In Which Connor Needs His Mommy And Has A Rough Time

Connor felt a little insecure today.  Our normal night nurse is on vacation this week, so we've had a substitute.  If there's one thing Connor is not a huge fan of, it's change.  So last night he refused to go to sleep.  About three in the morning I heard him shrieking at the top of his lungs and got up to go see what he needed. 

The stand-in night nurse had tried everything she could think of, but Connor still wasn't happy.  She doesn't know sign language, and so she didn't realize he was asking for me.  He saw me and frantically started signing "Want Mommy want Mommy."  I think he had himself convinced I wouldn't be there in the morning.  I picked him up and snuggled him for about ten minutes, and then put him back to bed, where he finally relaxed enough to fall asleep. 

Night nursing is fantastic and wonderful, but there are some things only Mommies are good for.

So today he was a remora; he spent the whole day clinging to me and refusing to let me out of his sight for more than a minute or two.  Every time I sat him on my lap he immediately started drifting off; I think he was exhausted not just from last night, but also because he was so worried I would disappear that he was wearing himself out being so vigilant.  Either that or he's feeling poorly; if he's getting sick he often does the same thing.

I figured he needed some extra reassurance, so I ended up watching a movie with him snuggled up on me, snoozing away.  I tried to put him down in bed when the movie was over, but the second I put him down he woke up and we started the cycle all over again. 

So instead of cleaning the floors, which is what I really should have been doing today but is rather impossible with a forty pound child balanced on one hip, I finished up the rest of the laundry. If I fold it on the couch, I can set Connor down and he doesn't protest because I'm facing him and only a couple of feet away. He conked out in the middle of the second load.

I feel pretty guilty about this whole thing; it had to be terrifying for him to ask for me over and over and not be able to make the nurse understand what he needed.  His regular nurse knows the signs he uses most often now, and she's able to reassure him that I'm right next door if he asks for me. 

Currently he's snoozing away in his bed, and I hope he'll sleep through the night.  And as much as he protests about her, I'm sure he'll be glad to see his regular night nurse when she's back next week and he'll have no trouble making his needs known.

Poor little guy.

~Jess

In Which Connor Feels Iffy And I Think About Ellen Some More

The little guy had two seizures today, though he didn't seem to be running any fever.  The heat may be lowering his threshold a bit, or he may be getting sick.  Or it might be time for a medication adjustment; who knows?  We'll see how he does tomorrow.  He went to physical therapy today anyway and did pretty well, so I'm hopeful that maybe these were just his usual once-every-week-or-two seizures and we won't see any more for a little while.

The translation of our letter for Ellen's latest care package came back today, so we should be putting it in the mail this week.  We're already working on another care package for her to send off in late August.  By that point we'll hopefully be less than four months from travel.  Crazy!  Now that we're really counting down I'm starting to go absolutely nuts waiting.  There isn't too much more we can do on her room, but I still need to add some shelving to her bathroom and finish a few odds and ends.  I'm trying to stretch things out so I won't be left twiddling my thumbs for the last few months, but it's hard not to just plunge right in and finish everything now!

When Ellen gets here, at some point we'll be enrolling her in Signed Exact English classes so that she can learn Connor's language along with English.  We're actually thinking we might enroll her fairly early in her language learning process, because it might be easier for her to remember English vocabulary if it has a sign hand motion to go along with it.  There's science behind this; some studies have shown that hand gestures help improve learning and retention of information. 

While Ellen has had seven years of English in school now, that doesn't necessarily mean that he English is very advanced.  Heck, I had seven years of Spanish in high school, and about all I can do is ask where the bathroom is and sing some song about all these chicks saying "pio pio pio" when they're hungry or cold.  And I'm pretty sure I only remember the song because it had hand motions.  So learning sign at the same time as English might help give her a leg up. 

Or instead of helping, it might give her strange habits like me.  Because I sign to Connor all day, every day, it's kind of become ingrained.  I unconsciously sign at anyone Connor's age or younger, anyone who says they can't hear me or asks me to repeat myself, and whenever a particularly good song comes on or I'm riled up about something.  Oh, and sometimes in a weird sort of Freudian slip I say one thing and sign what I'm actually thinking at the same time.  I also practice signing at stop lights, which sometimes freaks out people in the cars around me.  I think they mostly believe I'm doing some sort of interpretive dance. 

