My turning point

Do you remember how I mentioned we would talk about cochlear implants on a later date? Well I think I am ready to talk about it now.

You see cochlear implants are a very controversial topic in the deaf and hard of hearing community. Even though Becca doesn't qualify for them now and perhaps never will, I have always wanted a plan if the time should come that she will need them. Its something that I don't feel we should be standing around twiddling our thumbs over thinking :oh should we do it? I don't know what do you think?: blah blah blah. I wanted it to be a solid yes or no.

Here is where we where split.

I was against it. Here is my reason. I love Becca for everything that she is and one thing that she is, is deaf. Its who she is and I love that about her. She isn't broken. I didn't want to make such a massive decision for her that I didn't think should be my choice. The deeper more raw reason is. I didn't want her to one day look at me and say or feel "Mom why couldn't you just accept the fact that I was born deaf?" Why did you feel the need to fix me."
When I look at my daughter I cant begin to explain the massive pride I feel over her. I don't want to change her.

Rob is for it. He has never hesitated on his answer.

Becca loves music. When she hears something she likes she throws her hands up in the hair and rocks out to it. She tries to sing though nothing she is singing makes sense its all just babble...though still its soo very cute.

This evening as we where driving home she was rocking out to the radio. Rob turned to me and said "see this is why I would get her the implants, she loves music and sounds too much to let her go on not hearing them."

I looked at her just enjoying her self and trying hard to sing along to the music and I thought...yea we will do everything we possibly can to make sure that she always has the gift of sound.
This was a huge turning point for me. I'm not sure if cochlear implants will ever be in our future, but if the day should come that we have the choice to make then I can say it would be a good choice for her.

The Boo Gos to school?!

Have you ever felt taken by surprise but not in a good way? Like someone you trusted to take care of you for a little bit, randomly out of the blue punches you in your gut with fist of steel?

That is how I felt last week, and how I am feeling now. Becca's speech therapist that comes to the house told me last week that she no longer see's children at the age of three and that Rainbows no longer does as well. She said that Becca will have to go to school.

WHAT WHAT WHAT? My 3 year old going to school in a class room setting? Are you kidding me? Shes going to be 3 in March. How can she, or better yet me, be ready for her to attend school?
I feel sick to my stomach over this. In my gut I know that this is the best thing for her. She is going to be around other children in her age group so she will pick up lots of awesome new things...but holy cow! I don't want the school years to come soooo soon! I want to keep her home with me, where I get to enjoy how awesome and wonderful she is...I dont share very well.

So in a blink...while I was still left speechless the therapist scheduled a meeting for us to set up Becca's IEP ( Individual education plan ) so we can decide what we feel would be best for her in a class room setting... Again. I was left speechless. Me? ME decide what is best for her in a class room setting? I wanted to scream you do realize I am a completely hearing adult right? How am I going to know what would be best for her in a classroom setting? I am not and never have been deaf! She needs the tools given to her from people who are experienced in this. Shouldnt this be someones job to educate the parents on what their child could possibly need in their school year? Shouldn't someone tell us what to expect? I Have no idea what her hearing world is like, I can only guess at it. I am not willing to guess on her needs in school. I want to give her every advantage she needs to thrive and succeed in her school year.

This is something that has me all out of sorts. I will get it straightened out and smoothed out before the meeting on the 29th of next month. At the moment I just feel blind sided. I know it will work out to be something amazing and great. I was not ready yet...I am not ready yet.

Signed the frantic crazy
Jamie Marie

Becca's Favorite signs

Hello again!
Tonight I wanted to share with you some of Becca's favorite sings. I forgot to include dog in this video. So what you do when you sign dog is you snap then pat your leg like you are calling a dog. Its pretty simple.
We create these videos when the kids are in bed and right before I am turning out for the night so please excuse my pjs and crazy hair.

Signed,
Jamie Marie

Trick or treat smell my feet

Can you believe we are just one week away from Halloween? Fall is my favorite time of year. I love seeing all the leaves change colors and walking into homes that smell of Cinnamon or pumpkin. This is the time of year to get snuggley and share a nice cozy blanket with your family while you share your old time favorite classic movies with your children.

Here are a few Halloween signs to get you started.

Happy Haunting!
Signed,
Jamie Marie

Boo hoo

Blog spot doesn't want to upload my two minute long video. I have some Halloween signs to share with you that I will have to break up into two smaller videos tomorrow night. until then happy haunting!

signed,
Jamie Marie

The boo gos trick or treating

Last night our local police station had a little Halloween activity for the children. They where giving away bears, candy and stickers. The kids got to take their bears to the nurses station where they got to name them (We chose Kiki because were now working on our K's) they got to pretend to listen to the bears heart then give them a shot and a band aid. One of the nurses saw that Becca had her "Ears" in, she looked at Becca and said "oh look at that! you are wearing your hearing aids! They are so pretty!" I wanted to jump up and down and embrace her and give her a giant kiss! These days we haven't had an issue with Becca keeping her hearing aids in. We went through a long while not to long ago where she refused to wear them. This women had to have worked with children before with a special need. She knew how meaningful it was to look at my daughter and tell her how beautiful her hearing aids are.

So lets talk about crowds.
My girlfriend Vicki and I took my two girls and her little girl to this event. It was very crowded with very slow moving lines. Beccas hearing bubble is only 3-5 feet even with her hearing aids in (we call them her ears). In a situation like that where there are tons of voices and other noise, she isn't able to pick out any one voice, if I am not holding her in my arms and speaking into her ear she can not hear me. Those are the moments that make me a bit nervous. She did great and she had a blast. She kissed her teddy bear when he got his shot and gave him a hug mean while charming the pants off the women who gave her bear the shot.

