Hubby

to my little boys' daddy. who is very good daddy, indeed.

And to my Dad. who I love very much.

Two weeks after Marlowe's birthday, we celebrated our eighth anniversary. This past Monday.
It's been four years since we've moved to Philly. Going out for our anniversary was one of the first things we did when we got here. I was hugely pregnant. Four years later, half of marriage later, we have two kids.

We've come so far, by the grace of God.

For our anniversary, we went out with NO kids! Sometimes it's less stress to just bring Marlowe. Now it's getting to be the other way. So we just don't go out without our kids or we just stay home (besides, we kind of like them). But you can't go see movies with them (at least not all movies). So Grammy and Poppy obliged. Even put them to bed for us! Yay!

We went to see the new Star Trek movie, which we LOVED! Despite any flaws. It was so fun! I think the last movie I saw in a theater was Ratatouille. Hmm. (Almost two years ago.) In fact, we go to movies so seldomly, that ticket prices are always raised every time we go. We did NOT want to go home after the movie, so we grabbed some ice cream at Friendly's. But then we got the call that Marlowe was on the war path for mommy, so home we went. We had so much fun, though!!

Well, Jeannette was in Lancaster to relax. I was there to work. Ellis went off with Nick so that I could hang shelves unencumbered. Of course, I wasn't finished before E returned, so he ended up helping me with the last stages of the work. He actually was quite good with the drill. I held it and he pulled the trigger. He got the low screws and I got the high ones.

At some point, though, E wandered off from the work area, to return some moments later with a newspaper. I looked down into his beaming face and took the paper to see what he was so excited about. He reached up, and jammed his finger into the picture of the fireworks that accompanied the front page story about last night's festivities. With wide eyes and an ear-to-ear smile, he nodded and signed \.

Man, my heart just about blowed up.

This morning, E and I were out the door bright and early for my weekly midwife appointment. All is well. We're just waiting. I measured 35 cm, which is a nice size. I asked if she thought he was engaged (in the pelvis) yet, but she said she didn't expect him to be until after I started labor, he was sitting nicely in the dip, though. But I could've told you that. He's been hanging out there for a long time.

Since I'm GBS positive, they want me there early on to get my doses of antibiotics. And since my first labor was, as she described it, efficient (5 hours of active labor, with a little help from Pit), my second labor will likely be even more "efficient." So "your bags are packed, right?"

She also said something that was music to a pregnant woman's ears: just rest as much as you possibly can. She did not say that I would go into labor tomorrow. She did not say that I would go into labor at 40 weeks. She did say that we're just waiting for the baby to be ready. And was very chipper about it. I did not cry after my appointment.

Afterwards, E and I went to Park Day and met up with our buddies. Maddie is moving soon. Boohoo. I found them in the tunnel playing. Maddie said they were watching TV. E was just kicking the sides. Funny to see the difference between girl and boy right there.

I stayed at the park for three hours with E. It took him about two minutes to fall asleep tonight.

C started a new job. Yea, as if two weren't enough. Fortunately he can do some of it from home, but sometimes needs to go to the office, about a 35-45 min drive from our house. We have one car. Hopefully, with this job we can buy another. C is basically a self-taught computer geek. He's basking in the fact that with his most recent two jobs he's getting paid to work on the computer. It's nice to see him enjoy his work and use his skills.

Yet another rare appearance by Dad!

Ever see Das Boot, or Crimson Tide? The Hunt for Red October doesn't count, because it doesn't really convey the reality of daily life on a submarine. It's excruciatingly boring, characterized by much olfactory discomfort, governed by very strict rules of economy, and only occasionally interrupted by periods of spine crushing intensity.

Which is to say that after a nice vacation from being hot under the collar about Deaf stuff I'm back in the game. Jeannette cajoled me into attending a CI parent forum at CHOP, yesterday. I thought it would be nice to show up to something with her, for once, and I'm glad I did.*

Last year's forum was dominated by the Orals, but this year's was different. There was only one or two of 'them' to three of 'us' on the panel. And I know there were some quality people in the audience besides, so that's at least a pretty good balance-- even slightly in our favor.

There was something that bothered me, though. We call ourselves bilingual/bicultural. That means that we are committed to bringing Ellis up to 'know he is deaf.' That's why ASL remains so important to us.

But I'm worried when I hear other bi/bi families say that their child is backing off of ASL now that they are implanted. And something doesn't feel right when they say things like this:

"We want to hold on to ASL because we want our child to be able to have friends that are deaf."

"We think it's important to recognize that even though our child can hear some things, she still is deaf, and there will be times when she isn't wearing the CI when we still need to communicate."

