On celebrating your wheelhouse

adventuring

This past winter I attended some meetings with friends I only see once or twice a year.  In the meantime we keep up with each other through social media, liking Instagram pictures and wishing kids happy birthday in comment sections.  Right before this particular trip I had posted something on Instagram about a “fancy party” my kids and I had as part of the Fun list we create twice a year (summer and winter).  The Summer/Winter Fun lists are just basically a handful of things my kids and I want to try and do during the season that we are in.  The things range from stuff that requires some planning on my part- go to an indoor waterpark, go to a baseball game- to stuff my kids do all the time but becomes special once its on the list- go to the pool, sit by the fire and look at our baby books.  Most of it is all stuff we’d be doing anyway.  It’s just a simple way for us to add a little adventure to our seasons and make the stuff we’d already do seem a bit more significant.  For me, nothing about the Fun Lists are difficult or hard.  They push me to do a few things I may have easily put off until it was too late to try, but by and large it’s all stuff the kids and I already look forward to doing.

last year's summer fun list

When I caught up with these friends at the annual meeting more than one made a point to mention my “fancy party” post and comment wistfully at “what a great mom” I was, implying somehow that I was going above and beyond in the parenting game.  The comments caught me off guard and made me uncomfortable.  I was being given far too much credit.  The fancy party was not an act of heroic “Mom-ness” on my part.  It consisted of letting my four year old pick out my entire outfit (gray vintage polka dot dress I wear to weddings, knee high heeled brown boots and the earrings I wore for my wedding), inviting a few friends over, putting a table cloth on our dining room table, serving left over desserts from a party we’d just had and letting the kids drink out of tea cups and glass mugs.  None of it was too much trouble and all of it made that dreaded 4-5pm hour go by much more quickly. 

the fancy party

Pushing my kid on the swing for more than three and a half minutes or doing some sort of complicated craft with them- those are heroic acts of Mom-ness.  When I post about those on social media I would like a parade thrown in my honor and some sort of gold medal.  Unfortunately I don’t post about those on social media because they don’t happen.  Ever.  

I follow a mom on Instagram who’s summer plan involves a different activity each day.  To share her fun she’s got hashtags for each day of the week (#makesomethingmonday, #tastytuesday, etc).  Her activities are things like creating fun snacks for the kids or art projects involving making homemade paint with food coloring, water and cornstarch and painting the driveway.  These are all things that make my skin crawl and leave me grumpy and stabby with my kids if I try to do them.  I scrolled through her pictures of kids happy and messy, enjoying the creative activities she’d not only thought up (or taken the time to look up on pinterest) but also prepared ahead of time and then had the wherewithal to capture photographic evidence of the activity (instead of spending the whole time supervising said activity mentally counting down the minutes it could be over while simultaneously preventing the kids from also painting themselves, the car, house and bikes, thereby sucking all fun out of the activity, as I would have done).  And I felt guilty.  I should do that kind of stuff for my kids.  I should get over my deep and abiding hatred of such activities for their sake so they can have fun memories of making messes and eating yogurt covered bananas dipped in chocolate chips they created themselves.

And then I remembered my conversation with my friend all those months ago.  And I had a moment of clarity.  These activities, the crafts and fun snacks, that’s probably fun for this Instagram mom, just like Fun lists and adventures are fun for me.  It probably doesn’t produce the urge to poke her eyes out or chew off her arm just to end the activity.  She’s probably not doing incredibly hard things she hates just for the sake of her kids in the same way that I’m not when we check off Summer Fun List items and have adventures.

I think it is a very common misconception when we see other parents doing the kinds of activities that we ourselves find hard/boring/frustrating/violence inducing.  We assume that they, too, feel that way about the activity but somehow overcome their aversion in a super human feat of self sacrifice for the kids.  We believe our own inability to sacrifice at this level makes us sub par parents and this causes us to discredit all the awesome things we are already doing because they may come more naturally to us.  Things that other moms might find hard/boring/frustrating/violence inducing.

