes on a scout camp out to sleep? The tents are merely a formality.
Come morning roll call, Chance kept sleeping.  You can do that when you don't hear anything going on around you in the morning.
So while the other scouts packed up and ate breakfast, Chance caught up on his beauty sleep.
Usually someone wakes Chance up in the morning at scout camp, but this time, there were a few distractions.
One, Chance had some new scout leaders that are not experienced at camping with Chance and therefore it did not occur to them that he would need an extra hand in waking up.  The tweeting birdies and other scouts sloshing through out the tent were not enough to raise Chance from his sleep of the dead.
The camp was also in a hurry.  One of the scout leaders had to get home earlier than usual, so the camp was in a hurry to pack up and go.
By the time someone realized that Chance was still sleeping, the time for breakfast had passed and Chance barley had time to pack up his bedroll and head out when he awoke.
Chance's friends are usually good about waking him up at scout camp.  This time there were several boys in one tent and they were all in a hurry after staying up late. 
Chance's dad talked to the new scout leader and just explained that Chance will most likely not wake up on time in the morning with out help because he does not hear the camp sounds or the boys teasing and talking.
Once that was drawn to his attention, the scout leader said it make perfect sense.
We hearing people don't always think of what it would be like to not hear anything in the morning because it never happens to us...some of those birds out in the wilds can be pretty darn loud in the morning. And scouts.  They are pretty darn loud in the morning too.
None of this affects Chance's world of silence.
Chance took it all in stride and I think everyone will be more aware during the next camp out.  Maybe this will help Chance never get kitchen duty first thing in the morning:)

The Wiz

Chance has spent the last several weeks practicing to be a monkey. A flying monkey. Some parents have kids who aspire to be a fireman, baker, accountant or doctor.  My son aspires to be a monkey.
At least for the last several weeks that is what he was working on.

Chance's school put on the play, The Wiz" and as the picture to the left shows,  Chance got to be an expert at flying around the gym on his scooter accompanied by fellow students on various modes of transportation.

Chance looks a little scary here I must say

A flying monkey with an implant, who could have guessed that was possible?

Originally Chance's brother was in the play as a lifter and back up singer and dancer.  A lifter lifts girls up in the air as they dance and run around the set. Someone has to have that job and Chance's teen age brother made the sacrifice.
After several weeks of practice, it became apparent that the play needed more flying monkeys. You can never get enough of those.   Chance's older brother generously said Chance would love to be in the play. Chance was not excited when he realized that he would be staying three hours after school on the regular early out day, not to mention several other days after school.  But it grew on him, and soon, he was enthusiastically taking his scooter to school each morning in anticipation of the afternoon practices. He was even designated the Toto carrier and got to whisk around the gym holding the remote controlled pup.
The play was a hit and the boys did a great job.
As parents we never thought of flying monkey as a future life path for Chance.  But he nailed it.

How Chance spells spring.....S-O-C-C-E-R

A robin prepares a field for soccer

Chance is one of the 22 kids who made the school soccer team.  He is sooo excited.  He had to try out with the 43 kids who wanted to make the team over a 3 day trial ending with the kids doing the varsity workout the last day.
The teacher wanted to make sure those who made the team were going to be willing to work it. Chance came home that day flushed and tired, but with a smile on his face.  Chance is willing to work it for soccer.

A patch of grass yearning for a soccer ball

The ultimate joy ride for a soccer ball

They actually have one extra player on the team due to a miscommunication between Chance and the soccer coach.  Chance had felt ill one morning so he stayed home from school but felt well enough to go after the lunch break.  By the end of the day, Chance was complaining of a headache and didn't feel like he could run with the team up the hill and to a neighboring park.  Chance is a trooper so I knew if he didn't feel he could run, he should rest.  I did tell him to let the soccer coach know that he was at the school, and though he had been sick and could not run with the team, he could be in on the instruction when they got back to the field.


Chance told the coach that he was dizzy and could not run with the team.