On the surface, comments like these are right on. They indicate that the family is not the sort who fears diversity. They aren't afraid of the challenge of learning a completely different way of communicating. They accept their child's deafness, and don't think of it as a problem to be fixed.

So what's wrong with this? Well, this is the way I put it to Jeannette after the forum. When a child is implanted, the parents immediately get to work teaching the child to listen and speak. It isn't a natural skill, so it has to be practiced. All the time. Parents are under enormous pressure to KEEP THAT CI ON. All the time. Parents at these forums talk about their strategies for doing this, and talk about whether or not it's 'OK' to let the kid have down time without the device. They talk about how sometimes their child chooses to sign something, even though they know how to say it. So they refuse to acknowledge the attempt at communication unless it's verbalized.

There is a tension, because on the one hand, he does need to wear it a lot to get the benefit from it, and he does need to be encouraged to use his new skill of speaking because, like any skill, it takes practice.

But on the other hand, why does he have to have it on all the time? Is it only OK to 'let' him take it off when he's exhausted after a day of listening?

There just seems to be an imbalance here. We talk about 'letting' him take it off. Why should having it on be the default, while having it off is the exception? Why are we not as creative and proactive about getting him to practice his signing as we are about getting him to speak?

Jeannette already mentioned that Ellis took off his CI for a couple of hours the other day, because he wanted to enjoy wearing his hat without worrying about the magnet. Fine. I have no problem with him taking it off for a midday break or after speech therapy. Our whole evening routine, from bath to bed (including story time) is done sans CI. Listening is hard work, and he gets tired!

I think that what bothers me is that the arguments given for keeping ASL around after implantation almost always are exlusively pragmatic. It's something families felt forced into initially, because it was the only or best option before their kid was implanted. And they continue to think that it's a good idea to 'have' sign, but when the implant comes along they fully intend to make speech the default mode. They want their child to be able to switch from the hearing world into the deaf world, not the other way around. I think that's an important difference.

So for us ASL was not only a pragmatic choice but an ethical one. We want him to be Deaf, and we want sign to be his language. We also want him to have every advantage as he navigates the majority hearing culture. And it becomes really difficult to figure out how to manage this in daily language interactions with our 2 1/2 yo. It's important to us that he continues to grow in sign, to use proper ASL grammar, and to give to it all the seriousness we would any other language. But at the same time, give him all the benefit and training to use his CI to the best of his ability.

I really have no idea what this looks like. I probably don't have a clue what I'm talking about. Just so many thoughts in my head at the moment.

* To his credit, hubby works 60+ hours a week. I end up doing things alone, because he's working so hard for us. Didn't want him to give you the wrong idea. ;-)

here's another post about The Husband. (See, I'm blogging twice about you.)

For over a year, we've been a one car fam. It's worked out pretty well. Every once in awhile there's a little glitch, but mostly it's fine. I'm kind of proud of the fact. But it does leave you desperate quickly if something should happen to one car, and though we do have access to public transportation, it's not quite as convenient as it would be if we lived more in the city.

Our van is a great. It was a gift to us, so that's always been fantastic. And really, for being as old as it is, with the mileage it has, it's given us very, very little trouble. Today, though, it had a brush with death. We were very close to total van disaster.

C was driving Ellis to school, and it started overheating. He pulled off right away, before the engine could die. If it had been me, I probably would've kept going and called him with "should smoke be pouring out of the hood? oops! I didn't mean to kill the car." Thankfully, he was driving. Our kind friend rescued him (another downer to having one car) and got E to school.

C then got new hoses and coolant fluid and fixed the car. It seems to be okay. We'll see how it does over the next few days. He's optimistic. I'm thoroughly impressed that for $50 at Autozone he fixed the car...a car THIS close to Very Expensive Utter Disaster. He may not be able to identify a Canada Goose, but he can replace a very important hose under the hood of our car.

in honor of hubby, who complained today that I never blogged about him. sheesh, thought I was doing him a favor. haha

Scene: yesterday driving around.

C: There were these gigantic ducks in our yard today!
Me: Are you sure they weren't geese?
C: No, they were ducks.
Me: Are you sure? There's a whole flock of Canada geese in the marsh across the road, and sometimes they come over into the yard.
C: Aren't geese white?
Me: Uh, not Canada geese. Are you SURE they weren't geese? Were they Canada geese?
C: What do they look like?
Me: Are you kidding me?!!? Did they have a long black neck with a white marking on the chin?
C: I don't know.
Me: Did they look like that? pointing to a small group of Canada geese--one need not look far in SE Pennsylvania in the winter for Canada geese--but C didn't see what I was pointing to
C: hmm. Maybe they were geese. I don't know. Anyway, there were geese in our yard today, and I almost called you to get Ellis to see, because he would've loved it. But I couldn't find my phone.

