The Incident

I thought a lot about what to write for this post before I wrote it. Last night we had an "incident". Johnny has a hard time getting along with other kids. When he is left alone he is a sweet little boy, but often times when he is around other little kids he gets frustrated. We have seen that a lot. I think it comes from the inability to communicate. Johnny only knows sign at this point, and only on a basic level. The other little kids in our apartment complex only know english, and again on a very basic level. This leads to frustration, them with Johnny and vice versa. When Johnny gets frustrated, he usually hits the other children, to get their attention or to get them to stop, or to get them to go away. He doesn't know any other way to get his message across. We realize as parents that this is no good. We have tried to teach him not to do it, and in some ways he has gotten better the more he signs. However, there are times when he still gets so frustrated he can't help it. We try to be there to prevent those times from happening, but we are not perfect.

This brings us to the "incident". Last night Johnny was playing in a little police car outside. We were watching him, and he drove a little distance away from us. We were not too concerned because there weren't any other kids near him. We were sitting with some friends and were engaged in conversation with them. We kept looking back to keep an eye on Johnny. During one of the times that neither of us were watching, Johnny had been approached by a little girl in our ward. I don't know what happened, but the next thing we know, all the other little kids are running to this little girl's mom, many of them yelling that some little kid did it. We all looked to see what it was, and this little girl was bleeding from her nose. One of the other parents, who is not related to this little girl, came storming over to me, and said "Hey, your kid just grabbed some little girl's nose and made it bleed!" I got sick to my stomach. Then I got angry at this person, because his next words were taunting as he said "Yeah, see that girl over there, your kid did that, see what your kid did?!" I immediately ran over and took Johnny inside. As best I could, I tried to explain to him in my broken sign that hurting other kids was bad, and that he would have to go to bed now as a punishment. He cried for a while. I don't know how much he got from what I told him. Erica talked with the mom of the little girl. We felt, and still feel terrible about what happened. The mom was great. She was not angry with us, and explained to Erica that her little girl's nose bleeds pretty easily, and that it was not a big deal. Johnny's behavior still was not appropriate, and we are working so hard to get it right and to teach him.

I think that is what bothered me the most about what the other parent said. He has no idea what it's like. I don't blame him. How could he know that we had just had a long talk that day about things we needed to start doing to break Johnny of his hitting habit? How could he know that his comments were going to make my wife cry herself to sleep that night, and make me feel like a failure as a father? He probably thought that he was being some kind of hero, standing up for all the little kids on the playground and protecting them from the beastly Dietz child who never listens when the other parents ask him to stop. He probably didn't even know Johnny was deaf. I still wanted to ask him, though, to see how he would do raising two deaf children. Now it's hard to raise kids no matter what, but when one of his kids hits someone else, he can pull that child aside and talk to them about it. We try, but we just don't have the words. We're trying to learn them, but they're not there yet. We know that this kind of behavior is unacceptable, and we don't model it at home, but I honestly don't think Johnny is doing it to be mean. maybe I'm wrong. maybe my child is the monster this guy obviously thinks he is, and maybe we are awful parents who simply just don't care, like he must think we are. But I get so worried when Johnny does that stuff. I hate it when it happens, and I don't want him to do it, so I must care a little bit. And I've seen Johnny with his sister and other little babies and how he will softly try to hug them and give them kisses, how he signs words to teach Liza how to talk, and i know he is not a monster. I see how when he sees the other little boys playing with trains or super heroes, he gets his trains and super heroes. He just wants to be like the other kids, but he doesn't know how. We are trying to teach him, and I am sure he will eventually grow out of it, I just hope we can help him do it quickly.

Growing Up Some More

It's been a little while since I've written. I thought I should give an update on Johnny's progress as well as Eliza. This time I am going to start with Eliza. She is getting to be such a big girl. She has started to stand all the time, and has even begun to let go of things, and goin' freestyle. She has also begun to climb on things and over things and under things. She is getting to brave, I think, but maybe it is just hard to see her grow up so fast. I miss the days when she was a newborn and I got to hold her, and she was so little. Now she is so independent (she learned that from Johnny), she hardly ever wants to be held. She has begun using some more signs. Here is a list of the signs she has done to some extent or another: Mom, dad, more, milk, horse, airplane, and hat. She is also understanding more sign, which is just so cool. I swear she knows bedtime, because she gets mad every time we sign it to her. She also learned that from Johnny. She has also learned to make the ahhh noise when we practice with Johnny. Unfortunately for Erica, she has just entered a very mommy clingy stage. Erica loves it.

It seems like the longer Johnny has had the processor on, the more he signs. He is picking up signing like crazy, and not just words anymore, but whole sentences. It is so much fun to watch. He signs to us, to other people, to Eliza. The last one is really cute, because he will show her a picture of something and then sign it to her and sometimes he will help her to sign it. It is awesome. He has also started signing when he plays and sometimes he just signs to himself. It has really become a great language for him, and I think it will remain his first choice. He has also done really well with sounds. He has begun mimicking the sounds he hears us practice with him all the time. We talk to him all the time, but mainly he responds to our signing. He is so smart, just unbelievable what he can do.