The coach thought Chance said he was "busy" meaning he was too busy to be on the team.  Apparently a few of the students had told her that day that they were too busy to be on the team and make the twice a week games.
So the coach  took Chance off the roster and called the next kid on the list who was very very excited to learn that he would indeed be on the team after being cut.

We found out what happened the next day when Chance showed up for practice.

The teacher felt bad and said she should have emailed us to verify that he really could not be on the team.

Chance had been planning on playing soccer since he first learned there was a junior high team at school registration.  We knew that if he was cut after trying out and making the team due to a miscommunication, he would be beside himself.

The school worked it out by getting permission to have one more student on the team so Chance was able to start breathing again.

Due to the extra player, there were not enough uniform tops the first game and Chance told me with conviction that he would be wearing a girl soccer shirt that was brand new and had never been worn before. I am glad that the powers that be convinced him ahead of time that this was normal and cool.

The first game was today at the home field.  After checking cleats to make sure they are legal for play, the game got underway.

Chance headed the ball(hit the ball with his head) on a return from the goalie and would have been able to follow up except that his implant fell into the grass and he had to grab it before other players stepped on it.

We need to resurrect our trusty sports headband.  Chance has been on a soccer hiatus this winter and so we are a little rusty and behind.

Chance is going to play lots and lots and lots of soccer this spring.  We signed him up for a county league last fall that he missed out on due to his implant surgery.  That team is picking up again for the spring session and will play games on Saturday with practices on Wednesday.

Chance's school team plays games almost every Tuesday and Thursday with practices 8th period every day.

Chance is going to need to increase his caloric intake.  And we are going to need more than one headband.

What NOT to take to a sports event

You know those lists that you can get of what you need for certain occasions?  Schools hand them out at the beginning of the year so you know what supplies your second grader or seventh grader will need for school.
You can find a list to tell you what to pack in your hospital bag when you are getting ready to have a baby and for when you are headed for an island vacation.

I would like to start a list of "what not to take" to sports events when you wear implants.

Do not take your bag with your backup implant and rechargeable battery.  Even if one of your implants is having an issue.

Why?  Because you can get to the game, get involved, realize that your implant is doing just fine, and then in the excitement of the moment forget about your spare parts bag worth thousands of dollars and just leave for home with out it.

Having a child with devices on their person every where they go worth thousands of dollars has upped the level of excitement in our lives at certain moments.

Like when Chance totally violated the" what not to take" to a sports event list.

BYU won, and Chance was very excited.  That is probably why he did not realize (or remember to make sure) that his bag with his back up implant and battery had fallen out of the pocket of his sweatshirt, and was still in the basketball arena, until he was home and getting ready for bed.

Chance's dad called Brigham Young University and told them of the dilemma (knowing that the cleaning crew was likely still cleaning up the arena).  They were wrapping up and about to leave, but the man on the other end of the phone indicated that they had found the devices, and highly suggested that something of such value not be left overnight in the lost and found, and said that he would wait, if Chance's dad could return within a half hour.

I don't think you can hawk implants on the black market, but still, who knows what could happen to them if they stayed in the stadium overnight.

So Chance's dad got back in the car and headed back to BYU as the polite man on the phone said they would wait for him if he hurried. On the way he had the opportunity of being pulled over by a nice policeman for having a broken headlight.

It was a nice policeman because when it was explained to him that Chance's dad had to get to the arena to get a medical device worth thousands of dollars before the maintenance crew left, he sent the car on its way with a warning instead of a ticket.

Thank you nice policeman!(We fixed the headlight just like you told us to:)

Thank you cleaning crew member for waiting for us to return!

The world really is full of great people.  We'll have to pass on the love when we get the opportunity.

In the meantime,  Chance should read the "what not to take" list before he goes to the next game.

Chance is chosen as the bully

In one of Chance's classes, the kids made anti-bullying skits.  The kids were divided into groups and came up with their own ideas on an anti-bullying message.

