Wanting to Hear

First thing first, here is Jenny's sand mermaid pose.  I didn't for some reason download all the pictures off the camera.

One week ago we celebrated America's birthday.  I had worked and then after work, I picked up Erin and we headed over to Dave's parents place for summer before going to fireworks, I could tell she was a little edgy and figured it was because she had seen Dave a lot over the weekend (I was there everytime).  She was giving me a lot of attitude, the dirty expressions and so forth.  When we arrived to the parklot of the fireworks, Erin really acted up and I wasn't feeling good (woke up with a bad head cold), so I lost my patience with her and  took the bait and picked a fight with Erin.  She basically told me that the looks and acts were suppose to be directed at dad and not at me.  She then refuse to walk with us through the park to the otherside, so I told the family to go ahead, Erin and I exchanged some more words, I told her that it made me mad, sad about the way she treats her dad, and she basically told me that she didn't care.  So I turned and walked away from her.  I kept hoping she was following me, but I didn't want to give in and satisfy her and look.  So I got to where the family was sitting.  After about 5 minutes some more of the family members showed up and said that Erin was just sitting at a bench there, another 5 minutes another family member along with one of Erin's favorite cousins on Dave's said of the family showed up.  She had asked Erin to come with her and she refused.  I went looking for her and found her, she continue to refuse to walk, so I grabbed her arms and made her walk, she pulled away and I just grabbed her arm again, which made her very mad at me and I told her that she refusing to walk and I am not leaving her there, so left the choice to her.  She finally started to walk.  Once we got to the rest of the family, I made her sit away from us and told her that until she can act respectable and nice, she was stuck there.  After about 15 minutes, she called me over and we had about an 50 minute talk, she was very calm, she apoligized and then turned the subject to hearing.  She asked a lot of questions about my hearing loss (which without hearing aides isn't that much better then hers), my families hearing loss and hers.  I praised her about how well she did last fall when she had hearing aides for two weeks, we talked about how she started to talk a little bit and so forth.  I reassured her that she can stay at MDS even if she starts to wear hearing aides and talked.  I explained that it could benefit her, that she would be able to communicate better with hearing people if she needed to.  She explained that she is fustrated with some of the learning struggles that she has and she also talked about being fustrated last fall with the hearing aides.  I explained to her again that her brain is still learning and needs to learn what each sound is and noise it.  We talked about it some more and told her that when she is down with her two weeks of summer school in Fairbult and she still wanted to try wearing hearing aides some and learn to talk we can arrange speech therapy.  I stressed to her about not wearing the hearing aides all the time.  She told me that her voice sounds funny and I said not to us, but that again your brain is hearing something new.  She was in a lot better mood after that.  When we got home from the fireworks at close to 11, I had to work 16 hours on Tuesday, I was getting ready for bed, when Erin came into my room and asked for her hearing aides.  Only one works right now (I think she broke the other one last fall when we were having one of our bad moments), then she wanted me to say some words.  My voice wasn't very good sounding due to the cold, but I did say "mom", "Erin" and Hi, she was able to repeat back to me fairly clearly.  When I dropped her off at Fairbult on Sunday, she asked me again if she can learn to talk and hear and I told her that if that is what you want, then I will arrange it.  I am not sure what brought this on as we haven't encouraged it since she made the decision last fall.  She does ask us what a certain noise is when she hears something (without the hearing aides).  She has some cousins and friends that go to the deaf school who aren't completed deaf, they can hear well enough to carry on simple conversations and they can hear music and understand it.  I do believe Erin wants to understand Music.  On Tuesday, she wore the hearing aides all day and said she heard so many things, but didn't know what it was.  I explained to her when I got home again about not wearing it all the time.  So in a couple of weeks, we will start her with a speech therapist and see how it goes.  Please keep erin in your prayers as She is very busy from now until school and that she will find her peace with the hearing aides.