I'd take this kind of crazy over blowing bubbles with the kids any day of the week 

For me, I get out of the house and do stuff with my four kids because between doing that and staying home with them, staying home is the more difficult thing.  I am not a homebody.  We go to the pool or visit parks we’ve never been to because I prefer that to staying home and doing arts and crafts projects or playing My Little Ponies with them for hours on end (or really for even just five minutes.  My Little Ponies suck.).  Other moms stay home and create cool pinterest worthy projects for their kids because that is much less difficult for them when faced with the thought of lugging three or four kids out in public.  I have a friend who has spent the last year creating awesome reading and writing activities every afternoon for her pre-k kid.  He’s a genius and will enter Kindergarten this fall more than a little prepared.  I wouldn’t know where to begin to create education activities for my 4 year old.  But my friend genuinely liked doing that sort of thing.  She used to be a teacher and this kind of thing is right in her wheelhouse.

I’m learning to celebrate the moms who are doing what is in their wheelhouse while also remembering that last part.  It’s in their wheelhouse.  And it doesn’t have to be in my wheelhouse.  And I’m giving myself just as much credit when I do the stuff that comes more easily to me.  Our kids don’t need us to do it all.  They need us to do the stuff that makes us come alive as parents, whether it’s getting out for adventures or creating beautiful crafts, cooking dinner together or homeschooling.  I’ve learned from experience that crafts are not fun when mom is tense and short fused the whole time.  Neither are adventures out.  The kids won’t know the stuff you didn’t do with them.  (They’re not on instagram.  They don’t even know that making your own paint with cornstarch and food coloring is a thing.)  They will remember the stuff you enjoyed doing with them.  So do that stuff with zero guilt about the rest.  Isn’t that more fun for everyone?

adventures make us both happy

Parenting for the Long Game

I’ve been thinking a lot about parenting for the long game lately.  I have a few friends with boys who turned 5 this summer.  All of them chose to wait until next year to send their boys to kindergarten.  I was chatting with one of my friends, marveling about how articulate her son was, how well he was writing his letters.  I asked if she thought about sending him straight to first grade if he did really well in pre-K.

“Ugh,” she replied. “It’s so hard.  I’m not worried about his readiness for school this year.  It’s in a few years, when he’s eight and the work gets harder, or middle school when he’s not as developed as the other kids, and high school when he’s seventeen and trying to decide on colleges, or even going to college when he’s still seventeen.  In the short term he’d probably be fine, but I’m trying to make this decision with the long game in mind.”

I was so struck by the wisdom of that.  Because the short game- start school now!- is pretty tempting.  Who doesn’t want to get their kids in kindergarten?  But to think about the effects of this decision twelve years from now?  That’s not necessarily something I do every day.  I’m not saying all kids with August birthdays should be kept back a year; every kid is different and every parent’s decision is personal.  I was more struck by the long term thinking involved in her decision, the fact that she was thinking about the long game.

I wonder what other decisions I am making now that have long term consequences I’m not considering?  Or what things I need to deal with now so that they aren’t bigger problems later?  I’ve long maintained that when it comes to parenting I can pay now, or I can pay later and the cost is usually greater further down the road.  The older kids get the more set in their ways and issues in general are easiest when I deal with them early on.

So much of parenting has more to do with the long game than the short.  It’s tempting to do what is easiest for the short what makes things better in the moment.  And somedays all you can do is think in terms of the short game- the long run can get overwhelming when you just want to survive the moment without murdering anyone.

But I’m trying to parent more with the long game in mind.  I’m thinking about what values I want to instill in my kids now that will come in handy later.  What character traits do I hope they have when they are fifteen?  What temperament things are going to be important when they are driving or making crucial life decisions?  What decisions do I need to make with my eye on life ten years from now?  

It’s just something to keep in the back of my mind, an awareness of what’s down the road, how my decisions will play out for my tween and teen-aged kids.  I’m paying attention to my friend’s wisdom about the long game and our kids.

A Place of her Own.

My little Lou started school a few weeks ago.  She’s in the same 2’s class Ryann attended, with the same sweet teacher whose gentle, loving presence makes me want to go right back to pre-school.  When Ry started pre-school she was more than ready.  She was super verbal, incredibly social and had watched her brother get on the bus to go to school for over a year.  School felt like the next right thing for her.  And it was.  With Lou I was a little less certain.  I wasn’t sure if we were doing it because that’s what Ry did or because it’s what Lou wanted and needed.