Me: laughing harder and harder
C: Are you going to blog about this?

I love Val Day. I think it's fun. I love the homemade valentines, cookies (because usually I never got around to decorating C'mas cookies, so it's my time to redeem myself), and a yummy dinner with hubby. We don't make a big, expensive holiday. But I like the opportunity to do something a little extra special. We actually ended up celebrating the day after this year, because it was more convenient.

We had some little kids over yesterday for a little Valentine's party.

I laid out crayons, paper, glue, and glitter glue, and they made valentines for their mommies. Some kids needed a little more help than others. But the craft went well, and made me really happy.

I cut out PB&J hearts for lunch for the kids. And after the moms ate (no hearts for us: with 3 pregnant and 1 nursing mom, we were just concerned about FOOD), they decorated a few cookies. for Ellis the cookie merely served as a platter from which to eat frosting.

In the evening for our Valentine's Dinner, I tried to recreate our favorite meal from our favorite Lebanese restaurant in New Orleans. It's simple and dippy. But I don't have a lot of experience with Mediterranean cooking, so I had to look around a bit and consult with a friend for what to do. It turned out pretty near perfect. Trader Joe's helped a lot, too. I got the hummus, baba ganoush, and tzatiki sauce from there, and a preseasoned, boneless leg of lamb. For the lamb, I didn't do a real kebab on a spit. I cut it up into cubes, pan-seared the chunks with red onion and then baked it for a little with tomatoes. And then stirred in a yogurt-tahini sauce. SO GOOD!!!! And so tender! We ate everything with pitas "al fresco" (in the living room). Pretty much perfect. Afterwards we watched Paris, Je t'aime. So everything went as planned and was a lot of fun. I love dippy meals. We're going to have to do this more often.

This week has not been in a shining point in my career of motherhood. My 2 1/2yo is developing a particular kind of relationship with stores that doesn't enable typical adult shopping. I'm either going to never take him shopping again, or strap him to my person next time there's something we absolutely need.

Hubby's schedule has changed gloriously. We now have evenings together. He works early in the morning at his first job and then comes home for the rest of the day for his new work at home job. He has a little spot sequestered from the rest of the apartment where he goes to work at his computer. It's nice that it's not far. He shares his computer programming delights and woes over lunch, and I just smile and nod, barely understanding as foreign computer words fly by me. He's home in the evenings. We've eaten dinner together as a family every night. This has been a rare occurrence until now. I've actually planned menus for the week. This is my third week in a row. You don't know what a miracle this is. Since I got pregnant frozen pizza was pretty awesome there for quite awhile. I go shopping at Trader Joe's while E is in school. I feel like leaping from aisle to aisle singing a Broadway tune about how I'm out all by myself.

E really is very sweet. He's growing so fast and changing so much. I can't imagine what's going on in his head. I've had some interesting exchanges with him this week, language-wise, we might not have had a few weeks ago, in sign, speaking is much too rudimentary yet, whatever. I think he's grown 6 or 7 inches in the past 2-3 months. I'm packing away the 2T clothes. It seems unreal. It's hard to feel him out, where is he a big boy? where does he not understand yet? My brain is foggy, I can barely formulate what to do. Just stop a minute and let mommy think, here have a cookie. What? you won't eat cookies either? fine. Have a Swedish meatball.

And I'm pregnant and tired. I'm not one of those people who loves being pregnant. i've had a really bad attitude about it lately. I just want to hibernate, but I can't. My body hurts like it never did with E. I sleep less and in awkward positions thanks to my growing boy's occasional insomnia--which, for the most part, seems to be abating, only one night this week so far. I bought a prenatal yoga DVD. It arrived this week, and I did the stretches and relaxing practice last night, and it felt so good. Any exercise practice that closes with my lying down on a pillow is an A+ in my book.

Coffee and I are good friends again. There was a point when the first trimester estranged us a little and then we eyed each other suspiciously. I took tea out a couple of times, but in the end coffee and I made up. The other night I made C's coffee for him and set the timer so that he would wake up to fresh coffee. I didn't even notice the karafe wasn't there. (We have a truly awesome coffee maker) We woke up to a puddle of coffee on the floor. It wasn't a tragic mess or anything; one can't really cry over spilled coffee. Like I said, pregnancy and I just don't always get each other.