At any rate, we're pretty sure Ellen already knows some Thai sign language, which has its base in ASL, so maybe it won't be too big of a stretch for her to start learning some SEE shortly after she gets home.  I guess we'll just have to wait and see!

~Jess

In Which Connor Waves Hello

Today I watched as Connor casually waved "hi" to several strangers when they said hello to him.  And when they asked him if he was having a good day, he nodded his head.  When they cooed over how cute he was, he smiled at them.  And when I told him it was time to go, he waved "bye bye" without prompting.   

This is the kid who as recently as two months ago told pretty much every single person who tried to spontaneously interact with him something along the lines of "No.  Don't like, go away."  When did he decide to not only actually tolerate people he doesn't know, but to be friendly and interact with them?  I'm staggered by how much he's changed in just the last few weeks.

This is a major development for him.  I think a lot of it has to do with the social interactions he gets at school.  Certainly he's more interested in other children now-- and not just to tell them "No!" if they try to play with his toys.  I think that part of it is not having little tiny seizures all the time; he's not missing out on a lot of social interactions with people and is able to respond appropriately because he can figure out what's going on.  Also he doesn't have to spend all his time and energy just keeping himself from being totally overwhelmed.  It makes me happy to see him interact with others on his own because I really would like him to have those meaningful human connections with people other than his family and his medical and education support teams.  Right now he's able to win people over just because he's so darn cute regardless of what he's saying and so he can be antisocial if he wants to, but what about when (God willing) he's twenty?  Cuteness only goes so far.

So this is a huge step towards independence for him-- just him being willing to interact with people makes the job of teaching him how to communicate so much easier on me.  Yay Connor!

~Jess

In Which It Is Very Windy, And Connor Discovers His Pointer

There's a windstorm going on right now, so I'm going to type quickly because we might end up losing power.  There are tree branches down all over the streets, so driving home from derby practice was a little like still being on the track because I kept having to dodge all over the place with the car.

Connor was in an extremely good mood today because he and I played about eighty bajillion rounds of "patty cake" together.  He won't do any of the motions except for the patting (not the actual patty caking, but the part that says "roll it, and pat it, and mark it with a 'C'!"), but he's really enthusiastic about that part to make up for it.  It's his current favorite game, which means he wants to play it over and over and over and over again.  Fun times.

He's really starting to learn how to isolate his pointer finger on the right side too, which is pretty awesome.  He still doesn't want to touch anything with it, but it's the first step towards him being able to point or to touch the iPad screen with more precision.  Either one of those things would be a major step in the right direction as far as communication goes!  For right now though he mostly either stares at his isolated finger really intently, or he uses it to sign his version of "go."  I'm glad to be seeing it more often!

Even if he's telling me "go" to start yet another round of patty cake.

~Jess

In Which Connor Is Still Sick And Has A Whole Bunch Of Seizures

I spent the vast majority of today sitting on the couch watching Connor breathe.

The little guy had four seizures today-- probably all febrile seizures as his temperature kept spiking despite being on Tylenol.  I knew he was really feeling terrible when he didn't rip his oxygen tube off the second the seizure was over.  He really hates the nasal cannula.  Needless to say, the day was just a wee bit nerve wracking.

He has pretty much identical symptoms to the last time he was sick, which makes me wonder if this is a recurrence of the same thing and he actually has an infection somewhere-- maybe his ear or a UTI.  More than likely it's just a virus, but I'll be making him an appointment with his pediatrician to get him checked out just in case. 

He slept about eight hours today, mostly on curled up on the aforementioned couch where I could keep a closer eye on him than the apnea monitor offered.  This meant that I didn't leave my house until Jeremy got back from work, and bathroom trips were complicated affairs.  My first Signed Exact English (SEE) class of the semester was tonight, and so I practically threw my poor kid at Jer when he walked inside and zoomed out the door.  I love Connor to death but it's miserable seeing him sick and after a long day of literally sitting there watching him breathe (or not breathe, as the case may be) is not only nerve wracking but also excruciatingly boring. 

I hope he feels better soon!

~Jess

In Which We Get The Ball Rolling

So our initial adoption application has been accepted, we've been assigned a social worker, and we're on our way!  And, of course, the first thing we have to do is fill out this fourteen page packet where we answer approximately eight billion questions which are meant to get us really thinking about issues we may run into while parenting an adoptive child.  None of them, I am sad to say, are multiple choice.  This is our opening teaser to the sheer mountain of paperwork we will have accumulated by the time we are finished with this process.  We'll slog through all of it, I'm sure, though I may be a bit tired of writing by the end of things.  Expect short blog posts when we're in the thick of the process.  Or long whiny ones-- one of the two.