Don’t get me wrong, Lou wanted to go to school.  Her whole life right now is spent following Liam and Ryann, desperate to do what the big kids are doing.  To wear a backpack and attend that mystery place she’s watched them go is all she wants in the world.  But I recognize that she’s different from her sister.  She’s less verbal and more attached to me than Ry was at that age.  She keeps close, physically and emotionally.  There was a small part of me that was worried I was sending her to school because I needed the break more than her.

At her school the first day is only an hour and parents attend with the kids the whole time.  There is a time for boys to come with parents and then girls.  It’s a safe way to introduce the kids to the classrooms and teachers in a lower key setting.  She had been devastated to watch her older sister go to school the day before without her and so when it was her time to leave she was all joy and no fear.  She’d picked out her dress the day before and couldn’t wait to use her backpack.

We walked to school together, holding hands, her little red fox backpack almost as big as her.  She entered the classroom with a bit of timidity, taking it all in, watching the kids and scoping out the room.  Eventually she made a beeline for the toys.  Her class only has 5 girls, one of whom was out of town, so it was a quiet, calm atmosphere.  I laughed as she found a toy phone and proceeded to carry it around with her as she checked out the other toy options; her sister had done the same thing when she first attended that class. 

For most of the hour the kids were invited to just play, to check out the toys, to get their bearings in this little room.  I tried to give Lou some space of her own.  I watched her, struck by how different she seemed.  I couldn’t quite put my finger on it, but she had a different way about her.  And then it hit me.  She wasn’t shadowing her big sister.  For the first time she had a place where she got to decide what to do and what games to play.  She didn’t have that model to look to.  And far from seeming uncertain about it my girl dove right in.  In some ways I wondered if I was witnessing her discovering some bits of herself for the first time.  

Soon it was time to go and the big test would come in two days when she attended all by herself for two and a half hours.  I dropped her off that Friday, a little nervous.  I had volunteered to help wash kids hands when they arrived so I was staying for a bit longer.  She would poke her head back into the bathroom from time to time, checking to make sure I was still there, but when I left there was little fanfare.  I got a quick hug before she rushed off.

When I picked her up, those two and a half hours flying by, I waited patiently with the swarms of moms and dads all waiting to retrieve their kids.  She was one of the first kids to come out, her eyes scanning the crowd until they landed on me.  I threw my arms up in a cheerful greeting and she ran to me, her whole face lit up.  Jumping in my arms, Lou gave me the biggest, most delicious squeeze around my neck, saying, “I missed you mama, I missed you!”  It was the kind of hug I want to remember when she’s a surly teenager slamming doors and screaming “You’re the worst!”  She seemed energized, proud of herself even and I wondered if it was because she’d just spent the last two and a half hours existing on her own, outside of her siblings, in a place that was all hers.  

I’m excited for this year, for this place where she can figure out who she is away from Ryann and Liam and Rory.  She’s sandwiched in there, a middle child in the greatest way and this is her time to shine a bit, to follow her own lead and design her own fun.  It’s going to be a beautiful thing to watch and I’m looking forward to those squeeze hugs at pick up.

First Day

Liam Thomas.  First Grader.

This day has loomed, large and significant, for many years.  The first day of first grade would be a milestone for Liam, more so than the first day of kindergarten.  I’d thought about this day many times over the years but always with the awareness that it was far off, a ways a way, in some future time and place I couldn’t really fathom.

And then suddenly, yesterday morning, it was there.

I marveled all morning at how relaxed our morning felt.  Liam slept a whole 30 minutes later than he’d been able to on school days in the past.  And we still had 45 more minutes to get ourselves out the door. I glanced at the clock while I made breakfast and informed Liam that if he was still going to Child’s Voice the bus would have already arrived by now (or maybe not- the bus company wasn’t the most reliable…).

After finishing his cereal and apple slices Liam asked if he needed to get his shoes on.  I said no, he had some time to play, to which he responded, “Oh yea!  RyRy, do you want to go play?” and they were off, scampering to some imaginative world of their own creation.

I didn’t feel anxious yet, taking my cues from Liam who seemed remarkably calm and normal about this day which was A Big Day.  The only indication he carried any nerves about the day ahead had come at 1:30 am that morning when he came to my side of the bed weepy, claiming he couldn’t sleep.  I puttered him back to his bed and then climbed in with him, wordlessly wrapping my arms around him and holding him tight, an attempt to squeeze the anxiety out of his little body.  I lay with him until he was almost asleep then nuzzled his neck and slipped out of bed, saying another fervent prayer for a good day.

