Saturday, April 29, 2006

The Week of "What?" 

Last week's virus on the tail of a long family flight has left us with a household of infected ears. Business as usual for me, really, since poorly constructed eustacian tubes run in my family (remind me to tell you about my brother and his re-cored soundhole sometime). And at just-one Cassia is too little to really be lost to a few days of lost audible cues.

But Willow has adapted to her loss of hearing by acting out more, as if an inability to hear us in active parent mode releases her to act out however the heck she feels. Ask her to do something and she smiles and yells "What?" Try and get her to stop pestering her sister and she reacts far too slow, as if the decoder that is her ear-brain connection is rather more delayed than simply stopped up.

To be fair, it probably does take her longer to process -- she's likely getting only bits and pieces of code, so it takes longer to rebuild meaning and react. But I'd like to think she would have adapted by now, and perhaps realized that she'll have to listen more carefully for a while. Instead, she's come undone, behaviorally, and spends much of her time in chairs. She seems to be taking advantage of that delay of translation, rather than simply suffering through it.

We are all frustrated and annoyed. I'd call a family conference, but it's hard to have a rational discussion when everyone's yelling at each other, and no one can hear you scream.

posted by boyhowdy | 7:19 PM |

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