Anyway, thanks for all of the well wishes as we start our adoption journey, folks!  I'll do my best to answer the questions you've asked so far about Sylvie while respecting the fact that she's not "ours" yet. 

We don't know whether or not Sylvie has been fitted with hearing aids yet, but my guess, since it's not mentioned in any of her files and she is also totally non-verbal, would be "no."  We're not sure of the extent of her hearing loss, either, but based once again on the fact that she's totally non-verbal I would guess that it's relatively profound.  What technology we might consider for her, be it hearing aids, bone conduction aids, cochlear implants, etc would be contingent on what kind of hearing loss she has (we don't know), how severe it is (ditto) and how she is developing.  We're huge proponents of total communication around here (feeling with our current non-verbal child that ANY communication is good communication), and though we don't know anything for sure yet my guess is that a kid who's not talking at all and is being fitted for a hearing device at five or six years old is probably not going to be a great candidate for an oral program.  So we'll just have to see how she's doing.  I'm now pretty close to fluent in Signed Exact English and Jeremy is in advanced classes, so we'll continue learning.  Hopefully sometime in the next year I'll start ASL classes so I can eventually be fluent in that too.  I believe right now Sylvie is totally dependent on sign language, and that will probably remain her main form of communication.

What sign language it is she's learning we're not exactly sure of either.  This is because the orphanage social worker, when asked about it, claimed that sign language was "universal."  Right.  I'm taking an educated guess and betting that she's learning Thai Sign Language, which is the national sign language over there and is used by the majority of the Deaf community.  It's has its origins in ASL, so hopefully the transition between the two languages will actually be smoother than it probably would be if she was speaking Thai and transitioning to speaking English.  This is pure speculation, though-- she could be learning Pig Latin for all I know. 

That's one of the things about adoption-- you end up with a whole lot of questions you won't have the answers to until you meet the child.  Some of the questions-- things about birth family history, medical history, and background of the child-- these are questions you may never have the answers to.  We're going to have to take a lot of things on faith; though we will get the chance to send our questions over to the orphanage, there's no guarantee we'll get any answers.

Oh well.  It'll give us something to talk about on our breaks from filling out paperwork.

~Jess

In Which Connor Goes Back To School

Today I bought Jeremy a blender because he's now into making delicious fruit smoothies after he gets home from working out, and our old blender was doing a shoddy job of it.  So he tried the new deluxe model out right away, after first exclaiming over all the bells and whistles on it to Connor.*  I must admit that I had ulterior motives when I went out and got this; usually when Jeremy makes smoothies he makes too much, so I get some too.  A new blender means Jer making more smoothies, which means more extra smoothie for yours truly.  This isn't the first time I've given him a gift like this, either. Our bread machine (a yummy loaf a week!) and the espresso machine (all the steamers I can ask for) are other examples of gifts that keep on giving . . . to me. 

What can I say?  I'm shameless.

Anyway, Connor went back to school today for the first time in a week, as Spring Break is officially over.  He was so excited about it that he started shrieking in the car as we pulled into the parking lot!  I'm happy that he's so enthusiastic about school even if it's pretty overwhelming for him at times; it's nice to know that he's getting such enjoyment out of something so good for him.  Now if only I could get him to feel the same way about his banana oatmeal in the mornings.

I spent most of the day running errands-- I faxed in a whole bunch of papers to the adoption agency, ran to the grocery store, picked up a refill of one of Connor's heart medications and stopped in the bookstore for a sign book on religious signs, which the SEE dictionary covers woefully inadequately.  Next on my list is a book of medical signs, and then I'd like to delve more deeply into educational signs.  At some point in the future we're probably going to have a deaf child who is bringing home homework, and so I figure I'd better get a jumpstart on learning the important signs to help out.  I have a hard enough time explaining concepts in math (not my best subject) without having to stop and look up the words every five minutes. 

So I should start studying up.  Or instead of learning more signs, I could go back to drinking my smoothie and browsing cute little girl's dresses on Etsy.

Decisions, decisions.

~Jess

*"This blender has sixteen settings, Connor; it goes all the way from tickle to death!"

In Which I Actually Upload a Video!