But now, as we ate breakfast and got dressed he seemed cheerful and excited about the day ahead.

We took our obligatory first day of school pics.  And then, with my mom at home to watch the girls, we set out to walk to school.

After years of taking a bus 45 minutes to school each day a 7 minute walk feels like a luxury.  He held my hand while we walked, not yet too cool for such displays of affection.  While we walked I felt the significance of this day begin to settle in me, a heaviness in the pit of my stomach.  I tried to understand why this felt so big.  It was not the full day aspect of first grade; Liam has been attending 7 hours of school daily since he turned three.  I wasn’t worried about his teacher or the academics; his teacher knew the ins and outs of Liam’s hearing loss and Liam himself was more than ready for first grade.  Was I worried about the other kids?  Worried that some brat would make fun of “those things on his ears,” a scenario I’d previously never had to contemplate as all the kids at his school had things on their ears?  Maybe, but first graders weren’t yet cruel really.  Maybe by third or fourth grade we’d need to steel ourselves for that.

As we got closer to school Liam got quieter and his grip on my hand a little tighter.  By the time we’d made our way to door 7 where all the first and second graders lined up to begin their day I saw the anxiety on Liam’s face and knew it mirrored my own.  It was the newness of it all.  For the first time in five years we were at a new school, a place we didn’t know, with people who didn’t know us.  And because we were jumping in a year later it felt like everyone else knew the drill but us.  

Liam and I found the 1H line.  I tried to step back, to let him stand in line with the other kids alone but he reached out for my hand, a panicked look in his eyes.  And so I stood next to him as his eyes darted around.  I could practically see the fear and anxiety levels rising in him and his brain tried desperately to figure out what was happening, what he could expect, what he needed to know.  

I thought about how anxious Tommy got at the zoo on Sunday when I asked him to refill our zoo cup at an unfamiliar location, recognizing how similar Liam is in new settings.  I knelt down and told him not to worry, it was everyone’s first day and no one knew exactly what was going to happen next.  The teachers would tell him what to do and where to go.  He started blinking back tears then, and I knew my words had touched on a point of anxiety for him.

His attempts to fight the tears that were threatening to push through was all it took to pull my own out.  And there we were, blinking back tears, desperate to appear as though we were not about to lose it in this crowd of moms and kids all more ready for the first day of school than we were.

I wanted to shout, “I’m not a crazy over-protective mom!  This is not a normal first day of school for us!  This is a BIG deal!”  But again, I couldn’t quite articulate in my own heart why this felt like such a big deal.  

But it did feel new and scary and big.  He felt like a pioneer, charting new territory: the first deaf kid the school had ever had.  Would the kids be nice?  Would the teachers know what to do?  Would he feel all alone and lost, unable to advocate for himself?

Rationally I knew the kids would be so kind, some already were.  I knew there would be a learning curve with the teachers but that they also wanted to do right by him.  Because he was the only one with hearing loss they weren’t going to let him fall through the cracks.  And I knew his old school had done everything, and I mean everything, to prepare him for this moment, for the moments to come when he’d need to advocate for himself.  He was ready.  And I was too.  We just didn’t know it yet.

And so, with tears in both our eyes and hugs and whispers that it was going to be awesome, that he was going to be awesome, his teacher led his class into the school and I watched him go.  I walked off by myself and let the tears fall freely, calling Tommy to unload my anxiety about our boy.

By 3:30 we were all more than ready to see Liam.  Tommy had come home early and we stood, double stroller filled with little sisters, waiting at door 7.  Liam rushed out, scanning the crowd for my familiar face.  I caught his eye and he came hurdling towards me arms out.  After a big hug that brought both of us much needed relief I asked him how his first day of first grade went.  And he said, “It was awesome!”  

Which was all I needed to hear.  We survived our first day.  And it was awesome.

Summer Season

Summer=Ice Cream.  Always.

It’s summer.  This summer, more than ever before I’m finally feeling like I’m enjoying it.  Like I’m really in summer.  When I think back on the last few summers I can see why.  In 2012 I had a newborn.  In 2013 we had just moved in with  my parents and I was experiencing all sorts of “living with my parents with two kids” adjustment stress.  In 2014 I had another newborn.  And we’d just moved.  Last summer I was pregnant.  Summers, despite their status as my favorite season, have been hard around here for the last few years.  They haven’t felt like the sweet relief that summer should feel like.