What Johnny Heard

The title might be a little misleading. I don't really know what Johnny has heard this week. This is what I do know: Johnny heard something. We have seen some responses as he has been wearing his processor, but obviously there is still progress to be made and work to be done. Today, for the first time, we were making one of THE sounds, and Johnny began imitating it, so I know he heard that. It will be a long road to him speaking and listening.

It has been interesting to hear and see people's responses. Going into a store the other day, I noticed a man staring at it. Not just a curious look, or double take, but staring, with a look of bewilderment on his face. I thought, "what, you've never seen a kid with a cochlear implant before?" Then I thought, I really hadn't before we found out about Johnny and Eliza, so he probably hadn't either.

Most people that we have talked to have asked if it has just been amazing to see him respond to all the sounds. Our family is excluded here, because we prepared them for the reality. People think it is like wearing glasses. You put them on, and you can see. It is completely different with the cochlear implant. Johnny has to learn how to hear and listen now, and it will take a lot of hard work. So the answer is, it hasn't been much different yet. It will be amazing over time, but not just yet.

The one thing that has come out of it has been the opportunity to explain to people our thoughts on the whole kids being deaf thing. A lot of people assumed, in the hearing world, that we were doing this to fix our kids, so they wouldn't have a tragic life where they missed out on all the wonderful sounds around them. It has been a great opportunity to explain that our kids being deaf was never a tragedy. It may have been a comedy at times, or a drama, but never a tragedy.. Tragedies always have unhappy endings, and that wasn't ever going to our kids' lives. Johnny is 2 and a half years old. He is healthy and happy. He talks a lot (using his hands), he loves Batman and all things super hero, he loves trains and cars and frogs and bugs and dogs. He loves his little sister, sometimes too much. He knows who Jesus is, and he loves Him. He loves mom and dad, his grandmas and grandpas. Where's the tragedy? He is just like any other kid. We did not get him the implant to fix him, to make him just like everyone else. We didn't get him one because we felt like he was missing out on life. He wasn't. He is an incredible little boy, who can do so much, with or without the implant. We got the implant, not for him, but for others. To help others get over the communication barrier with him. My wife and I are learning sign, and teaching it to him, and he is amazing at it. That will always be his language of choice, I think. He will never have to work at signing as hard as he will at listening and talking. The reality is that the rest of the world will not cater to him. The implant is just a tool for him to communicate with others, make his life a little easier. It is not what is going to make his life complete, because it wasn't missing anything.

Activation Day

Today was the big day, Johnny's activation.  I had been having mixed feelings about it all.  I wasn't sure that all of this was really necessary, did Johnny really need this implant?  Then I had thoughts about whether this was really going to work.  When we first found out about Eliza's hearing loss, and realized that Johnny probably had it too, we thought his would be the same as hears, in the mild to moderate range.  It was hard when we found out it was severe to profound.  Then we got our hope up that hearing aids would work, but they didn't, at all.  So, I was afraid to get my hopes up this time.

When the audiologist hooked up the processor, and after the boring testing of the electrodes, and we saw Johnny react to sounds for the first time, it was a magical moment.  I couldn't believe it.  It was working, no letdown.  Then it was time to leave to office.  We had the map set on his processor, and the battery pack was hooked up, so we turned it on and then put it on his head.  The magic was over.  He began to cry a lot.  He just wouldn't be comforted.  No one had really prepared us for that reaction.  I felt like the worst parent, like I had taken something away from him, when I thought I was giving him something.  I promised myself that I would not let him lose that part of himself that was attached to his deafness.  We'll keep working on that.  

The rest of the day went better.  He kept the processor on for most of the day.  We went first to my mom's house, where his grandma showed him the wind chimes outside, and he discovered that they were more than just decorations, they made sounds, and he was amazed.  After that, we rode the train downtown and went to the LDS Church museum to explore the Primary display upstairs.  Johnny loved it, there was a lot for him to see and do.  He had a lot 

of fun there.  After that, we went across the street to Temple square to go see the Christus statue.  Johnny has really been into pictures of Jesus lately, so we thought he would enjoy that, and he did.

After that we went downstairs to see the display on the Book of Mormon and modern Prophets.  Erica needed to nurse Eliza, so she took her into the bathroom and fed her.  Johnny and I went over to the display featuring President Monson.  It had clips from different talks on different topics.  I found one on Jesus Christ and pushed play.  Then I sat on the floor next to the stroller and watched as Johnny signed  "prophet" and pointed to the video image.  Then he stopped as President Monson started speaking.  Johnny turned his head a little and just watched, and listened as the prophet spoke.  For the first time of the day, I got a little emotional as I watched my son listen to the Prophet for the first time.

After we were done downtown we took the train back to Murray, and then went to my dad's house.  Everyone was excited to see Johnny, but he did not like hearing everyone.  We had a harder time getting him to keep it on there.

When we got home, I got Johnny ready for bed and got my favorite book from when I was a kid, "But No Elephants", and read to Johnny with the implant in.  I signed most of it still to him, but I sat with my mouth close to his mic and spoke the story to him in different voices, and he smiled a lot and really enjoyed it.  That was the moment when I promised myself that I would work with Johnny to develop his listening and oral skills.  I want my son to enjoy all of life that he can, and today was a big step toward that.