I've found the missing piece

We have a little time this morning to play at puzzles. I know the boys know these like the back of their hands, every train and horse and letter, but still, they enjoy them all the same. This is all in my nice new white still with orange hearts and circles over the walls office, which is now slowly becoming yet another playroom.

Here Reuben excitedly signs "horse". He's found the missing piece.

I'm in a reflective mood. Reuben is having his hearing test today. As it stands currently, he hears within a normal range aided, that is, by the band so often thought of as a pretty girl's hairband across his head, that which anchors the bone conducting aid. Determining the direction of sound is of course different because he hears not through his ears for the most part, but through his skull.

When Reuben was born, he was determined to be profoundly deaf, zero, nada, not a sausage, zilch and I recall the young resident Dr delivering such news with a smile on her face. Things got better on that front. When you're in intensive care, you fight for basic survival and such luxuries as communication are, by necessity, put on the back burner. I would conduct my own experiments and determined that he could hear and whilst then it was put down to vibrations, the mother's instinct cannot be beat.

Reuben is off with Jason for the test, doing much more to help this week prior to his leaving for China and Callum is beside me. I recall his last hearing test, battling a bouncing baby whilst trying to get Reuben to focus on the task in hand in a small, stuffy, studio booth with headphones on. Perhaps today's test will give us a better idea if he'll require FM equipment at pre-school to help him during class as the predominant language is English, yet Reuben does very well hearing in small settings. School is a 50:50 typical/kids with special needs and I love that about it.

"1, 2, 3, bird" he exclaims and sure enough, there are indeed 1, 2, 3 birds on the rooftop outside. I'm beside myself with excitement. We eat humous sandwiches naughtily in my office together and he picks up the letters scattered about him "I, P, O, R" reciting the phonetics from Leap Frog. What different paths to expressive communication they are taking: how I recall Reuben signing away all his numbers and letters way before he was 2 and now Callum, at the same age, starting to enjoy learning to say them, reciting his alphabet in speech. Before I couldn't understand why a child couldn't be taught such things from an early age but when you have athleticism on your side like Callum, it's just too hard to sit still for long enough. Learning comes oh so imperceptibly instead; it creeps up and then explodes beside me, just when I was wondering if he was digesting anything I tried to teach him at all.

Oh Callum!

Reuben words and phrases: "Mama's chair, Reuben's chair, Callum's chair"
Callum: "ayaday" (everyday)

PS I had a lovely evening catching up on the cruise Blips, linked from yesterday. It's quite therapeutic really, helps me recall the oft forgotten moments (or rather subsidises an ageing memory) and forces me to make some album or other from our trip. In this digital age, it's all too easy to neglect a physical, beautiful to hold album.

Just cruising!