Maybe because I have two kids in school now, or maybe because this summer is the first one in 8 or 9 years that I haven’t been working, or maybe because I’m not experiencing any of the aforementioned transitions this year, but this summer feels like a break.  I was really careful not to schedule us too much.  We took two weeks of swim lessons and that was it.  I didn’t do any camps, or classes and aside from Liam’s  4 day a week for 5 weeks summer school session (which was kind of a bummer) we have had nowhere to be and nothing to wake up for.

And it’s been glorious.

I’m appreciating the slower pace and the shorter to do list.  I don’t have as many appointments to keep track of or regularly scheduled life things to attend.  I’m enjoying the extra cup of coffee and the way our morning unwinds a bit before we set about our day.  Rory still naps from 9-10am, so we can’t really do anything or go anywhere until she’s up.  Which means for the first three hours of the day, we’re slow.  

I was worried at first.  Outside of our routine of school would the days stretch out until forever and feel like a long, hot crawl to death with lots of kids fighting for my attention and not enough personal space?  There have been moments of that, yes, but really, mostly it’s been awesome.  This is the summer where our chaotic years of babies born so close together is starting to pay off.  They are pals this summer and the big three disappear together for long stretches of time, lost in imaginary worlds they’ve created.  I’m so thankful we didn’t schedule any camps or lessons.  Dinners have been pretty low key as my usual routine of trying mostly new recipes all the time is on hiatus for a while.  It’s been a lot of tacos and grilled chicken with salad, and last week after we all stayed late at the pool I attempted the open faced bread, cheese, tomato and bacon sandwiches that my parents used to make when I was a kid.  My kids loved them, as my siblings and I did before us and this easy meal will be a new part of the rotation, likely to stick around long after summer.  For us, this break from all the things has been really necessary.

Cheap baseball games is another must this season.

Since my dad passed away I’ve found that I’ve paid more attention to the seasons.  It’s weird, but he died the day before the first snowfall of a brutal winter.  In that way the winter season ushered in the winter of my grief.  While the winter of my soul stuck around though the literal spring and summer that first year I couldn’t help but notice the seasons.  At first this was because the metaphorical seasons of my grief were so misaligned with the physical seasons.  But then, because my grief had caused me to notice the changing of time in a new way, I found myself aware of how a new season could help me transition through a new rhythm.  This summer, for the first time, I’m finding that life’s circumstance and my own intentionality, have allowed me to maintain the right rhythm for the right season.  After the chaos and business of spring (May is the new December when it comes to ALL THE THINGS!) June, July and August absolutely needed to be the unhurried bliss they’ve been.  Rory’s nap has kept me from rushing out the door in an attempt to tackle the to do list (which is really just a way of keeping us busy because some days I buy into the lie that busy=better).  My kids needed this season to discover their built in playmate statuses.  

I’ve needed this season, probably as much as them.  Our new summer rhythms gave me the space to create necessary margins in my day so that I’m not crazy mom by 4:15.  With all the kids home it would have been easy to feel like I needed to be cruise director mom, entertaining and occupying all day long.  But I know myself and that, friends, would be a disaster.  Cruise director mom would throw everyone overboard by noon.  Instead I started waking at six and giving myself an hour to read and drink coffee before the kids wake up.  During Rory’s first nap I shooed the big kids downstairs so that I could write for 30-60 minutes.  And in the afternoons while Rory and Lou both nap I instituted quiet time for Liam and Ry.  I set a timer and make them play together quietly for an hour or so and then let them watch a show as a reward.  It buys me about 90 minutes to tackle the few things on my to do list or just read a book by myself.  I need that time of not talking to anyone so I can reset for the afternoon.  These margins are important and they are helping to prevent me from becoming crazy eyed mom when Tommy comes home (most days anyway).

I know we can’t maintain this lackadaisical rhythm come fall.  We don’t live in a beach town where it’s summer year round.  The changing of the leaves and start of school will stop our slow mornings, and Rory will drop that first nap soon, ending my writing time (or forcing me to find a new time for it.  Optimistically I’m hopeful that when the seasons change my soul will be ready for the change too and that I’ll look forward to the structure and the productivity.  

