Rainfall on the deck

I have been living with a deaf person for a long time now so I think more about hearing and what is not being heard on a regular basis.  Every once in a while though, I realize that I am not thinking about what can and cannot be heard.

We are having a rainstorm and the window is open so you can hear the sound of the rain falling on the wood of  the back deck. There are items the kids need to put away by the window so in an effort to motivate them, I said, "Hey, who wants to clean up by the window and then we can set up sleeping bags and fall asleep listening to the rain?"

Chance piped in with, "Um, that won't help me. I can't hear rain while I sleep."

Then Chance's little brother chimed in with, "Ya, I won't be able to hear it either."

Apparently if you have deaf children, being able to listen to the rain fall while you sleep is not a good motivation.   

Hello. I can't hear you, please try again.

We were at a store and found some shorts that we thought Chance might be interested in.  Since he keeps growing ever taller, he has outgrown most of his shorts.  You would think that shorts could just be shorter than they were the year before, but many of Chance's shorts are an awkward fit now too.
Thus, when we found shorts on sale that looked like Chance's style, we sent pictures to see if he liked any of them.  He did like them and he replied to my text with, "Yes I do!"
The only problem was, Chance had fallen asleep and we had been trying to reach him for an hour and a half by the time he responded.  We knew he was asleep when we left for the store and being deaf and all with implants off, he did not hear his phone when we called him.  By the time he responded to the text we were on our way home.
I called him to tell him that we had left the store and before I could say anything, Chance answered the phone and said, "I can't hear you. My implants are not on. Text me."
I had the thought that Chance would not be able to tell if I said OK or if I heard him, but apparently he had faith that all would just work out with out him hearing my response.
It was a little odd that he would answer the phone just so he could tell me he couldn't hear me, but it gave his dad and I a good laugh.
Chance did not get the shorts.  Maybe we'll have to go back to the store at a later date when Chance is either responding to my texts in a timely fashion, or when he can hear me over the phone when I call.

Chance is 16!

Everyone tells you when you become a parent, that time will pass by really fast and that before you know it, your baby will be all grown up.
What they say is true!

It seems like just yesterday that Chance was setting up camp in the living room with his brother....literally.  They set up their little tent by the gas fireplace and pretended to be camping. They slept inside the tent in sleeping bags and "roasted" marshmallows by the fireplace.
And then there were the little cars I would find everywhere.  Chance used our blinds in the living room window for roads and our breadbox for a garage.  There were cars spread out by the fireplace and in between the railing of the stairs.  These cars were not just randomly placed, it was all very organized. Sometimes Chance combined his cars with his train set and had a whole township.

Now there is a tall skinny teenager walking around my house, laughing a bit when I have to jump to reach something out of the top cupboards and telling me I am having "short people problems." I am not that short, it is just that Chance is so tall.
Sixteen is a big benchmark birthday. Not only will Chance be taking drivers education to officially get his driver's license, (he has a permit now and can drive in our state and a neighboring state), but in our house, sixteen is the age when you can start dating.
Chance is excited for both of these adventures.   Of course, along with driving and dating comes a need for money.  Gas and taking girls out requires some cash.  This has occurred to Chance and he is going to be looking for a job as well.  He had a good job, but the printer closed up shop so now Chance will be looking for a job this summer.  Most jobs around here require that you be sixteen to work. Chance has had jobs since age fourteen, but being sixteen will open up more jobs to choose from.
This summer will be full of driving, dates, and working. Along with swim team and soccer of course.
Let the adventures begin!

Chance will Entertain your Date.

Chance likes to talk to people.  A few weeks ago, Chance drove with his brother to take a date home.
She lived an hour away so Chance went along to help keep his brother awake on the drive home since the date got over rather late.
The next day, Chance's brother said,"Chance talked to my date almost more than I did!"
Chance replied, "It was a new person! I just have to talk to new people I meet."

Chance at an arch during a recent trip through Southern Utah.

I wonder if the fact that she was a cute girl had any influence over Chance's behavior.  Chance is quite social and his brother has been known to complain that he waits in the car after school while Chance says goodbye to everyone in the halls. I don't know that Chance talks to EVERYONE in the halls at school, but he has blossomed into quite a little social bug who enjoys meeting new people.

We went to a park for a going away party for a friend and there was a quiet woman sitting at the end of one of the picnic tables. Since Chance is always throwing Chinese words around when he talks to me, the woman heard Chance using Mandarin and turned to me and asked,"He speaks Mandarin?" When I replied that yes he is learning the language, she told me that she moved to the United States from Taiwan when she was a girl and that she grew up speaking Mandarin in her home.  I called Chance over and he sat down and they started talking.