Here's Connor hanging out in his new pint sized lawn chair and playing his new favorite game: Ball!  Check out the kid's amazing technique-- we'll have him in little league in no time!



~Jess

In Which We Go Shopping And Have A Random Encounter of Awesomeness

Today my mother-in-law and I left Connor with Jeremy and spent eight hours out looking for patio furniture: a housewarming gift from Jer's parents and several other relatives.  We're big on comparison shopping around here.

We finally cobbled together the perfect set with selections from three different stores, and the results are lovely!  I'm sure we'll get a lot of enjoyment out of them this summer.  When we were finished picking up the last piece we stopped by Caffe Adamo, one of Jer's and my many, many coffee shop hangouts, to rest our understandably weary legs.  We were sipping our yummy drinks and chatting about our shopping trip when Mom noticed that the people behind us were using sign language.  A young couple and an older man had come in separately and were having a conversation about signing classes in the area.  I introduced myself and my mother-in-law, and the five of us proceeded to exchange pleasantries in a mix of ASL, SEE and PSE.

That's when the barista came out from behind the counter and started signing.

What are the odds of four different groups of people in a coffee shop independently of one another all knowing sign language-- especially since only two of them were Deaf?   It's the frequency of encounters like this makes me sure we're living in the right town.  One of the guys we talked to works at the YMCA that we visit all the time.  This brings the number of people we've met in the past year who know either ASL or SEE and live in the Puyallup area to seventeen, and these are random encounters--we haven't even attended a Deaf coffee night! 

What a great day in a great town!

~Jess

In Which I Take Things Entirely Too Seriously

Horizon Air has a very clever radio advertising campaign going on right now that involves conversations between Lewis and Clark (you know, of the Lewis and Clark expedition).  When I was driving back from dropping some stuff off at Goodwill today one of the ads came on the radio.

It involved Lewis and Clark talking about the plesiosaur they found in Montana on their journey (yes, they really did find a plesiosaur) and how Horizon air was definitely not a dinosaur or in danger of going extinct any time soon.  I was listening to the ad absentmindedly until they got to the very end.  This is when they make a cheesy joke about why the plesiosaur was petrified.  I'm paraphrasing here, but basically the dialogue went something like:

"I bet he was petrified because of T-Rex!  There he was, just eating some berries and thinking "Hey, I like Montana!" when all of the sudden behind him-- bam!  It was T-Rex!"

Really the ad was funny, I swear.  However, I spent the next fifteen minutes composing a letter in my head to the company about how plesiosaurs were carnivorous and aquatic, with a diet composed primarily of fish.  So unless these were underwater meat berries and T-Rex was snorkeling, this couldn't have happened.  Also plesiosaurs aren't actually classified as dinosaurs, though they lived during the same time period.

This is a big part of why I don't have television reception, folks.  If a radio ad does this to me, you can only imagine what effect crime shows (where all of the evidence magically appears the same day you send it in and the criminal always makes a full confession), law shows (where the lawyer is leading the witness all over the place), or medical shows (where a patient codes and is then completely fine and talking fifteen minutes later) have on me.  When I do watch I spend a lot of time rolling my eyes at the television.       

What can I say?  I'm a stickler for accurate information.  And while I'm well aware that the Lewis and Clark ad thing was a joke, it still bothers me for some unfathomable reason.  Perhaps it's all those dinosaur facts my younger brother drilled into me when I was a kid (he was a dinosaur fanatic).  Perhaps it's because I am weird.  At any rate what this led to was an extensive lecture delivered by me to Connor about the nature of the plesiosaur once I returned home.  Ever tried to fingerspell plesiosaur to a toddler with a thirty second attention span?  It doesn't work out so well.

Oh well.

~Jess

In Which We Play At Being Models

So we drove up to the Olympic Sculpture Park this morning for our photo shoot with Kat and Justin!

The Olympic Sculpture Park, for those of you not familiar with the area, is a free public park affiliated with the Seattle Art Museum. They have several really cool permanent installations outside, and a large pavilion that contains a rotating exhibit. We met the very talented Kat and her awesome husband (and second shooter) Justin in the pavilion and went right to work! After taking some shots in their awesome orange chairs we headed outside some shots near the waterfront and with some of the large sculptures. Jer and I had a blast, but Connor seemed rather unsure about the whole situation. He finally warmed up and even gave us a few cute smiles and giggles, but then unfortunately the weather went south and it began raining. We ended up moving back indoors for a few more shots, and then we all drove over to Espresso Vivace for some very tasty coffee (or in my case, a very tasty steamer) and cookies.