I’m also trying to figure out how to take the lessons of my summer margins into fall.  I’m looking for ways to build in those spaces that will keep me sane.  I’m pondering how to take a piece of the summer rhythm into fall.  I know it’s doable but it may take a few weeks to gain my footing.

At any rate I’m going to lap up every last drop of this glorious summer season, both in the air and in my soul.  This has been exactly what it needed to be.  There’s been lightness and fun, adventure and rest.  We are all thankful for summer life and all looking forward to the sweetness this season can bring year after year.  

Last Day

Today marks Liam’s last day of summer school.  I’m excited to have four weeks ahead of us to finish tackling our Summer Fun List and go back to lazy mornings that don’t involve catching a 7:30 bus.

But I’m anxious today, my stomach jumpy like I drank too much coffee.  Today marks Liam’s last day at Child’s Voice, the only school he’s known, the school which, at the risk of sounding overdramatic, changed his life.  

Liam on his very first day at Child's Voice

Liam has been attending this miracle of a school in Wood Dale, IL since January of 2012.  He’s been working with its therapists for even longer.  Way back when we started going two mornings a week to their group therapy program I’d drive the 30 minutes to school, stay working on things or chatting with other parents, attending his speech therapy, and then drive him the 30 minutes home in time for lunch and naps.  Sometimes, after Ryann was born, my dad would take him.  Or I would drop him off and my dad would pick him up.  My dad always liked picking him up on Wednesdays because he got to attend music class with him.  Liam held a low level of distain for music class, refusing to participate for the most part, which I think my dad thought was funny.  

I remember feeling so conflicted when Liam started that two day a week class at 19 months.  He was so little and I was leaving him in a classroom with teachers and other kids neither of us knew yet.  He wasn’t talking much, he’d only been hearing for maybe 6 or 7 months at that point.  I knew this was what he needed, to be in a program that was going to help him learn to listen and speak, but I kind of hated that this was what he needed.  I wished he didn’t need so much to find his voice.  

And then he started to soar.  At one and a half years old he was able to stand in line to wash his hands before snack.  He knew the routines of the day and participated in them willingly.  He could follow directions and play well with others.  He was listening and starting to speak.  School was doing it’s job.  I got my first taste of the parent side of parent/teacher conferences and before I knew it 18 months had passed and Liam was ready for “big school.”

Liam on his very first day of "big school."

Taking him to school a few hours twice a week (while I stayed in the building) was nothing compared to the heart wrenching act of faith it took to send my three year old on a bus with a stranger to school all day, five days a week .  I send my heart to that school each day and each day it came back home, a little more verbal and a little more independent.  He was finding his voice.

another first day of school.  he was so excited about that backpack with wheels

One cochlear implant surgery and three years of “big school" later, Liam was done.  His teachers, Tommy and I all deemed him “ready for regular mainstream school.”  At his IEP meeting this past spring you could sense the pride and almost warning in the voices of his Child’s Voice teachers as they described Liam’s progress.  He had done about as well as any kid could at this school, so don’t mess up our success story.

In May Liam participated in the graduation ceremony for Child’s Voice.  While I usually tend to think pre-school/kindergarten graduations are kind of silly and unnecessary, I will admit that for Liam this graduation meant something.  When he walked in the doors of Child’s Voice four and a half years ago he spoke only a handful of words.  At the graduation ceremony he confidently walked up to a podium and delivered a 48 second speech to a auditorium full of people.  He had found his voice.  It was beautiful.

Liam at graduation.  Cap and gown and all.

In just under a month Liam will start first grade at the elementary school just a few blocks away from our house.  This is a big deal, a turning point for him.  It’s the end goal we had when he started at Child’s Voice all those years ago: to go to the mainstream school with all the regular mainstream kids.  To be able to do what they do.

When you parent a kid with any kind of disability or differing ability there is always a fine line you walk when it comes to others’ expectations of him or her.  I never wanted anyone to underestimate Liam because of his hearing loss.  He isn’t dumb, or incapable.  He doesn’t need you to yell or speak in simple sentences to him.  But, I also don’t want anyone to overestimate his abilities.  He still has hearing loss and hearing aids and cochlear implants don’t work like eyeglasses.  Liam still has to work twice as hard to hear and he still may need some modifications, particularly in the classroom.  It was important to me that people recognized the both/and of his hearing loss.  He can do anything AND he has to work harder to do it.  

