Her Ears are on My Heart

I thought it was funny (and developmental) when Meric couldn't figure out to look "up" to find me at the top of the stairs. I also thought she was sort of funny when she would blurt out a phrase REALLY loud every now and then--especially in the car. But when Meric had difficulty locating me on the same floor of our house, that raised my suspicions and because she's now three, I know it's not "developmental". She didn't start talking as early as I thought she would. BUT, she has an older brother who can talk for her and she's a second child and the kids in her daycare class (many) speak English as a second language. I was told over and over not to worry. But I worried. Meric runs with her head down and falls easily. Almost once a week I get a call from the daycare that she has fallen or run into something and knocked a goober knot on her head. At her well child visit I talked with the pediatrician about my concerns. She said, too, not to worry. But I worried. We enrolled Meric in soccer which has been a godsend. She's a young three and our expectations are not high. But I began to notice things at games and practices...the coaches give an instruction and all the kids get up and leave. Meric stays on her ball. They repeat the instruction making eye contact and she follows their directions. When the coaches physically show her what to do, she's eager, but until then she's clueless. When they throw her ball out on the field for her to dribble back, she gets lost. When they call her name, she can't find them. That's was enough for me. I got her an appointment with an audiologist. Meric sat in my lap in the sound booth with her "helmet" (headphones) on and I could hear the doctor getting louder and louder, "Meric, what color are your shoes?" Nothing. "Meric, can you tell me what color your shoes are?" When the sound was so loud I could hear it plainly, Meric turned to me and said, "Lali, I not hear it." My stomach knotted as it was confirmed on Friday that Meric has almost total hearing loss in her left ear. I'm still in shock. I know more about hearing loss now than I ever thought I would need to know. But here's the thing...I show up Saturday to tell Meric's soccer coaches that Meric won't be able to find their voices and that I need them to look out for my little girl only to learn that three of the five coaches teach soccer at the local school for the deaf and they have already instructed the other coaches on how best to deal with her. What are the chances?! They made me feel like my little girl was going to be just fine...and she is. She is absolutely perfect. I placed a bright barrette in her hair over her good ear so that it's easier for her coaches to know which direction to talk to her. We've swapped sides of the car that the kids sit on so that her good ear is inside the car and not towards the window so she can be included in our conversations. I will be her advocate forever and I will never yell at her again when she can't find me in the house. I have held her more in the past two days than I have in a long time. I do not want her to feel sorry for herself, but until we have more answers, I am so sad for her. We are so lucky to have detected this early and that she has one perfectly good hearing ear.

Dying, Hiding, and Finding Eggs

Fishing!

Rethinking My Passion

I am an educator. I am very proud of being an educator. I come from a long line of public educators and I work hard to deliver instruction to students that is a cut above anything else they have ever received or will receive. In my current position I have revamped the technology curriculum at the elementary school where I teach. Instead of doing what every other school in our district does in the computer lab--electronic worksheets, essentially--I created a curriculum that starts with PreK students learning to alter text color, backgrounds, and inserting clip art to 5th grade students who powerfully blog about what they read and create multi-media projects on a whim. The school I teach in is AWESOME! It's a foreign language magnet school with a literacy curriculum that draws national attention (no lie) and a math curriculum that is being modeled across the district. It's the cleanest school I've ever been in and lately I've been in MANY. Why? Because my son is going to start Kindergarten in the fall and I have to get him into a good school. Here's the problem, he didn't get into the school where I work. He didn't get into our second choice, either. He's zoned to attend a school where he would be the only white kid. A school where we saw a drug dealer in the parking lot just today when driving around. That school is 2.2 miles from our house. Up the street is another wonderful school that has awesome parent support and is actually only .8 of a mile from our house. On a nice weather day, we could walk to school. We're not zoned for that school and I've been told they have only 1 student opening for a 3rd grader. Our third option is another magnet school. It's about 20 miles from my house. I can't get him to school on time and be at work on time myself. I've been told to put him on a bus. The neighborhood in which this magnet school is located is sketchy. In fact, I'd be concerned about PTA presentations in the evenings, even.

How am I supposed to go to my job day in and day out, pour my soul into my passion of educating kids, giving them the BEST education they can get in the district, yet my kids don't get the benefit? I have to send them to something less than that and be okay with that! I am furious. I cannot afford private education. I'm not about to send my kid to a parochial school and I'm at my wit's end. How do I look at my sweet boy each morning, drop him off at school and say, see ya after I finish teaching at my great school that you're being denied entrance because your name didn't come up in the lottery. I love you!

Here's my question. On the magnet school waiting list, we're #18 for our first choice and #40 for our second. Siblings get preference. If you have an older sibling already in the school, then younger siblings go higher on the wait list. How is having a sibling at the school any different from having a parent working at the school? And when my kids can't get in, how am I supposed to remain loyal to my job?

Fun at the Park

We should have taken pictures yesterday since we got out to play and the weather was so AWESOME! They're calling for a wintery mix on Saturday. What's that all about? Here are a few images from one of our recent visits to a favorite park.

Bikes!

Both kids got bikes for Christmas--Santa brought Breck a great orange bike that matches his dragon helmet and My Carolyn and Papa John got Meric a Big Wheel. To say they love their bikes is an understatement. Over the break we have gone on at least one bike ride each day and sometimes two. It's pretty cute!

No Nap for Meric

National Boards are getting the best of me right now. It doesn't help that it is requiring 2 hours of my time each night to get Meric to bed...well, not to bed, but asleep. In an effort to recover National Board working time and not to lose it on a 2 year old, I've decided to alter my schedule to accommodate us both. If I'll just go ahead and go to bed when Meric does, then I won't be angry with her for preventing me from getting my work done. Plus, I'll have gone to bed early enough that I can get up at 4:00am and work for a couple of hours before kicking in gear to go to work.

I tried it this morning and it went just fine. I drank a pot of coffee and reread the standards (about 70 pages) for Entry 3. The kids were on the perfect schedule to get their naps on time and I was planning to work again through nap time. That was, until Meric entered the office, dropped a lap board from the chair onto my open laptop and busted the keys off.

Bridget the Awesome Great was calm and collected and continued to remind me, as I freaked out and cried, that I do have options. We have our desktop computer and I haven't lost any of my work. As the kids crawled into beds for nap, I got ready to work again...only no nap for Meric. What is up with this kid not sleeping? Is it developmental or is it intentional to drive me crazy!?