We had a ton of fun! I can't wait to see some of the shots that Kat and Justin took-- patience is not on of my strong points. Hopefully Jer's somewhat cheesy I'm-Smiling-For-The-Camera smile and my ridiculous Throw-My-Head-Back-So-You-Can-See-Up-My-Nose laugh didn't mess up too many of the photos. I'm not worried about Connor; I have no doubt that he looks adorable in every single picture, even if he does have his hands in front of his mouth in half of them. He was switching between signing, "Don't like" and "All done."

Silly little guy.

~Jess

In Which We Have A Very Busy Day

What a busy day today!

Jeremy had physical therapy at 8:15 this morning, so we didn't really sleep in like we normally do on Wednesdays. Since this will be his usual time from now on for PT, I guess I'd better get used to it! After I picked him up from PT and his subsequent gym workout, I drove him down to the post, dropped him off for an appointment, and then Connor and I went to the little guy's physical therapy. Connor didn't really feel like doing a whole lot of work today; he tried every trick in the book to get out of rolling a ball back and forth, which is what we were trying. First he tried to get out of it by snuggling. When that didn't work, he moved on to signing various excuses or distractions to us. "No! Away! Tired. Sad. Don't like ball. Want Daddy. Want eat. Want kitty." He was certainly getting his point across and communicating, which was nice. It's been a while since I've seen such clear and obvious signing from him-- probably not since before he started having real trouble with his seizures again. It's good that he's signing more because it tells me he's feeling better.

While we acknowledged his signs, we made him roll the ball anyway, because we are evil like that.

After Connor's PT we swung by and picked Jeremy up, and then we headed to the house for some lunch and to let Connor have a nap before we met with Kat Speyer, the photographer whose family photo shoot giveaway we won. I was totally completely psyched to be meeting her, and she turns out to be just as awesome in person as she seems online. We spent a while talking about locations, looking at photo album options (there are so many to drool over, which is what I'm doing right now in addition to typing this and petting the cat), and then moved on to swapping stories about our crazy cats and various other topics we had in common. Because I never shut up once I get started talking (seriously, if you think my blog posts are long try having a conversation with me sometime) we ended up taking up over three hours of her time. This probably qualifies her for sainthood, especially since Connor informed her several times that he "didn't like her" and she should "go away." Manners are not his strong point, and he was kind of bored.

Anyway we came away from the meeting even more excited about the photo shoot, which will probably be happening sooner rather than later provided the weather cooperates. We can't wait!

~Jess

In Which Connor Does Not Like Bells

Connor was a real music maker today.

Since he generally only chooses to play with his toys that have plenty of lights and sound, the kind of toys that will drive a parent absolutely nuts if they have to listen to them for more than seven or eight minutes straight, I've been trying to introduce him to some other fun things to do. I'm especially trying to get him away from his current favorite toy: the Leapfrog Fridge DJ, which is known in our household as the "Annie Ooo." This is the title of the most annoying song on the thing. Can you guess which song is Connor's favorite?

So today I decided that he could try a few other toys, toys that are normally of no interest to him because they don't contain batteries. First up was a maraca.

Now, Connor thinks maracas are funny, provided someone else is shaking them. As long as I was the one doing the holding, he was fine with the thing, but the second I tried to put it in his hand was the second that the maraca was no longer fun. Now it was the Evil Maraca of Doom, and shaking it would bring on the Apocalypse. He would do his very best to jerk his hand away from the maraca as quickly as possible, and on the few short occasions I got him to hold the thing he only wrapped his fingers around it long enough to get a good wind-up so that he could throw it as far away as possible, perhaps in the hopes that I wouldn't be able to find it again.

So much for the maraca. I moved on to the bells.

Connor's jingle bells have a distinct advantage over the maracas, not because they sound any better or anything, but because they can be strapped on. While Connor could get them off his right wrist fairly quickly, he's not coordinated enough to shake them off his weaker left arm. So here's the sequence of events that followed.

Connor would attempt to shake the bells off his wrist. The noise would make him laugh, but it would quickly become overwhelming. He would then attempt to do one of his "self-stim" movements to calm himself down. The one he invariably tried to do was the one where he flaps his arms around wildly. The arm flapping would cause the bells to jingle even louder, which would excite Connor even more and cause him to flap harder, escalating the volume of the bells again.