At Child’s Voice I didn’t have to worry if people knew how to walk this line.  They set the bar high for Liam AND they gave him all the extra tools he would need to achieve it. 

But even more then that, they loved him well during the process.  I wrote a letter to the staff last month to share our appreciation for all they’ve done for Liam.  In it I said, 

“At the age of three Liam started spending as many of his waking hours with you all as with us.  In so many ways you have helped to raise him these past few years.  And for this we are so incredibly thankful.”

He was taught well at that school but more importantly he was loved well.  This afternoon he will walk out the doors as a student for the last time.  He’s ready.  We all are.  

Today is a good day and a sad day.  We are ready to head into the next chapter but we recognize that we are closing another significant chapter.  Liam’s voice is ready to take on the world and today I’m feeling extra grateful for the place that helped him find it.

Little Sister

Sisters.

At ages two and four Louisa and Ryann have become quite the playmates.  Liam is still often at school and Rory is still too young to join the fray.  As I type this Ryann is outside trying to learn how to roller-skate and Lou is helping her.

My sister and I once wore these dresses.  Now we bestow the honor of dressing like members of a polygamist cult down to the next generation.

I can’t help but flash back to my own sister and I when I watch the two of them.  For one, visually they are identical versions of us; Lou is the spitting image of my ginger headed sister and Ryann my mini-me, long brown hair and all.  My sister and I were three years apart, Ry and Lou just two.  It’s funny to watch Lou watch Ry.  She is always watching and copying her behavior.  Ryann has always had a penchant for books.  From an early age she would sleep with them, snuggled up with one as though it were a stuffed animal.  Now she is often found carrying around a chapter book she cannot read, stopping to thumb through the pages, appearing for all intents and purposes to be reading a book intended for a much older audience.  Lately I’ve noticed Lou has taken to the same behavior.  Yesterday I saw both girls playing side by side with two pink purses, two toy phones and two “chapter books.”  

I’ve also found Ry holding court while Lou attends to her like a lady in waiting.  They are content to play in imaginary worlds Ry creates.  If Lou is unintelligibly pleading for something with a panicked fervor I can usually figure out what she wants by looking to whatever Ry is doing at the moment.  Little sister wants what the big sister has.  Always.

It’s really funny to watch all this as a mom who was once the big sister.  I keep waiting for Ryann to get frustrated with the copycatting as I once was.  Every time I go in search for the other pink purse or toy phone I hold my breath expecting Ry to lash out against her sister’s need to do everything like her.  So far it doesn’t seem to bother her.

I’m also gaining some fresh insight into little siblings.  As the oldest I didn’t have anyone at home to copy and draw a self from.  Don’t get me wrong, I sought out a guide for how to be from my friends, looking to their actions and choices to copy and model a self (I still find myself doing this).  But I didn’t have that one person in my home who I could watch at all times.  When I look at Lou with her chapter books and toy phones I wonder if she really likes those things or if she just thinks she should like them because Ryann does.  Because I drew my “inspiration” from a plethora of people growing up I wonder if I was a little more free to choose things that aligned more with who I actually was.

My youngest brother talks about how growing up he assumed he was supposed to like sports because his older brother did.  Tim was his example of what it meant to be a boy and according to Tim boys play sports.  And so it wasn’t until Jack had participated in many, many years of rec sports before he realized he didn’t like it and he didn’t have to do it (and also, he might not be very good at it).

I think of this as I watch Lou watch Ry.  I wonder when she will find her own freedom to be who she was created to be apart from the example her older sister sets.  And I wonder how I can help guide her to this freedom.  Because she’s not the same as her big sister.  And I’d rather save her from years of trying to fit a square peg in a round hole if I can.

But I will enjoy these years of watching her imitate and copy.  Yesterday Ryann animatedly told me some nonsense story about something or other while Lou stood right next to her babbling her own story, imitating precisely Ryann’s tone and inflections.  I bounced my eye contact back and forth between the two of them, dying with laughter on the inside at the lengths Lou was going to mimic her big sister.  Ry may someday hate this copycat behavior, but, if she’s anything like me, when she is an adult she will begin to copy Lou, who, if she is anything like my sister, will develop her own cool sense of self that will definitely be worthy of imitation.