My youngest baby Kaylee was less then amused during the outing but then again she did get her shots the day before and was still pretty angry about the ordeal.

Becca boo picked out a peacock costume last weekend at Old Navy. She was also very interested in their monkey costume too. So Rob and I sat there waiting for her to decide. He really wanted her to be a monkey and I really wanted her to be the peacock....so maybe I held that costume a little closer then I was holding the monkey when she picked it. sssshhhh! don't say anything.

Kaylee bug was a little bug of course. And the cutest lady bug of all.

Bear hugs
Jamie Marie

Family

First off let me tell you that I feel so silly letting my husband film me signing....We ended up doing this at least 20 or so times before we ended up with a video I was semi ok with.

Please excuse my look of pure exhaustion, Becca's baby sister got her six months shots yesterday so she was miserable all day long...miserable baby = one heck of a sleepy mommy.

I imagine as time gos on I will feel more comfortable filming and it will be more natural to me. For now you get me looking a bit awkward.

Tonight I present you with a couple family signs. I hope you enjoy them.

hugs
Jamie Marie

Now I know my ABC's

Hey everyone!
Here is the very first video blog!


More to come very soon!

Hugs!
Jamie Marie

Why SEE? Why not ASL?

Alright guys and dolls, here it is, the truth. SEE was not my first choice. I had never herd of SEE until last year. In high school I had learned a tiny bit of ASL and I LOVED it. I thought it was amazing and I had always wanted to learn more. So why didnt I? I didn't know how to go about learning more and I never had the desperate need to know it. I just wanted to learn to speak with my hands because the language is so beautiful and graceful. I bought books and tried to teach myself with books. I found my self signing things backwards so I came to the realization that with out a teacher I would not be able to learn the language....bummer. I knew classes where expensive so I never looked into taking classes. As I mentioned above I never had the need to learn the language. I looked at it more as a very interesting hobby rather then a second language.

One of the sweetest things my mother has ever said to me was when I told her Becca was mostly deaf. Those who know me know that I am speaking truth when I tell you I am a worry wart. I had gone through so much in my pregnancy with her that I thought there could be several things wrong. I never once imagined hearing loss. When we where told that our daughter was deaf, sure I went through a brief moment of shock...and worry that one day I would be calling for her and she would never hear me if danger was around...or that I would never hear her voice and that she would never respond to mine. When I expressed this to my mom the only thing she said was " Jamie what better parent could she have been given then you?" You have always wanted to learn sign and now you have the reason to.

First off I had no idea that my mother even remembered I had wanted to learn sign. Secondly she had no worry in the world over it because she knew with out question everything was going to be ok. Coming form my mom this was a big deal.

Where SEE came in. We met a women in our deaf and hard of hearing group that has a 34 year old son who is completely deaf. When she sat at her crossroads deciding what language was best for her son she decided on SEE. She now teaches SEE. She offered to teach our group free of charge. What an amazing gift! After speaking with her I instantly liked her. Her reason for choosing SEE makes sense to me. She wanted her son to know that there is a lot more to the English language. An example she gave us in our weekly classes is one like this. In ASL if you are telling your child you are going to your grandmothers house you might sign something that says " we go grandmother house" where in SEE we sign "We are going to grandmothers house". We sign it all the ing at the end the pass tense of the word etc.

Some people do not like this method because its harder and longer. When you are watching someones hands speak rapidly its very hard to keep up. My thought is that Becca will learn SEE to help her learn to read books and understand what she is reading, then later on if she wants to drop SEE to pick up ASL then we will all be ok with that and support her in what ever she picks up.

As of right now Becca isn't fully deaf. She hears just slightly above where they would qualify her for cochlear implants. Which is another subject that we will touch on later. If my daughter should lose more of her hearing...goodness that thought puts tears in my eyes...but if she where to ever lose her hearing I want/ need to know that I will always have a language to speak to her with.
The thought of not having the ability to speak to her crushes me. You would be surprised to learn that a lot of parents and family have not taken the time to learn their childs language. I cant comprehend that. I cant let my baby grow up in a home where she feels she is not a part of it.

Hugs,
Jamie Marie

Why Action fingers?

On March 11th 2008 I was given the greatest gift in the world. My daughter Rebecca was born. She was so tiny and so perfect and made my entire life make sense. The doctors agreed she was perfect. When it came time for her hearing to be tested she failed it. The nurse told us not to worry because she might have a lot of fluid in her ears and that she would come back the next morning. Rebecca failed her second test...then her 3rd test. She was fitted for her hearing aids at 2 and half months old. We picked up her hearing aids on July 1st 2008.

Becca has moderate to severe hearing loss. As she gets older we are able to understand what she hears and what she doesn't hear.
When we first began this journey so many people had told us that if we wanted her to be verbal then we shouldn't sign to her. I listened. I don't always follow directions well but for some reason I obeyed and followed the rest of the flock.

Every child is different. My Becca boo stands out. She craves a language to communicate with and who was I to deny her one? Looking back on it, now I can see that I should have started signing more then I had. She was so little and there was really no way to fully grasp what sounds she could hear or couldn't hear. What I have learned in my life time is that it is never to late. We have chosen SEE for Becca's primary language. SEE is signing exact English. I'm attending classes to fill my brain with as much as I possibly can. I want to give my daughter the gift of two languages. The more we sign to her the more she is willing to speak the words aloud, she fills my life with small little gifts everyday hearing and seeing her speak is so beautiful for my eyes and ears.

In this blog I will post videos of what I have learned and what I am learning. Stick with me, I have clumsy fingers now but soon they will learn to dance.....(yes im a cheese ball)