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JOEL HAS QUIT THE BAND!
This actually happened last weekend, but it's only really sinking in now.
Here's how it went down:
Remember the "Day Without an Immigrant"? The day all the immigrants were supposed to not work, not shop, not drive, wear white (???!) and converge in massive demonstrations on all centers of government? Well, Joel was in New York state with the band on that day. They had four workshops to conduct at a school in a down-at-heel neighborhood.
That morning, between breakfast and arriving at the school, four members of the band declared that because of their profound political convictions they were not going to work that day. Apparently those political convictions only kicked in at the last moment, not days or weeks in advance when they could have rescheduled, renegotiated or otherwise handled it like professionals and adults.
Joel was one of the two remaining band members who felt it was wrong to a) suddenly walk off the job, b) deprive the underprivileged kids in their audience of a good show that day, c) repudiate their contract with the school and their agent, and d) travel hundreds of miles from their families to spend a day sitting around, making a statement by doing nothing.
Joel and R., his fellow objector, did the shows themselves.
I'm sure you can imagine the bad blood this split gave rise to in the band. But when a dispute about how to live out one's convictions devolved into a dispute about how much Joel and R. should be paid for doing the work of the whole band that day ... it just got more entrenched than ever.
Long story short, R. told Joel he was quitting (after 10 years in the band), and this gave Joel the nudge he needed to quit, too.
See, Joel had been thinking about it for a long time. And then, when (here's the next big news) he got fired from his music teaching job (effective end of August), the new job he was offered came with the stipulation that he could not miss so much work.
It seemed the Universe was doing my work for me!
Of course, since Joel and his bandmate defected together, they will now start ... a new band! (The band is dead! Long live the band!) It will of course feature Joel on drums and other percussion, and R. on, well, guitar, clarinet, saxophone, Mexican harp, accordion, fiddle... the list goes on and on. They are even pulling in another disgruntled former band member to join them. Add to that Joel's brother Jaime on bass and (I sincerely hope) the truly genius Alif Muhammad on piano, put them all together in our basement for a few hours on Saturday and what do you get?
El Machine Gun.
The name was my idea - finally my years of idly thinking up band names paid off. It's a Spanglish pun with connotations of cross-cultural humor and testosterone.
If you don't know what it means, spell it "el mas chingon" and ask an ADULT Spanish speaker what it means, preferably a male. If this person actually knows Spanish and isn't just trying to impress you with his or her high-school "Yo me llamo Patricio/a" crap, he (or she) will explain its meaning and how it relates to the name of the band. Ask a Mexican, because without all the immigrants coming into this country, how the hell would you ever find out why my husband's band's name is funny?
This morning I woke up and confronted the fact that I have two weeks to get that food sensitivity testing for Paula before she switches back to UIC and our only allergist option is that arrogant, condescending, patently unhelpful Dr. Park. Grrrr.
So I got on the horn with HomeFirst.
I explained the whole confusing situation to the receptionist on the other end of the phone. She listened while I unveiled before her the tangled mass of factors I'm dealing with: Paula has hearing loss, she has recurring ear infections, she has ear tubes that were supposed to treat middle-ear congestion. The middle-ear congestion prevented her from hearing well with her aids; it could be due to a food sensitivity. That's part A.
Part B: Food sensitivity testing (a.k.a. MSA testing) at HomeFirst is booked about six weeks in advance.
Part C: Paula has to switch back to the pediatric clinic at UIC so that she can more easily get referrals to see the Ear, Nose and Throat specialist, also known as the lovely and charming Dr. Robert Williamson, whom I will marry in an alternate dimension. What with all those ear infections and the possibility of removing the ear tubes, we need to have easy access to my boyfriend, Dr. Williamson. (Joel if you just read that, please understand I mean it totally tongue in cheek. And tongue in cheek in the least sexual way imaginable.) That switch back to UIC takes place in two weeks.
Part D - and this is the most important part - is that if Paula has to get the ear tubes taken out, but we can't find any way to prevent the middle-ear congestion from coming back, she won't be able to hear with her hearing aids at least part of the time, at most a lot of the time. This is BAD. In order for her speech to continue to develop, she needs to hear as much as possible. Period.
So here's what I said to the (still patiently listening) receptionist:
"My only recourse is to call and beg you to help me get Paula in for MSA testing before the end of May. I'm begging you, please, if anyone there can pull strings or move things around, please let me talk to them. This is so incredibly important and all I can do is beg for your help."
To which she replied,
"I have an opening for tomorrow."
I nearly cried.
I would have cried, actually, except just then I had to take a fat tan crayon out of Paula's hand and scrape all the little bits of chewed crayon off her tongue. Kind of ruined the moment for me.