What Happened in Colorado

Liam and I had to fortunate opportunity to attend the A.G. Bell convention in Denver, Colorado this past weekend.  AG Bell is an association for the deaf and hard of hearing and their convention draws mostly educators of the deaf and hard of hearing, but also members of the community and their parents.  I got to go with Med-el, the company that makes Liam’s cochlear implant.  This is my second year as a part of Med-el’s patient support team, where I travel occasionally to connect with prospective CI candidates and parents of pediatric candidates, sharing our story of Liam’s cochlear implant.  For the convention Liam and I were presenting as part of a panel on “Self-Advocacy through the Ages” talking about how Liam advocates for himself with regards to his hearing loss.  

It was three and a half days with my guy and our Med-el family.  As we made our way through the Denver airport on our return trip Liam kept saying, “I’m going to miss Colorado so much.”  I don’t think he necessarily meant the state of CO, which is lovely, but rather the experience he had there.  He’s six so he doesn’t understand that the people we hung out with for three and a half days don’t all live in that space and time forever.  He didn’t understand that the Med-el booth we worked in was torn down and packed away mere moments after we finished our shift on Sunday morning.  In his mind if he were to board a plane tomorrow and fly back to Colorado everything and everyone would be just as he left it.  

To him Colorado equals Mom saying yes to pretty much everything.  It means treats throughout the day and multiple trips to “It’s Sugar,” the candy store down the street from our hotel.  Colorado is the place where he got to be “one of the guys” with Jeff and Joel, Max and Garret.  Where Max and Garret, two older boys with cochlear implants, played catch for hours on end and gave him a million piggy back rides.  Colorado is where he could go from booth to booth collecting all the free goodies his arms could hold.  Colorado is the place where he and mom got to have a lot of fun together, just the two of us.

To me Colorado now equals three days with people who spoke the same language, the language of hearing loss and cochlear implants, electrode array and MRI capability.  It’s the place where I was reminded again and again just how lucky we are that Liam is doing so well with his implant.  It was the place where Garrett and Max and Rachel, three teens with CI’s gave me a glimpse of what will be possible for Liam in just 7 years.  It was where I got to connect with the people who know, who know the journey we’ve been on and who can tell me what’s ahead.

I’ve gotten so used to Liam’s hearing loss that I almost forget he’s deaf.  (I should qualify this by saying I “forget” his hearing loss in the same way that I can “forget” my dad is dead, which is to say that I never for a moment actually forget.   It’s just become the normal in a way that I’m not continually reminded of it’s reality.)  We’re out of the woods, so to speak, in so many ways.  Liam is listening and speaking.  Clearly.  He’s reading and writing and carrying on full conversations with adults and his peers.  This is the goal when you are first diagnosed with hearing loss.  This is the thing you are not necessarily guaranteed.  

And so it wasn’t until I was with a group of people that were a bit further ahead on the path that I realized how much I still needed to be reminded of what’s in store.  To talk to those teens, watch them interact with each other and the adults on the trip, witness their composure and their self-assuredness.  Oh man, did my mama heart need it.  They are teens, doing the normal teen thing, with friends and confidence and humor and just all around awesomeness.  Which, this side of the journey, is all I hope for Liam.

I sent an email to one of the boys, one who had been particularly kind to Liam during our stay.   I told him that we really know any older kids with cochlear implants and that I was so thankful Liam now had a role model in him.  I remember hearing a parent of another CI wearer talk about a turning point moment in their life.  Like Liam her son went to a deaf school where all of his peers wore implants and hearing aids.  But also like Liam, there were not really any older children and adult users in his life.  One day she realized that he thought he would no longer be deaf or have to wear CI’s when he was an adult because all the adults he knew were hearing.  It was in that moment that she realized she needed some role models in his life asap.

I’m thankful to be able to create that for Liam.  I’m thankful for Max and Garrett and Rachel who give Liam a peek into middle school and high school life.  And I’m grateful for Mr. Chuckie and Mr. Jeff who show him that CI wearers can be police officers or creative directors.  In Colorado we both got a peek at what’s possible still and let me tell you, it’s pretty exciting.