Chance has his moments when he is more reserved of course.  It has just been fun to watch him blossom into such a social person.  And should you need someone to talk to your date, you can give Chance a call:)

谢谢 Xièxiè - one of the many Chinese words we've heard over and over

Chance's Chinese teacher will be moving to another state this summer. Chance is really bummed about it as he has really liked her as a teacher.  She has done a good job of getting the kids excited about learning Mandarin. Chance talks to us in Mandarin all of the time.  The fact that none of us know what he is saying doesn't seem to bother him much.  He just prattles on telling us stuff in Mandarin and chuckling when we don't know what he has said.  If Chance says something in Chinese that I feel I need to know about as his mother, I make him say it in English too.  It is a little game we play sometimes. He talks to me in Mandarin and I answer him in Dutch.  Neither one of us has any idea what the other one is saying, but the smiles and giggles say it all.
Chance's school teaches one more year of Chinese for Chance and then he will have taken all of the Chinese classes that are available.  He is excited, but now a little nervous about a new teacher.  He hopes the new teacher is as good as the one he has now.  She has been really good to work with from a parent's perspective as well, very informative and willing to work with the kids and truly desiring them to succeed. She is passionate about Mandarin and her enthusiasm is passed down to her students.
We are going to miss her.

Chance the driver

Chance is learning to drive.  He wants to drive home when I pick him up from soccer, he wants to drive to church, to the store and to any where else the family may be going.  Since Chance is taller than anyone else in the family now, he says that we all put the seat too far forward when we drive and he slides it way back when he drives.
Chance is actually a pretty good driver. He is careful and since he can't drive with out me or his father, he always goes the speed limit:)  I actually think Chance would go the speed limit even if we were not in the car with him.  He is very conscientious of what the speed limits on the roads are.  As he gets more and more comfortable with driving and can drive on his own, he may speed every once in a while.  I have heard that many teenage boys do this:) It is not worth the ticket you get and the mark it leaves on your driving record though.  We shall remind Chance of this regularly so he doesn't forget even when he is driving on his own.
For now, Chance is willing to do almost anything to drive and I enjoy my time in the car with him.  It is fun to talk to him and witness him grow and learn to do new things.  Especially when he is learning to do something that he enjoys so much.

Away in the mountains

There was no posting on the blog last week because our family was spending some time in a cabin that was in an area that was secluded enough that it didn't have any internet access without a several mile drive.

It was a difficult situation when it came to trying to turn in homework assignments, but a glorious situation for our family.  We spent a few days cross country skiing, snow shoeing, sledding, and sitting in the hot tub.  The kids built up quite a sledding hill.  The hill was there already in place thanks to mother nature, but the path was enriched and embellished by Chance and his brother.  Chance took a shovel and moved snow around so that the sledding path could start further up the hill and not lead into a tree.  Then Chance used the path as a skiing hill in his cross country skis that he brought from home.  It worked out well for him.



Chance had this to say about the cabin and I quote: "This must be what heaven is like......relaxation, miles and miles of pure country to roam in. Too bad I don't live here, or else I would be able to explore this place, know it, meet the people here."









There were bald eagles soaring overhead, and a beautiful fox that would walk right up on the side of the cabin by the window.  When the kids ran over to see him once, they scared him away, but he came back a few minutes later.  There must have been something he really liked by the cabin.








Chance took a cross country skiing break into the quiet wilderness among the trees. He was able to enjoy the solitude and openness of the lake and the clear bright sky.  It is off season for the area so we had the frozen lake and area to ourselves for the most part.  Our sledding path ended out on the frozen lake, and the tracks of our snow shoes and skis made paths across the snow covered surface.  We all loved it.

We played games as a family and had no appointments to keep except for the call of the snow outside the window. Many of Chance's friends wondered how one could survive without being able to use a computer or cell phone.  It can be done. I was glad to see that Chance was determined to bask in nature and forgo his cell phone even before we realized that receiving service at the cabin would be difficult.

Deaf teens don't have to worry about going deaf at a concert

Chance's school had a lip sync contest this past week.  Chance and his brother joined one of the teachers and performed a wonderful rendition of Vanilla Ice's song, "Ice Ice Baby."  I did not get a recording of it as I ran in just as the song was ending.  Thankfully, one of Chance's friends recorded the performance so I could see it.  The performance won 3rd place and came with a trophy and a bag of chocolates.

After the show was over, a local band held a concert in the gym. Any of you who have attended a concert for teenagers knows that the music is usually loud.  By loud I mean that people in the next county can hear it.  This concert was no different and two giant speakers blasted music out into the gym. Naturally the teens all gathered right up at the front of the stage where the music was the loudest.  I joined the boys up front and enjoyed the music for a bit.  Having deaf children makes one think of hearing and loud noises differently than the average Joe. I couldn't help but think that I may be loosing some hearing standing there so close to the speaker.  Chance's brother apparently felt the same way as after a while he approached me from the side and said he thought he may go deaf with how loud the music was if he stayed much longer.

Then there was Chance.  Chance was standing right next to the speaker rocking out.  His friends were amazed at his ability to be so close and not be uncomfortable as the rest of us could feel actual hair cells dying when we were that close to the speaker.

The moral of this story is, if you are going to attend a rock concert with your deaf teenager, you need to remember that you and your hair cells are on your own with the noise.  Your teen is already deaf, so that is no longer a concern they have.

For your amusement, here is a dancing hair cell.  One that has not yet been killed by attending a really loud concert.