This created a vicious cycle so that after about five minutes Connor was flapping his arms up and down so hard it looked like he was fixing to take off, and was on the verge of tears. At that point I took pity on him, took the bells off, cuddled him for a little bit, and then gave him the Annie Ooo back. He pounced on it, and for the rest of the time before our respite care worker arrived to let Jeremy and I leave for sign class the melodious strains of "Annie Annie Ooo, ooo ooo ooo ooo" could be heard wafting through the house.

Oh well.

~Jess

In Which Connor Does Not Like Santa

We attended a Christmas party a few days ago, and attempted to take our annual Christmas photos with Santa.

You will note I say attempted.

There were a number of children waiting in line behind us, so I was only able to snap these fantastic shots before we had to let someone else have a turn. Part of the problem was that the noise level was pretty high and so Connor was badly overstimulated. Then there was the problem that there was a very distracting Christmas tree he would rather have been looking at. Also Santa was wearing a hat. In Connor's world, hats are horrible torture devices and anyone willingly wearing one must be unbalanced at the very least.

The child holds a similar opinion about gloves. Since Santa was wearing both, no doubt he thought the man a dangerous lunatic. In the first picture here he is using his home sign for "Don't like." He was probably trying to warn the other kids off.

Last year our pictures with Santa were equally unsuccessful. This was because someone in the line had a laser pointer, which Connor was completely enthralled by, and then just before we set him in Santa's lap whoever was playing with it shut the thing off, causing him to throw an enormous pouty fit. Those were some quality pictures, let me tell you.

At any rate, we may or may not attempt pictures with a different Santa later. I think the only way we're going to get decent Santa photos is if we have a private photo session with him, and short of renting a Santa suit and donning it myself I don't think that's going to happen. Besides which, those would not be decent pictures. Those would be weird pictures. I would not make a good Santa.

So in the end we may just dress Connor up, plunk him outside in a park, pile some pine cones around him to draw attention to the festive season, snap some quick shots, and call it good.

~Jess

In Which Jeremy Displays His Baby Hypnotizing Abilities

You can tell that I have the most awesome husband in the world, because not only does he let me take pictures of him like this, but he then allows me to post them on the Internet. And I am absolutely in awe of his ability to make amazing facial expressions-- how in the heck did you get your eyes to cross in that manner, honey? Mine do not work independently of one another like that. Totally cool.

Baby J, the baby that Jeremy was entertaining, was absolutely delighted by the way. I find that babies as a general rule are delighted by Jeremy. I swear he gives off some sort of rays that make babies go absolutely ga ga (sorry, couldn't resist) over him. The man is the Baby Whisperer. I, on the other hand, give off scary monster baby repelling rays. I'll lean over a baby, smile and coo at them, and they proceed to burst into tears. This is very sad. Maybe they think I'm going to eat them or something. Maybe I have a bad reputation among babies and word has gotten out. I have no idea.

Anyway, I highly recommend babies (of the non-crying, non-poopy variety) as stress relieving therapy for just about anyone who is not a scary monster baby repeller like me. Baby J napped on Jeremy for a while, and it was definitely refreshing for them both. Perhaps we can find one of these baby things to rent for a while. Just for the giggly awake and the adorable sleeping part, I mean. We'd pass 'er back over for the poopy and crying part, because we're nice people like that.

Unfortunately Connor is not highly enamored with baby J. Connor is of the opinion that there is only one kid in the room who should be the center of attention, and you can guess which kid that is. So upon seeing J he very politely waved "Bye bye" to her in the hopes that she would understand maybe she should find other Daddies to sleep on; the position in our household is already filled. He was rather disappointed when she did not immediately pack up and leave.

Some babies just can't take a hint, you know? Oh well.

~Jess

Bears!

This morning's Toddler Treasures reading time at the library was all about bears. Connor loves bears, thanks to his father who is forever talking about getting one for general household mauling purposes, and so the little guy was a very enthusiastic participant at today's story reading. One of the books, The Little Mouse, The Red Ripe Strawberry And The Big Hungry Bear, by Don and Audrey Wood, is one of my personal favorites, and Connor is very familiar with it since we have it at home. Normally at story time he very quickly gets bored and starts staring at everything but the books and me interpreting, but this time he was pretty focused, and when the librarian asked if anyone knew what to do about the big hungry bear, Connor gave a big enthusiastic nod yes! It's exciting to see that he's starting to be a little more comfortable with the toddler time, and that he's following my fumbling signing enough to be able to answer questions. And I'm happy to say that the trip up there was totally, completely uneventful. There will be NO repeats of last week, thank you very much.

