35 Decibels

Butters Helping Mom to Decide Which Baking Pan to Use

I have been feeling a little let down since Thursday night when the final episode of The Office aired.  At least I still have Dateline and The Dead Files on tap for Friday evenings along with my obligatory chocolate and glass of red wine mixed with a little port. 

Dateline has been focusing lately on women going berserk and killing their husbands.  Not that I am condoning this behavior, of course, but it's juicy stuff.  And if  you have never watched The Dead Files, you are in for a real treat.  This is Ghost Hunters on steroids.  Amy, the show's resident medium, who claims that she can see and talk to the dead, goes into haunted houses to see what these dead people are up to and why they are haunting the residents.  What I  love most  about this show is that Amy always discovers that the residents have the absolute worst ghosts possible.  I am talking angry, ticked off at everybody, grabbing people, shoving them down flights of stairs, and breaking and moving stuff around type of ghosts.  So at the end of the show, when Amy meets with the residents of the haunted house to discuss the goings-on, she always tells them that they have a real problem and that they need to bring in holy people to drive the evil spirits out (and here you are sitting there and watching this, thinking your worst nightmare was having to deal with termites).   During one episode where there were some particularly bad haints, Amy basically told the residents that the only solution was to tear down their entire house! Amy even calls in a sketch artist to draw these evil beings to show the residents what they have been living with.  And as you can imagine, these drawings look like they were created for an upcoming horror movie and the show's camera pans to the residents' looks of horror and disbelief.

So why am I starting out this post droning on and on about my favorite television shows?  This is my escape.  Granted, there are very few shows on t.v. that I can stomach, but after a day of running after a tiny, human hurricane, and talking and talking and talking, trying to get in as much language as I can for Butters, researching language activities, I like to sit down on the couch with my comforter and pj's and watch t.v.

But speaking of language, we had Butters' second hearing booth test Wednesday, and he is now testing around 35 db!  With just one ear!  Our audiologist thinks that we almost have him set on an ideal program for a while and we go back next month so that we can really tell if he needs any more adjustments.  Paperwork has been officially started for his next implant as well, so I think I feel better about that too.

I have basically been chasing Butters down to utilize "Teachable Moments" as they were referred to back during my teaching career, to try and get that valuable language across to Butters.  The only time this little guy is still is when he has collapsed from complete exhaustion in his crib.  You can't even capture his attention that long in the high chair either.  It's posing a real challenge, but I think he is getting there.  He sometimes imitates his "Learning to Listen" sounds, particularly the "Quack Quack" of his stuffed duck when we bring him out.  He is very interested in interacting with people which is also encouraging.  He likes for you to imitate sounds that he makes.

Another new development that has occurred within the last week and a half is that he has been pulling his hearing aid out a lot.  There has been some more teething, but during the days when the teething has subsided a bit, he will still pull it out within minutes of my inserting it into his ear.  I have brought it up to our audiologist and she suggests having him wear it at least for a while.  We are trying, but I am wondering if the hearing aid is causing him some confusion as he listens with his implant.