We heard about this assignment not from Chance, but from a teacher, after the fact.  She said that as the kids assessed who would play the bully and who would play the victim, Chance was chosen as the bully.

She was using this to demonstrate that Chance isn't held back by his implants, and his peers just seem to take it in stride that he wears them.

Chance would have been an easy person to choose as the victim because in real life, the kids who are different in any way, are prime victims for other kids to bully.

But Chance's peers didn't see Chance as the victim.  They just saw him as another kid in the group and chose him to be the bully.

I don't think that Chance will be able to avoid all rude kids who may take aim at the fact that he wears implants, but his situation right now in school  is very good.  He has many friends.  He knows kids from all different grades and when I walk down the hall with him at school,  I hear many,"Hey Chance!" or "Hi!"

This does a lot of good for a mother's heart.  Chance feels safe and valued at school and I am grateful.

Loud is relative

Many moons ago, Chance went swimming in a kiddy pool with a deaf friend.  When the two of them took off their implants to swim......the noise was incredible.

They squealed and giggled at decibels that could have been hazardous to hearing people's health.

It was amazing to witness.  Two deaf kids running around without abandon punctuating their glee with noise.  Lots of noise.

That they could not hear.

Flash forward many years, and tonight at 10:45, Chance and a deaf friend again took off their implants to play in a backyard.  This time it was our backyard and it wasn't a kiddy pool, but a trampoline that caused the two kids to call out in glee.

Chance's Mom and younger siblings enjoy the new trampoline,
seconds after assembly was completed.

We got  a trampoline for Christmas but have not been able to set it up due to the cold and snowy conditions here in our state.

Today, the weather flirted with us, displaying a touch of spring like weather. We took the bait and set up the trampoline.  We reasoned that spring is closer now than winter, so it is alright to start preparing to play outside.

Although it is Saturday, Chance and his brother attended an all day sing off at school ending in a concert this evening.  More about what a sing off is later.

Chance had a friend over for what we call a "late night".  In lieu of a sleep over, sometimes our kids have late nights where they have friends over to play, watch movies, or play games with the family until the later hours.

Chance had no idea that we had set up the trampoline in his absence,  and when he got home, it beckoned him to come and jump.

The jumping was going very well.  I had dozed off on a bed with Chance's young sister and was awakened to giggles and shouts of glee.

Chance and his friend were LOUD.

Perhaps at 3:00 in the afternoon it would not have been noticeable or even worthy of discussion.  But at 10:45 at night, with neighbors who go to bed early, the noise came with an exclamation mark.

Chance's dad went out and told the boys that they needed to come in and engage in a less audible activity, to which Chance and his friend replied that,"We were not being loud!"

Uh huh.  Two deaf kids, minus implants are not convincing witnesses of how loud an activity is or is not.

It was pretty amusing to both see their joy and unabandoned expression, and the level of noise they produced when they could not hear themselves or anything else.

Now, all that is left is to apologize to the neighbors tomorrow for exceeding normal decibel levels late at night.

Chance is just going to have to take our word for it that it was loud:)

Zion National Park

Our family got to experience the great outdoors over the weekend.....the great outdoors in another part of the state that is much warmer than our part of the state.

We went hiking, ran over and through giant red rocks and played with cousins.  We finally took the trip to Zions National Park that we have been saying we should take.  And we got to wear short sleeve shirts for the first time in months.

At least I did.

We have young men in the family and apparently, they don't need to stay warm during the winter months and can wear short sleeve shirts and even shorts when it is snowing.

In Zions, they wore their short sleeves when it was actually sunny outside with critters grazing peacefully in wild meadows as opposed to critters who are grazing in neighborhoods by our house because they are tired of rooting for food in the snow capped mountains.

On one of our hikes,  Chance and his cousin who were ahead of the group, decided to bypass the" trail closed", sign and continue on to explore up the path.