The other book was Jamberry, by Bruce Degan. I love that book, except for the fact that I have to fingerspell Razzamatazzberry. Oh well.

Since it was kind of gloomy and rainy outside this afternoon, we promptly threw on our swimsuits and went down to the pool. Since the Puyallup area has next to no thunderstorms, I'm still a little unsure as to why everyone always leaves the pool when it looks like rain, as it's not like you aren't going to be wet anyway. If it was sunny the day before, as it was yesterday, the water will still be warm. At any rate, gloomy weather assures that Connor and I will have the pool all to ourselves, which is a good thing. Connor loves the water so long as he's in total control of what it's doing. Other kids splashing around so the water jumps and gets his face or hair wet unexpectedly is a big no-no in his book. The pool is also kind of an echo chamber-- even outdoors-- so if there are too many other people there than he gets overwhelmed pretty quickly. He can't have his hearing aids on at the pool and I can't really sign and hold him at the same time, so it's probably pretty hard for him to understand what I'm saying. At any rate, we spent about half an hour in the pool before he started getting cold and we dried off and went home. I'm loving having a pool so close to the house; I don't think we'd go very often otherwise, and it really is very good for Connor.

~Jess

In Which Connor And I Make A Mess of Things

I walked into Connor's room this morning to discover that he'd managed to pull out the connection between his feeding tube attachment and the pump, so while the pump was happily pumping formula all over the bed, he was busy leaking stomach contents onto it too. Then he used the whole mess as finger paint.

This was not really the way I'd planned to start my morning.

Anyway, I cleaned him up, bundled his sheets and pajamas into the washer, and then fed him a huge breakfast, which he was terribly hungry for as there was absolutely nothing in his stomach: its usual contents being all over the laundry. Then we headed off to the Children's Therapy Unit at Good Samaritan Hospital to get measured for a stander and to drop off his tricycle for modification. Hopefully we'll have the trike back next week-- something that I'm really excited about. Connor doesn't get to do many activities that other little kids his age are doing, so riding a tricycle with some of his buddies would be a really big deal. I can't wait!

After we finished up at Good Sam, we drove to the Puyallup Library for Connor's Toddler Treasures reading group. The library hasn't been able to find an interpreter yet, though they're still looking, so in the meantime I'm doing the interpreting for Connor. I'm not remotely qualified to do it-- I've only had a little over a year of sign language, and I have nowhere near the skills, speed, or experience to be an interpreter. If I was asked to do it for anyone other than Connor, I'd decline; watching me would probably be worse than having no interpreter at all. I'd rather leave it to the professionals.

Interpreting is hard.

For one thing, the songs and rhymes we are singing have a lot of words I've had to make up signs for, as there is absolutely no way I'm fingerspelling, for example, "Skittermerinky Dinky Dink." Not happening. There's also the fact that I have to adjust to someone else's speech pattern and rhythm. While it helps that I get a chance to look at the books beforehand, it's not like there's a happy little script I can follow; the kids are asking questions, the librarian is throwing out answers, and none of that is something I can prepare for. I just have to muddle along as fast as I can and hope Connor gets the jist of what's going on.

I'm getting some major practice in learning new vocabulary quickly though, which is probably a plus. I don't see the books until about half an hour before the reading time. This week one of the books was about patterns, and it described many of these patterns in detail. There were about 18 words I didn't know, so I had to memorize the signs really, really fast. Good practice for me, but sheesh.

I'd also like to point out that I'm not big on being the center of attention in a room. When the books and songs are happening, I'm sitting right next to the librarian. And for the most part, the kids aren't watching the librarian, they're watching me. As are all of the parents. This is rather disconcerting, especially when I know I'm screwing up. And believe me; there is a whole lot of screwing up going on.

Connor has a good time though, which is the important thing.

~Jess

In Which I Pursue Yet More Creative Endeavors

I'm going to make this fairly short, because I stayed up too late last night looking at random YouTube videos and as a result I'm pretty tired.

