Beer en Egel...

Lotte and I (Lottes mum) were reading the touching story of Bear and Hedgehog, where Bear wants to water the little flowers outside his cave, because they're thirsty. However, he doesn't have anything but a bucket with a hole in it, to carry the water in. Hedgehog has the answers to this problem: Bear has to repair the hole with hay. But one needs scissors in order to cut the hay in the right length. Bear's scissors need sharpening. Hedgehog suggests they need a stone for that. After a long search, they find a stone, but they need water as well for sharpening the scissors. "How do I get that?", asks Bear. "In the bucket, of course", says Hedgehog.
Lotte and I had read the story once before, a few weeks earlier. From time to time it might be difficult to get an idea about how much she really understands of a story. Well, our story continues like this....

Bear and Hedgehog's story ends with Bear thanking his little friend for being such a good help (even though they have accomplished virtually nothing), and Bear hands him som flowers to put in to a vase. Bear asks his friend whether he has something to put them in. I asked Lotte whether she knew the answer to that question, whereupon she says: "Yes, Hedgehog has a bucket himself!!!!"
She remembered, and what's more, Lotte had understood the humour in the plot.
Our little rascal never stops surprising us; these are small everyday gifts that we appreciate enormously!

Another milestone..

So many milestones that will be reached when raising a child. And, even though we know they should appear, we never know when they come... and then, suddenly, after a long straight stretch of road they appear around the next corner... Suddenly, unexpected... but clearly visible...



With a child born deaf there are also milestones, some the same, some different. And with Lotte, born deaf, and implanted with bi-lateral CI in november 2004, the milestones might be the same as for a hearing child... they just are a bit further up the road... or did we just get on the road a bit later?

Anyway.... today we turned one of those corners...

Lotte was sitting at the table, waiting for dinner.. Suddenly, she said.... "Mammaaaa.... " (standard start of an important message :-) ... and continued "kniv - mes" (knife), "hus - huis" (house) etc... A switch has closed and she got the idea of two languages... And not only that... Different words is one thing, but she went further and did the same with the names of her siblings... the "Norwegian pronunciation - Dutch pronunciation"..

Something really clicked. And to repeat the slight change in pronunciation of the names of her brother and sister is another amazing feat.

Remember how people sometimes want to know how CI sounds... there are computer-simulations that will reproduce a sentence simulating 4, 8 or 12 "electrodes" and it sounds mechanical, distorted etc... I am always skeptical of these simulations because they ignore a major aspect... the brain.

And this shows it... The simulation of the same name with a different "dialect / language" would very likely produce the same "sound" when run through only 12 electrodes... The differences are small, but Lotte has no problem reproducing them... (Reminds me when she repeated the word "Aubergine" perfectly...)

Anyway... To all those out there that are inpatient... (like we still are), and who look at their children when they play with children their own age and compare them... (like we do), I would just like to say that with CI, we put our children on the same road as the hearing children. They will follow the same road, and they will have the same milestones as the rest... but still, they got on the road a little later... with a different vehicle.

And the milestones... they are not fixed. For every child - deaf or hearing - they are at different places... but they will all meet them.... and they will meet them all.

The difficult part is... being patient..