Still, I'm thunderously grateful for the actions of the Great Being who makes life pretty much of a hassle most of the time, but sometimes amazingly good.
Paula is taking antibiotics (oral and ear drops) for her third ear infection in as many months. She's gotten used to the awful taste of the oral suspension, but still refuses to lie still on her side for five to ten minutes while the ear drops work their magic.
So every morning she still wakes up with honey-brown curls stuck together on one side with ear gunk. Charming.
She's also only wearing one hearing aid, which I think gives her a kind of asymmetrical, pirate-y charm. This means she can only ignore me if her left ear is facing me. Otherwise she can't hear me.
But her signing continues to pick up. She has now begun to say "I" sometimes, pointing to her chest. She draws it out like "eye." She also said and signed "mine" the other day. I know parents of hearing children quake in their boots when their toddlers first say "mine," but for us it was cause for rejoicing.
Because of the recurrent ear infections and the well-documented dental hazards of going to sleep drinking a bottle of milk, I've begun weaning Paula from the bottle for sleep. Last night was the third night of Project Bottlemouth, but she had actually fallen asleep without the bottle a few nights before that.
Of course when I say, "No more milk after brushing your teeth," it's different than if she just spontaneously settled down after finishing her bottle. I've had some protests, but it's been a surprising success.
The second night of weaning, Paula had drunk her bottle of milk, peed, brushed her teeth and gotten back into bed with me. When I refused to play around in the bed with her she got bored and started heading for the door. Nope, I said, and hauled her back: it's time for bed.
"MILK!" she signed, saying "MO!"
"You can sleep without milk," I signed back to her.
"MO!"
"You can sleep without milk."
etc.
Until I repeated my verse and she pointed her index finger toward her chest.
"EYE."
I signed to her I CAN SLEEP WITHOUT MILK.
I CAN, she signed. I CAN. I CAN.
She laid her head on her pillow and closed her eyes. It took her a good 20 minutes of squirming, talking, signing lullabies (DAY SLOW, FAMILY GATHER, FUN, FRIEND, GOOD NIGHT) and getting comfortable, but she finally did it. I was so proud of that kid, I thought I might explode.
Another ear infection for Paula, more sleepless nights, more attitude from my dog - she even took a dump in the house after begging (successfully) to go out in the middle of the night. Thank goodness my parents are here.
This is my mantra these days.
I had been noticing the difference that a single thought made in my ability to handle potentially stressful situations, like spending four hours between 1 and 5 a.m. awake with an energetic toddler. I would bop along, doing just fine, just fine, no problem, tired but not cranky.
Then after say, two hours, I would look at the clock and see that it had been two hours and think, "This is freaking insane!" Then I would lose my temper and start yelling at Paula to go to sleep. I realize that being yelled at is not traditionally considered an effective sedative, but I did it anyway.
So now when I feel that urge to give in to negative thoughts, I just repeat this saying that Shawn quoted to me from Hamlet. And it helps.
Joel has been gone most of the time since a week ago today, and until Thursday I was on my own with Paula. But we had fun together, even in the middle of the night. I did have a bad hour on Tuesday after one of those major stretches of nocturnal wakefulness. But it only lasted an hour, the last hour before Paula finally went down for an afternoon nap. Other than that we've been doing, well, great.
Thursday my parents arrived (cue choir of angelic hosts). No sooner had they arrived but they got to entertaining Paula, washing my dishes, preparing dessert, and just generally being sweet and fun to be with. And for once in my life I've been able to view the way they compete for conversational supremacy not as a threat to my sense of self, but simply the passive-aggressive bickering of an old couple. I'm enjoying having them here and loving how Paula reads, plays and converses with them.
Today my dad and I will take Paula to visit the Children of Peace school, a Catholic school with a deaf and hard of hearing program. This morning after giving Paula a 5-a.m. bottle of hops tea, I laid next to her dreaming up high hopes for this school. They do something called "reverse mainstreaming," which means that they put hearing kids into the hearing-impaired classroom. This would provide Paula with peers who can model speech skills for her in a socially comfortable context where she can sign with everyone present. It provides a balance.
The school also has a Montessori pre-school that is not geared toward signers. If Paula spent some time there every week, it could challenge her oral skills while providing her with a curricular style that she would favor.
Most of all I'm hoping we will find a deaf and hoh pre-k population that comes into the program with significant language acquisition. Most of the students coming in to the public school hearing impaired pre-k program we're considering are just getting hearing aids and language exposure for the first time at age three. Aside from the tragedy of these children's formative years filled with silence and isolation, I don't like the idea that Paula would be the most language-skilled student in the class.
And I'm hoping our path won't cross the massive immigration demonstrations today. If things get hairy, what am I going to do - write on the side of my car, "IMMIGRANT IN-LAW"?
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