Anyway, I devoted a good portion of today to making jewelry, which is yet another on-again, off-again hobby of mine. A friend and I headed down to Shipwreck Beads, which is this huge warehouse full of beads and jewelry making supplies. They claim to have the world's largest selection of beads, and I'd believe it-- we're talking millions of beads here, people. It's overwhelming enough for me, but Connor goes into overdrive in this place. The colors! The shapes! The sparkly things! For a kid with sensory issues, it's either paradise or hell depending on whether or not this is the first errand we've run or one of several, and how napping went that morning. I bought entirely too many beads, and generally enjoyed myself. Connor was luckily in a pretty good mood, so he enjoyed himself too.

After all of the jewelry making fun (it was a productive evening, as you can see from the rather blurry picture) I went to my first Signed Exact English class of the summer. It's a really, really small class this year, so that should be nice since everyone gets to know each other pretty well. We have to pick a song, story, or poem this class to read (or sync) and sign to at the end of the semester. I'm going to have a hard time choosing, as there are so many good songs and books! I'm happy to be back in the class, as I don't have anyone to practice with at home right now with Jer gone. Connor understands the signs, but all of the signs he uses are "home signs," meaning they are modified for his motor skills, so I don't have anyone to practice my receptive language skills on. They get rusty pretty quickly, as I discovered tonight when we had a review. Oh well-- that's what I get for getting behind on my studying!

Maybe if I feel confident enough with whatever book or song I do I'll post a video of it on here for you all to see and giggle over. Maybe. If you promise not to giggle too much.

~Jess

Keeping Connected

It was hard trying to figure out ways to not only prepare Connor for Jeremy's absence, but also to keep him connected with his Daddy during Jer's long deployment. Part of the problem is that pretty much all of the materials available out there explaining deployment to toddlers are not accessible to Deaf or HoH children. Sesame Street put out this great video for children between the ages of 2-5 about deployment called Talk, Listen, Connect. It's in both English and Spanish, which is nice. Unfortunately sign language or closed captioning are not options available, so to my son it's pretty much just a bunch of cute puppets bobbing around on the screen. Most of the books out there about deployment seemed to be aimed at children in the 5 and up category.

There's also the problem that Jer is much more likely to be able to telephone home than to chat front of a video camera-- web cam times may be few and far between, and with the time difference there's a likelihood that most calls will fall while Connor is asleep.

We ended up making an hour-long videotape, broken into several segments, of Jer sitting with Connor and signing his favorite stories and songs. That way Connor can "see" his Daddy talking to him every night before bed, and that will hopefully help keep him connected. Jer signs and talks with Connor about the deployment, says that he'll miss Connor and will think of him every day-- pretty much what's on the Sesame Street video, only with SEE and without the giant fuzzy monsters. It's not the best solution in the world, but it's a start. Anybody else have any suggestions on we can keep Connor connected to his daddy?

~Jess

Library Storytime In Sign!

Tomorrow, Connor and I will be heading down to the Puyallup Public Library for our first Toddler Treasures Summer Storytime session. We'll sit and listen to a book being read, learn rhymes and songs, and do a craft. I thought it would be a really great activity for Connor (especially because it involves books, and you know how I feel about books) and that it would help continue to prepare him for preschool.

That's not the really cool thing about these sessions, though.

The really cool thing is that not only are they going to let me come in an hour early and meet with the children's librarian so that I can go over the book and song selection for the day to make sure I can sign it for Connor, but they plan to hire a SEE interpreter just so he can participate in storytime.

All I had to do was ask.

Actually, I just asked for the time to go over the book and if they would wear his FM system. They offered the interpreter entirely on their own. It took me a visit and a couple of phone calls to track down the right person to talk to, but once I got a hold of the children's librarian it was smooth sailing from there. She said it might take them a few weeks to find someone, but that once they do they'd keep them on as long as Connor wanted to participate in the story times.

I've been amazed time and time again by the lengths people will go to in order to make sure Connor is included as long as I work up the courage to let them know what he needs. Sometimes I have to force myself to do it, because my pride gets in the way or I don't feel right asking for special treatment-- I just have to remember it's for Connor's benefit and not my convenience and then I feel better about asking. Results like these remind me why I do it! This is a totally free program the library offers, and they're doing this entirely on their own merit. What a great library-- yet another affirmation that moving was the right choice for us.

I'd say my mood right now is somewhere around dazed glee. Bring on the stories!

~Jess