September 29, 2005 @ 12:40 pm | Filed under:
Books I’m reading the girls a book I discovered at age ten or eleven and read with immense relish several times over the next few years. I’m enjoying it just as much this time around. And it’s one of those “oh please, just ONE more chapter” books for the kids.
The Firelings
are a halfling people who live in the shadow of a volcano they call Belcher. The village legends tell of Belcher’s former life as a Sky Creature who danced a little too energetically one day and stomped a hole in the floor of the sky, through which he tumbled into a sea of his own brine. This misfortune, as far as the Firelings can tell, left Belcher in rather an irascible state. From time to time—dark times in Fireling history—he has required a tasty Morsel to prevent his crotchety temper from erupting with disastrous effect. And once, long ago (so the legends tell), a group of Firelings actually dared to attempt to leave Belcher’s sprawling body, seeking exit through the fabled Way of the Goat. Belcher punished them with a terrible Spewing, and ever since, the survivors have tiptoed very carefully, attempting to interpret Belcher’s wishes in the bubblings of mud near his Throat.
Now Belcher’s belly has once more begun to emit ominous rumblings, and his fiery tongue has been seen darting out of his mouth as if to suggest he is craving another Morsel…and in the whispers around the village, a certain name pops up with an alarming frequency. What will this mean for young Tacky-obbie and his friends Life, Trueline, Milk, and Mole Star? My kids are desperate to find out. I know, but I’m not telling.
My wonderful friend Shelli, who is adopting a little girl from China, sent me a link to the blog of a group of American doctors who are spending their vacations performing cleft palate repairs for children in China. The group, Love Without Boundaries, is a nonprofit volunteer organization that raises funds for medical procedures needed by children who could otherwise never afford them. This year’s Cleft Mission has already provided new smiles for over a hundred children, at no cost to their families. Many of the children, in fact, are growing up in orphanages, for children with cleft palates are often ostracized in their villages, and great pressure is put upon the parents to abandon the children.
The stories on this blog are heartbreaking and heartwarming. What these doctors, nurses, and support volunteers are doing is unbelievably beautiful. They spend their own money to travel around the world and change the lives of these children. The surgeries are paid for through donations and sponsors. I am overwhelmed by the pictures and stories.
Like this one: “The grandmother came today to help her daughter get the baby home, and when she walked into the post op ward, she began to cry. She was overwhelmed at how her grandson looked. After we discharged them, they walked down the six flights of stairs and then a few moments later I saw the grandmother making her way back up. She had a small bag in her hand, and she pressed it into mine and said “thank you”. Inside were four small cherry tomatoes…….it was all she could give, and it was such a precious gift to me.”
The Love Without Boundaries site includes a newsletter for children, full of inspiring stories about ways individual kids have raised money to provide a heart surgery or cleft palate repair for children in China.
August was not a month for blogging; not for me, at least. And here we are well into September, and I’m looking around feeling dazed, wondering how our summer slipped by without a chronicle. I suppose we were too busy doing to do much reflecting. Or perhaps it is simply that sunscreen-slick hands can’t stay on the keyboard.
But this past week seems to have tipped us into fall. The pool is closed; the wooded trails around our neighborhood are cool and inviting; the kids are wanting to paint and ride bikes, things they haven’t bothered about since spring. And I’m wanting slow down and capture the moments that whisked past me these past few months.
Wonderboy had his surgery in early August and has made a good recovery. At last he can sit again, though he still seems uncomfortable in the car if the ride is more than a few minutes. He continues to explode with new signs: I lost count at fifty, and he adds new ones every day. When Scott was away this past weekend, the boy stalked the house signing “Want Daddy” until I thought his thumb was going to bore a hole in his forehead. I have to keep his thumbnail cut short or else he scratches himself something awful.