A day in the life of a mother with deaf children

Today I thought I would provide some insight about what it is like living with deaf children.  Two incidents happened today, one with each of my deaf boys that I am quite sure are unique to a mother who has deaf children.

The first incident happened at the school when we went to see Ammon's sister play basketball.  On our way to the school, Ammon informed me that his hearing aid battery was dead and that he needed a new one.  I keep hearing aid batteries and cochlear implant batteries in my bag for obvious reasons so I wasn't that concerned about the hearing aid.  I figured we would just change out the battery when we got to the school.  Ammon does not like to go without hearing for any amount of time, so he was trying to tell me that he needed the battery right now.  As I was driving, through a construction zone no less, I told him that he would have to wait until we got to the school to change the battery.  He didn't really like this plan, but seeing as he couldn't reach my purse, and I couldn't hand it to him while driving through a construction zone, the situation was what it was.

While I was pulling my bag out in the parking lot, Ammon started to tell me what the difference is between hearing aid batteries and cochlear implant batteries.  He explained that the hearing aid batteries were the little ones and that the cochlear implant batteries were the bigger ones. How long have I been dealing with batteries for my deaf kids I ask you.  The answer is 9 1/2 years. I can see though that even after all of this experience, my young son doubts my ability to choose the correct battery for the situation.

Then later tonight as I sat in the living room with Chance, me in one chair and he in the other, I had an incident with my cell phone.  By incident I mean that I got a call from a number here in town twice in a row that I missed.  I wasn't sure whose number it was, so I called it back.  No one answered the phone, but my cell phone wouldn't hang up.  It kept ringing, ringing and ringing and the screen that would allow me to hang up disappeared. I could get to the screen to dial and call someone, but not the one that had the red button that ended a call.  I was gesturing with a "what in the world" sort of gesture and Chance noticed asking what was going on.  I started to answer him, then realized that Chance did not have his implants on, and furthermore, he had asked me the question and then turned away to look at the computer screen.  I am thinking that he didn't really want to know what was going on over in my chair:)

And then there is my all time favorite thing that happens when you have deaf children.  When they hear something wrong, they think you said it wrong, not that they heard it wrong.  For example, I will tell Ammon to move the chair and he will say, "Mom! You said move the hair!" Then he will laugh.  I know that I am not perfect when I speak every time, but it is interesting how your deaf kids figure that it must be you talking wrong rather than them hearing you wrong.

Last but not least, deaf children like to ask you questions when they cannot hear the answers. Big questions, how does the world work questions first thing in the morning or at bedtime, both times when hearing aids and implants are no longer on.  Here are a few of the questions I have been asked by deaf children who have no hearing device on:
How does electricity move through wire?
How do hydraulic engines work?
How come we can't see all of the planets at night?
Why did dinosaurs go extinct?
How do airplanes stay up in the air?

I am delighted that my children are curious about the world they live in. We just have to delay some answers until they can hear them:)

Implant found!

Chance has had a stressful weekend.  Friday night his implant died while he was driving us home from his grandparents' house.  Chance has a learners permit as opposed to a driver's license which means he gets to drive with his dad or I whenever he drives.  It is a great time in the life of a parent as you have a very motivated teenager who wants to drive and they can't do it with out you:)

While Chance was driving he handed me both implants and told me to switch the batteries as the implant that had died was his right one which is the one that was facing me in the passenger seat.  He told me to switch the batteries so that he would be able to hear me.

That was the last time he remembered seeing both implants. Chance went right in and went to sleep.

Chance woke up on Saturday morning, and couldn't find his right implant.  At first we thought it would just be a few minutes before he located the lost implant which had most likely fallen off while he was sleeping.

Chance was quite troubled that he could not find his implant and was not satisfied with just wearing one.  He spent a good chunk of Saturday looking for that implant.  By Saturday night, his dad was even offering a reward to anyone who found it.

Sunday morning we all went to church and Chance was still running on one implant.  As luck would have it, one of Chance's siblings was slow getting ready so we were a few minutes late which meant we had to sit in the back. Today was a meeting called Stake Conference (including about 10 individual congregations) that is held every 6 months so there were more people than normal trying to fit in the overflow seating area. And as luck would have it, the speakers were out in the back of the church and as technical people tried to fix the problem, my little deaf boys were hearing nothing.  I was having a hard time hearing since we were so far back and every time a baby cried, or someone moved their chair, it would block out the speaker's voice.

After about 10 minutes, I told Chance's older brother to out in the hall to see if the sound was better out there since there is a speaker by the entrance doors.  He came back and said that you could hear a lot better out in the hall, so we started moving in that direction.  Once we were out in the hall, one of the ushers told us that they had just opened a meeting room up the hall and that we could go in there. The speakers were fabulous in there!  Chance came into the room and his face broke into a huge smile and he sat down in one of the cushioned chairs able to hear all that was being said.

I was really starting to get concerned that Chance would not have both implants for school and then Chance finally found his implant.  It was in a Pringles container. That's right, a Pringles potato chip container which was laying next to where Chance fell asleep.  Doesn't everyone keep their implant in a potato chip container? If they don't they should:)  It is well protected in there and no one will be able to steal it.