Big steps for a little boy

A while ago I told you a story that, I think, displayed the first signs of Will not only hearing and listening but understanding. Well, that turned out to be just one of a few that have occurred over the past few weeks. Hurrah!

The first is a similar story to the last, one of listening and understanding. Will is really into pretending to cook, both me and his Dad love to cook and do cook a lot so it's no surprise he thinks of it as a fun thing to do. So rather than any of his toys, his present favourite thing to play with is anything out of the kitchen. Pots, pans, utensils, cake tins, tupperware.

Our coffee tables look like this...

Because of our delightful, inquisitive son, we do not keep anything in them and recently Will has taken to pretending they are his very own little oven. So unbelievably cute. I love watching him taking things in and out of it and watching his mind working overtime.

The other day he was carrying a two handled pan with just one hand and because of the angle he was holding it at, it wouldn't fit into the gap. From a distance away, I called his name and said to him 'use two hands, hold it with two hands'. We try and sign alongside speech at all times but I couldn't think of a gesture to accompany this so I just continued to repeat the words. It only took about three times before he did it. He looked at me, looked back, used two hands and sure enough got the pan in the 'oven'. So. Very. Proud. 

The other steps forward are wanted to share with you are particularly exciting - SPEECH!!!

Over the past couple of weeks Will has begun to mimic sounds. When he waves bye bye it is now accompanied by a heartwarming 'buh buh'. When playing on the train in the playground and a friend of ours said 'choo choo', William repeated 'wooo wooo'. And then this week when we were playing with rubber ducks and making them quack he said 'ack ack'.

I cannot tell you how excited and proud all of this makes me. Wearing the hearing aids is making such a difference at such a fast rate. I am so very pleased with him and his progress and I have even turned my own little corner. I am, for the first time, much happier when Will has his hearing aids in and want him to wear them. There is such a distinct difference in his behaviour and mood, making it obvious that they are quite blatantly the best thing for him. And what's best for him is best for me and best for us.

A corner turned

I talked a while ago about how William has been refusing to wear his hearing aids. I think he started pulling them out about 2 months ago and we haven't had them in for longer than about 3 seconds at a time since. We tried everything; being nice about it, being mean about it, being strict about it, bribery, treats, threats. Ev-ery-thing. And it always ended up in William crying and more often than not ended up in me losing my temper and crying and sometimes Shaun doing one or other or both of these too. So we gave up for a little while. Tried occasionally but more or less resigned ourselves to this period of 'self expression' and concentrated on signing (which has come along 3-fold over the summer so no time wasted).

And then today. Today was the day it all changed. Today Will wore his aids for 3 hours this morning and 4 hours this afternoon. Sure, he pulled them out every now and then but we put them back in and he continued about his business. No-one has cried. No-one has lost their temper. It's day one so I am anxious and patient and excited and nervous and very very pleased that even if tomorrow doesn't bring the same, today did. It feels like we have turned a corner.  

But the overwhelming emotion I have felt today is, surprisingly, sad. And it's taken me a while to figure out quite why. It started as soon as Will walked into the kitchen with his hearing aids in so that should have been my first clue. I am happy he is wearing them, of course. I am happy because he can now access more sound and speech. I am happy because he is no longer fighting us about it. I am happy because he is happy. But I just feel so so so sad that he has to wear hearing aids at all. I just can't shake it.

When we were in Cornwall for a week, we stayed with two other families. He didn't wear his aids and at no point did we tell any of them about Wills hearing impairment.

We spent this past weekend away with some old friends and some new ones. No hearing aids and no-one talked about his hearing.

When we were out today and he had his hearing aids in, I could see people looking at them and all I could think was 'what are they thinking about me?'.

I have talked to you before about the heavy weight of shame I carry around with me and I guess what I am trying to say now is I thought it might have moved on, lessened somewhat. Since writing this blog, I have felt a huge weight lifted from me. Talking, writing, processing has helped me sleep better at night and laugh more during the day. I thought I was feeling better.

But turns out, it wasn't the blog at all. It was just the lack of that brutal physical reminder that is the actual hearing aids. They were gone and so was my guilt. And now they are back and although I am very, very happy. I am also, once again, utterly distraught.

This guilt business is going to be harder to shift than I thought.