Beanie has announced that she hates her curly hair. She has the most gorgeous head of golden sausage-curls, really unbelievable hair of the sort that makes people happy just to see it. I expected it would torment her as a teenager but I certainly never imagined her hair woes would begin at age four. “I don’t WANT to be a curly girl!” she wails. This is the only gloomy note in her sun-drenched disposition. When she is not pining for straight hair, she bounces around singing, constantly singing. Sometimes the songs are her own made-up ramblings, surprisingly lyrical. Other times she amuses me with the Beatles or folk songs.
The other day she was stuck in a loop of “The Old Gray Mare.” After about forty repetitions, she turned to me and said, “What’s ain’t?”
I explained. She experimented with the synonym: “The old gray mare just isn’t what she used to be, isn’t what she used to be…nope, ain’t sounds better.”
Ain’t that the truth.
What you will get:
• A very dusty kitchen;
• Very dusty children;
• Cool sidewalk paint.
A while back, Wonderboy’s OT gave me a booklet to read about something called “Suck-Swallow-Breathe Synchrony.” At first glance, I wouldn’t have expected it to revitalize the study of math in my home, but that is exactly what has happened.
The booklet describes how the coordinating of these three actions—sucking, swallowing, and breathing—is the brain’s first major task after a baby is born. Successful “SSB Synchrony” lays the groundwork for umpteen other developmental milestones down the road. The entire discussion was fascinating, but what really jumped out at me was the description of how, later in life, the brain uses SSB synchrony as a tension reliever or to help focus on other tasks. This is why Michael Jordan sticks out his tongue when he’s playing basketball. This is why people chew on pens, mints, and fingernails. This (I now realize) is why I seem to be incapable of writing a novel without consuming vast quantities of gummy bears or gumballs. I always thought it had to do with being a sugar junkie. I now understand that it’s about the chewing—it helps my brain to concentrate on the work.
Adults, the booklet explained, quite unconsciously avail themselves of the concentration aid provided by oral stimulation. I am reminded of the editorial meetings of my past: almost everyone at the table had something to sip, munch, or chew. Kids gnaw pencils in school, but gum isn’t usually allowed, for obvious and logical reasons. But our OT told about how she used to work in a school for the deaf, and when she convinced the parents to allow the kids access to pretzels and gummy worms while they did their schoolwork, productivity skyrocketed. A child who would normally have spent 45 minutes struggling through a page of math was now finishing his work in 10 minutes.
My kids, having heard snippets of this conversation, immediately saw the possibilities.
“Let’s test the theory!” cried Jane, my junior scientist.
“Mommy, where’s some gum?” asked Rose, wasting no time. “Let’s all do some math and see if it works.”
“I want to do math too!” wailed Beanie, who, being only four, hasn’t yet climbed on the family Math-U-See bandwagon.
“Mom will make up some problems for you,” reassured practical Rose.
And so began a routine that now occurs several times a week, unprompted by me. The kids get out math books, and that’s my cue to produce some gum. They chomp contentedly and work with impressive concentration. Whether the Impressive Concentration is indeed the effect of the gum, or whether it is the effect of the desire to continue getting gum (heretofore a rare luxury), I cannot say. And I don’t much care.
Truth be told, Jane is one of those people who loves numbers and patterns and mathematical puzzles and formulas. She is working through her great-uncle’s latest college math textbook for fun. I know, I know, it seems weird to me too. But then, when I look at a window with twelve panes, I see twelve rectangles, or maybe thirteen, counting the whole window. Jane sees—oh, I don’t know how many—my brain went numb after she passed the two dozenth rectangle. (Maybe I needed some gum.) She has That Kind of Brain. So really, I’m not sure how much additional assistance the bubble gum is giving her. But what the hey. It cracks me up to hear the girls literally beg me to “let them” do some math. Gee, I’m such a nice mommy—I always say yes.
Wonderboy has been dominating this blog lately. I realize he doesn’t exactly fit the mostly-literary theme I’ve got going here, but I can’t help it. Who can pass up material this rich?
This kid of mine, this kid of mine. What will he come up with next?