I don't know that the boys realized the path was closed as there was room off to the side of the sign to go on ahead and several people were coming up from the forbidden domain when Chance and his cousin arrived.

The long and the short of it is, Chance and his cousin casually continued past the path closed sign and I could see Chance looking around at the colorful rock walls that were weeping little paths of water down their  faces.

As is the case with my deaf boy, once he gets past a certain distance, he can not hear us. With implants that distance is quite remarkable, but when you are out in the wilderness, you can quickly get out of ear shot.

With young bodies and youthful energy, Chance and his cousin made fast work of covering the path.  One minute they were just off in the distance, and the next second they were scaling ever higher elevations on a hill opposite us separated by a large gulf.

We could see Chance's head pop up through the underbrush every once in a while, though he was now at a distance where a child with normal hearing would have a difficult time hearing us call their name.

We called to Chance to come back while waving our arms to get his attention.

He waved back  cheerfully and then continued on his way.

Funny thing with parenting a deaf child.....at what point is it disobedience, and when is it just not being able to hear? Sometimes it is just hard to know.

Chance's cousins parents said they knew their son heard them.  He just decided to pretend he didn't and continue on with Chance.

We were waving like we were trying to land a small aircraft and Chance thought we were just waving hello?

We'll never know exactly what the boys did and did not hear.

Eventually, we sent their two older brothers out to get them.

If you are going to have one boy on a forbidden trail, perhaps fraught with danger, the only logical thing to do is send up another son to see if death awaits around the next corner.

The older brothers made fast work of that trail and soon returned with their younger brothers in toe.

Chance works the drive-thru

Chance has found his future vocation....working the drive-thru window at Wendy's.  The restaurant chain donated part of each sale to the Boy Scouts of America this evening so Chance and his troop helped serve the masses looking all spiffy in their scout shirts.

This drive-thru experience was much less painful than the one Chance created a few years ago.  He decided that one of the windows in our kitchen was the drive through window and he served his siblings food out of it.

Chance and his Scoutmaster and co-scout as he is about to
receive his Star Scout Rank in May, 2012

Unfortunately it was the same window we had warned the kids about since the mechanism that moves it up and down was breaking.  After several "customers" were served,  the window slammed down on Chance's fingers.  I knew he needed stitches when I found myself looking through layers of flesh one can't normally see on his finger.

Tonight's drive-thru episode was much less violent.

Chance came home and cheerfully said," I want to work at the drive-thru at Wendy's when I am old enough to get a job!"

I was impressed that Chance could hear enough to produce orders in the mayhem that is a busy drive-thru restaurant.  The flow of people was steady, and the scouts were kept busy cleaning pans and handing food out to customers.

Who knows, maybe a few years from now, Chance will be a regular at the Wendy's drive-thru window handing out food to customers just like he dreams about:)

The Remote is Back!

Since it is Superbowl Sunday today, I am sure that many households are giving top priority to their remote controls.  These little rectangular gadgets full of the buttons that make our television sets perform are a hot commodity on a day such as today.

See - isn't that stylish ?!

At our house, we also have a love for our remote.......the remote that controls the cochlear implant.  If we had to choose between our remotes, we would ditch the television remote without even saying goodbye.


                                                  THE REMOTE IS BACK!


Chance has never been so excited to get a package before.  We could even use it as a disciplinary tool if we wanted.  Some parents take away Wii time if their kids don't get their jobs done, we take away Chance's remote.

Just kidding.  We are not that cruel and heartless.  The point is, Chance is attached to that remote enough that we could use it as a control measure if we were those kinds of people.

This remote is one that we let Chance have full time.  It is the one piece of technology that parents don't have to worry about wasting their kids time or being mishandled.

I probably have never said this before, but I really love cochlear implants.

I really love the remote that came with the implants and am so very grateful that we have it in our lives again. Thank you to all of those who support us in our journey to help our son hear.
We will always remember you and your big hearts.
You are a blessing in our lives.
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