Primrose pushes forward

Continued from last week’s blog, which you can read here.

From March until I would say October, Primrose was still only saying ‘Ma’, ‘Momma’ and little else, other than those ear rattling screams that I’m sure made the windows screech in pain as well.

Whether it was coincidence, or just natural development, I personally believe the latter, Primrose began to kick on again once she was back in playschool. ‘Bla’, ‘gaa’ and ‘eehh’ were added to the rostrum of random sounds and she was now certainly saying ‘Ma’ at her mother. Maybe even the ‘Mommar’ was starting to be aimed at her grandmothers too? ‘Dad’ was barely used at all, being the Mummy's girl that my delightful protégé is. I’m sure this will change in time though... here’s hoping!   

Our audiologist appointments were still being done remotely and any subtle mapping changes were made over the internet. At this point there was no comment on Primrose’s development other than we needed to get her ‘ears,’ on her head more. Our average cochlear implant time for this first year has been around five and half hours. If you can get your toddlers to do any more than that then I salute you! Either that or your using gorilla glue to hold them on, because I swear I’ve spent a full week of the year putting them back on. On the other hand, if your child wears them less just keep trying and trying and trying and… you get the picture. Because that is all we can do, try.  So as long as you know you’re trying, make sure you give yourself a pat on the back. Life isn’t easy, being a parent is hard, and teaching a deaf child to speak is complex. So make sure you treat yourself to some self-love.

To throw another spanner in the works, Mummy and Daddy decided Primrose needed a baby brother to complete the family! This did upset the applecart somewhat with Primrose now that she was no longer the centre of attention and had to share her spot as the centre of our universe. For about a month she kind of shut up shop on us again, screaming more, signing more, and speaking less. It wasn’t until November, that we started to see her continue to push her boundaries. It’s worth highlighting that if you have a deaf baby, and are adding to the family, there might be some push backs from your first born. Regardless of being deaf though, I am sure this is quite common with every child that has sibling thrown at them within a close age bracket.  

We threw Primrose a first ‘hearing party’ in December, where she was presented with a beautiful doll that has her own cochlear implants which we ordered from Special Friends. She also had a unicorn cake and we sang ‘happy hearing’ day to her. To which Primrose slapped her palms together to sign ‘happy,’ and join in. I didn’t even know she knew that sign! What’s more she must have known we were singing the tune to ‘Happy Birthday’, otherwise how would she have known to sign it? For me, that was not only a proud moment, but one where I realised, something was really happening. In my gut I felt her development was about to accelerate, and it did.

It was as if something clicked overnight and ever since that day, Primrose seems to evolve every time she wakes up in the morning. Her favourite word at the moment is ‘that.’

“That. That. That. That.” She’s saying ‘Dad’ and ‘Daddy’ a lot more and ‘dog dog’ is back in the mix too. Then there’s the babbling, where she has full on conversations using different sounds in the place of different words. Again, this varied experimentation highlights that she’s learning, listening and trying. We’re sure Primrose has also started saying ‘Nay-Dean’ (her mum’s name). Although this is hilarious we do remind her its ‘Mummy’ and not ‘Nadine’! It’s taken 12 months, but finally, all the effort and pushing on that great big silent boulder that was in front of us was worth it and we have some momentum. It’s now rolling and, touch wood, there should be no stopping it.

That’s not to say there won’t be times where she plateaus and accelerates. It’s all just a part of natural development and progression and it’s the same process we all go through when learning, deaf or not.

So, that brings you up to date, with where we are. Outside of speech and hearing, Primrose still has balance issues. We’re never more than an hour or a few feet from a stumble, but she can now run, jump and climb (more goat than girl in truth) and do silly walks, (courtesy of yours truly.) She’s still signing but her Mum is signing less when her cochlears are on to try and encourage speech. I still sign because I think that the association between signs and words will help to draw the actual sound out of her if it’s a word she doesn’t know. Again there’s no right or wrong answer, it’s for us as parents to work out what’s best for our children. After all, no one knows our own better than us.

I want to round by reminiscing on a call from the audiologists, where we were told Primrose was behind, once again. That call came a week after the ‘happy’ signing epiphany. We were told she wasn’t wearing her ‘ears’ enough and that’s having a detrimental effect, which I completely agree with. As I said before, it’s almost impossible to keep hearing aids/cochlears/hats anything on  a toddler who doesn’t want something on their head!

When were given this news and my partner called me at work. I knew immediately how devastated Nadine would be and that she would be beating herself up and, in her head, blaming herself, because that’s what we, as parents, do.

However I didn’t, not this time, and I just want to explain why. The reason the signing along to ‘happy hearing,’ was so poignant to me was because it said to me that our daughter is listening, but more importantly, it highlighted her expanding awareness. Awareness that signified that she was no longer a little baby meandering through a world where there was no distinction between dreams and reality. No difference between happy and sad.

I’m not saying she understands these concepts, but what she can grasp, is that this world, can be interacted with. That she can move through it and do things that she likes, which make her happy and smile. One of the things that she’s understanding now, is that she likes sound. She likes to hear.

It might have taken 12 months for her to make the association that she likes being able to hear and it might have taken her 32 months for her to understand that. But that’s why, even though we got that call to say she was behind, I knew it wouldn’t be long before our little flower kicked on. A few days ago we had a call from the lady who assess her speech… she was happy with her development!

Keep persevering, keep believing, don’t put too much pressure on yourselves. They’re babies and we all develop at our own pace. Just keep an eye out for the little wins and know what they look, feel and sound like. Take the reward from them as personal trophies!       

You can read the first part of Joseph’s blog here.