Thoughts on hearing loss, sharing and the world we live in

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I have talked before about the hearing loss that my daughter suffers, and now we are waiting for her to be fitted with a hearing aid.  It’s a little tough on us parents, knowing that our 7 month old daughter has to have a hearing aid.  It’s not that hearing loss is uncommon, you just want your own children to be perfect in every way and when they are not (none are), at some level it’s disappointing.  But, we are certainly not disappointed in her, just the situation.  She has undergone many tests that she herself doesn’t really like, and then there is the constant worry on our part about the severity of her hearing loss.  She also has to get a CAT scan and an MRI, for which she has to be sedated.  That doesn’t thrill either my wife or myself.  The hearing aids they have now days are very small, and even come in decorative designs and colors.  That will come in handy when she gets a little older.

At this point, we (our doctors) can determine that it shouldn’t affect her speech.  She hears normally out of her right ear, but has mild to severe loss in her left ear, especially in the higher tones.  So that is a very big relief.  We certainly want her to be developing her language skills, and hearing is an integral part of that.

The neat thing about her is that she is a very happy, smiley baby girl.  She is also full of energy (she does not stop moving) and loves to snuggle.  Today, she had her first tooth break through, a lower right tooth.  She has been taking to eating solid foods very well in the past couple of weeks, and shows a lot of interest in what I’m eating!  The good news is that this has helped her sleep through the night better, (my wife and I are extremely thankful for that!) but the bad news is an increase in the number of diaper blow outs!  Fun stuff.

Our son, who turns 3 in July is an adorable little boy.  He comes up with new stuff to make us laugh and amaze us nearly every day.  His grasp of vocabulary and speech is very good, and he suprises us daily with  his understanding of  concepts and situations. 

We are still working on his sharing skills as he does not like his little sister to hold (or even touch) his blanket or toys.  And, of course, anything she has and is playing with becomes the object of his desires.  He is starting to really associate different things as being “his,” and that presents challenges when there are other people to consider too.  Learning to share is not easy for a 2 year old.

Our neighbors have a cat (Mick) and German Shepard dog (Asta) that he adores.  We play with them regularly and he really enjoys animals.  My wife and I are still not fully recovered from the loss of our whippet (Calvin) of 13 years last summer, so we are not ready for another animal just yet.  We would like to get another dog at some point, because we both love dogs and think there are many lessons children learn from being around them, growing up with them, caring for them and eventually losing them.  For now, the neighbors animals fill that role for us.

I was talking to a client the other day about how the world has changed, or at least our perception of the world has changed, since we were kids.  When we were young, we were outside playing with other kids from the time we got home from school until dinner, when it started getting dark.  We rode bikes, explored, played games and had very little (if any) adult supervision during large chunks of the day.  I remember riding bikes across town to video arcades and markets.  We would hang out at friends houses that were literally several miles from home, and our mode of transportation was walking or riding a bike (without a helmet).  I have a hard time thinking about letting my own children doing the same things these days.  There are so many more people, more traffic, more “bad guys” around, or at least that is how it seems.  Has the world really changed that much in 30 years, or is it just our perception of how things are?  Probably a little of both.

As our Dad of the Month from last month, Mark Schmeltzer, said, “you can’t teach your kids bey doing everything for them.”  As hard as it is to let go, parents need to let children do some lesson learning on their own.  Deciding what is reasonable, what is too permissive and what is overprotective can be difficult.  Nobody ever said parenting was easy. 

www.dadsworld.com wants to say a big “Thank You” to those parents who are involved and raising their children.  This site is devoted to promoting you, and encouraging others to take an active role in their children’s lives.  Pretty obvious idea, but apparantly not everyone.