So Tuesday, as you know, was his surgery to repair a hernia (again) and remove his sticky-out tailbone that was making it hard for him to sit, poor guy, and was posing a risk of skin infection to boot. As I wrote in my last entry, the procedures went swimmingly and we got him home in record time. (Scott has a more detailed recap on his blog. But be warned: his language in this one is not for the kiddies. Don’t blame him. It’s the anesthesia.)
Yesterday morning Wonderboy woke up, turned toward me in bed, and smiled. “You seem to be feeling better,” I said. “Hey, buddy, maybe today will be a little more mellow.”
That’s when I saw the blood oozing out of his ear.
Just a little. A spot of red on the sheet, a clump of dried blood in the ear, and when I wiped that out, a bit of red oozing out of the canal. Had he just scratched himself? Or was it something to do with his ear tube? I couldn’t tell.
I called the doctor’s office and left a message for the wonderful new doc who is covering for our other wonderful family doc while the latter is on vacation this week. I love these folks. We’ve seen every doctor in the practice—numerous times—and they’re all great. Sharp, good communicators, efficient, cooperative. Plus their office is only three minutes from my front door. I can never move out of this house.
Anyway, I left a message for Dr. L. But I wasn’t exactly chomping at the bit for her call, because what was I going to do? Put Wonderboy in the car on his sore bottom? Even for a three-minute ride, that’d be torture. Mainly I wanted to see what the doc thought about putting in his hearing aid on that side. Not a good idea, I assumed.
All the rest of yesterday and all this morning, there was no new blood. Just a scratch, I figured. At this point in our parenting career, with the track record our kids have got, optimism is probably nothing more than gussied-up stubbornness, but what the heck. It works for me.
This afternoon when there was still no more bleeding, I decided to try putting in his hearing aid. Took it back out and—oh yes—there was new blood on the ear mold. That must have been one heck of a fingernail, kid, thought I (stubbornly).
Called the doc again. She was just getting off work for the day and asked if I wanted to bring him in tomorrow. “Only if you really think you need to see him,” I said. “I hate to sit him in the carseat so soon, you know?”
And then, in a turn of events more surprising than anything Wonderboy has thrown our way, she said, “Tell you what. I’ll stop by your house on my way home.”
Yes, folks, after all these years: our first house call. This is a momentous day!
She swings by with her trusty otoscope. Looks in his ear. Oh dear. Looks like the tube is not where it belongs. “Embedded” is the word she used. This is not good. This is not a fingernail scratch. This is, maybe, possibly, cause for another surgical procedure. WELL, YEAH, MAYBE NOT, insists the Stubborn Optimist. Scott speculates about the efficacy of a pair of tweezers.
It means, at the least, a trip to the ENT—whose office is forty minutes away. Wonderboy ain’t going for that ride anytime soon. We all decide that (barring more oozing from the ear) this little problem can wait until his rear end is sit-on-able.
“I’m sorry to be the bearer of more odd news,” says the doctor ruefully. Odd news: this is the perfect phrase for our boy. He is Odd News personified. Which I guess makes me the Bearer of Odd News, not Dr. L.
So that’s where we are. But, you know, for us it really WAS a pretty mellow day.
Many thanks to all of you who who sent notes of concern and well wishes for Wonderboy. His surgery (hernia repair and tailbone removal) yesterday went very well. We were home earlier than expected, and he seems to be feeling all right. He was groggy and wobbly last night but today he’s steadier on his feet. It will be a while before he can sit comfortably, of course. He keeps forgetting this and squats down en route to a sit, and then halfway down he’ll remember that it hurts and he’ll just stand there in the half squat, glaring fiercely. This is hilarious and I have several times insulted him by laughing. His bottom may recover more quickly than his pride.
I dare not speculate as to what excitement he will provide us with next.
It’s his best sign, because it’s his favorite word. His favorite person!
We had an explosion here last week. A language explosion—Wonderboy is suddenly bursting with new signs at the rate of three or four a day. It’s awesome. He has even put together his first sentence—and I warn you, it’s a heart-melter. Daddy love.
Jane’s baby book (the only one that has anything written in it—sorry, children numbers two, three, and four) contains dated lists of the words she was learning to speak. I collected them with the zeal a philatelist reserves for the rarest of stamps. I would have pressed each new word between tissue like a wildflower, if I could have. Witnessing a child’s determined quest for language is one for me of the best parts of motherhood.
And this time—oh, this time is the best yet. I’m sure my daughters will forgive my saying so, because they’re caught up in the spell too. Wonderboy’s hands shape meaning from air. Mommy, Daddy, baby, cracker, help, hungry, banana, more, sick, scared, let’s go, bye-bye, mine, hi, ball, uh-oh, jump, water, kiss, signing, bird, dog, please, finished…I’m sure I’m missing some. I can’t keep up.
Hand in hand (so to speak) with the emerging signs are new spoken words. Sure, so far they’re all variations on the same few sounds—eh eh (help), ah-ah (cracker), mah! mah! (more), MAH-meh (Amen)….We’re grateful for the ASL signs that help us translate his speech. More verbal speech will come. But he already speaks volumes with his grin and his fluttering hands.
This morning he seemed to be practicing all the words he knows, hands flying from one sign to another, talking to no one but himself, chuckling with satisfaction. It put me in mind of one of Rachel Coleman’s beautiful songs on the first Signing Time video.
Tell me that you love me,
Tell me that you’re thinking of me,
Tell me all about the things you’re thinking, both day and night.
Tell me that you’re happy
And you love it when we’re laughing,
Tell me more, oh tell me more,
Show me a sign….
I have raved about Signing Time here before, and I’m sure I’ll do it again. It’s hard for me to imagine our lives without Signing Time. Rachel Coleman, the creator, and her daughter Leah, who is deaf, and Leah’s cousin Alex, who is hearing, are practically part of our family. “Rachel says” and “Leah says” are regular utterances around here. When Wonderboy watches the videos, he looks back and forth from me to Rachel, or from his sisters to the children, in awed delight. His hands soar through the air, mimicking his beloved Rachel. He understands the spoken words “Signing Time” even without his hearing aids in. (This is significant. He probably hears something like “eye-ee-eye,” but he sure knows what it means.)
Rachel’s songs have become my personal highway belt-it-out favorites (along with Marie Bellet and Bruce Springsteen), because she *gets it* so completely. Leah was a year old when her parents learned she was deaf. Rachel’s family’s love and occupation is music, and my hat is off to Rachel Coleman for finding a way to so beautifully combine her old life with her new one. Next to the joy she has brought my children, my favorite thing about Rachel Coleman is her honesty in lyrics. Her song, “The Good,” expresses my understanding of motherhood better than anything I’ve ever written: “Maybe we won’t find easy, but baby we’ve found the good.” And the inspiring “Shine” on Volume 6, written with both Rachel’s children in mind (her younger daughter, Lucy, has spina bifida and CP), speaks frankly of the pangs that sometimes hit the heart of the parent of a special-needs child:
Sometimes I see you stuck
For such a long time
A daily nothing new
Pretend I don’t mind
With lists of things you’ll never do
Until somehow you do
And you do – you do – you shine
The days and months and years,
they run together
Is it just one day? Or is this forever?
You’ve taught me in your lifetime
More than I’d learned in mine
And you do, you do, you shine
Shine Shine Shine Shine Shine
Shine your light on me
Shine Shine Shine Shine Shine
everyone will see
Shine Shine Shine Shine Shine
I’m so glad you are mine
Oh how Rachel nails it! I’m so glad he is mine. Yes, maybe we haven’t found easy, but baby, we’ve found the good. And so very good it is. All the signs say so.
Related posts:
• More about Signing Time
• Rilla Signs
• Unsolicited Signing Time Commercial
• Signing with Babies, My Favorite Topic
