Juliet Martinez

Wed, Dec 27 2006

Things I didn't know she understood ...

When Paula and I were at the Illinois School for the Deaf last summer, one of the elementary teachers there told us a little story.

She said that at least once a year her husband pops in and says hi to her while she's teaching. He says hi, she says hi, the kids say hi, he leaves. Then the kids ask her, "Is that your dad?"

"My dad?" She used to ask them back, totally puzzled. He doesn't look that much older than her.

"Yeah, your dad! Is that your dad?" The kids were pretty sure of themselves.

She told us she finally figured it out: a lot of the deaf kids don't learn early on about husbands and wives. They don't hear the doorbell, see mommy answer it and hear her tell someone, "My husband is not here right now." They don't hear the phone ring, hear Daddy pick up, then he says, "My wife is in the shower right now." So they don't triangulate, like hearing kids do, that the person Daddy is talking about must be Mommy.

The moral of this story, the teacher told us, was that it is important to actively teach our deaf and hard of hearing kids about these different roles. I thought this was a good idea, so Paula and I have had many of these kinds of conversations.

Paula points to the paper and says, "Mommy." I draw a crude self-portrait involving a circle, dots, a squiggle, a semicircle, bangs and a bob. I label it Mommy.

Paula points to the paper again and says, "Daddy." I draw a crude portrait of Joel involving a circle, dots, a squiggle, a semicircle, two bushy eyebrows, a soul patch and short hair. I label it Daddy.

Paula points again: "Woman."

"Yes," I tell her, trying to get out of drawing more circles, dots and squiggles, "Mommy is a woman."

"Man."

"Daddy is a man." Next to where it says Daddy, I write in Man.

"Daddy be a man," she says. Verb conjugation is not her thing right now.

"Yes, Daddy is a man and he's also Mommy's husband. Mommy is a woman and she's also Daddy's wife."

In one of the little language experience books I made for Paula about our friends and places we go, I spelled it out for each member of the family:

Aunt Amy is Uncle Jody's wife. She is also Elisabeth and Ben's mommy.

Uncle Jody is Aunt Amy's husband. He is also Elisabeth and Ben's daddy.

Elisabeth is Uncle Jody and Aunt Amy's daughter. She is also Ben's sister.

And so on.

Well, none of this has ever evoked any kind of response from Paula. Until this morning.

It all began around 2:37, give or take whatever I was hallucinating as I woke from a deep sleep and began coughing uncontrollably. I got up to take some codeine cough syrup and went back to bed. Ah, drugs.

The medicine stopped my coughing, but for some reason I was unable to go back to sleep and spent a long time lying there thinking about Ayyam-i-Ha, what kind of celebration I would like to have, and how to introduce Abdu'l-Baha into it without Paula thinking of Him as somehow equivalent to Santa Claus, what with the white beard and all.

At 5:30 I gathered my courage to look at the clock again and decided it was time to get up. I went to computer and turned it on. I searched for some images and put together a little six-page language experience book about Abdu'l-Baha. An hour later Paula woke up, came and found me, and I put the finishing touches on it as she drank her morning bottle while curled on my lap.

We moved to the glider to read it through.

The first page says,

Abdu'l-Baha was once a little child who loved His Father very, very much. His Father was Baha'u'llah.

I put a picture of Paula there as a newborn, asleep in Joel's arms. But all you can see is her sleeping face and his hand, looking positively massive, next to her head. It's a father and child image I'm going for.

The second page has this picture of a youthful Abdu'l-Baha. It reads,

Abdu'l-Baha became a young man. As he grew up he wanted to help and serve His Father.

When Paula looked at the photo of a Abdu'l-Baha, she said pointed to it and signed, "husband." Then she said it. "Husband."

I wasn't quite sure what to say. Yes, definitely possessing all the qualities one might desire in a spouse; yes, he was a husband in real life; not quite corporeal now, though ...

"He was a husband when He was alive," I said, not wanting to try explaining that she couldn't marry Abdu'l-Baha, and definitely not knowing if that's where she was headed. "Now He's a spirit and He loves you."

"Angel," she said, making the sign where you touch your shoulders, then mime little flapping wings coming out of them.

"Yes," I agreed, astonished. "Angel."

Posted at:Wed, Jan 17 2007 08:44:38 PM
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Fri, Dec 08 2006

Hard of Signing

Paula's Deaf Mentor Karen "Uber-Mom" Putz told me once that a classic sign of undiagnosed hearing loss in adults is that the person dominates the conversation all the time. It's a defense mechanism, see? If you know you're going to lose the thread if other people are talking, you do all the talking and at least then you know what the conversation is about. Until everyone else leaves, then you're just talking to yourself.

A few weeks ago at the Mom's Night Inn, I kept finding myself dominating conversations in the worst way. I would have launched headlong into some elaborate theory or story or recipe for meringues, and then realize that no one else had spoken for, um, five minutes or so. So I would stop myself and ask another of the moms present about her theory, story or recipe for meringues. But it kept happening.

I've been pondering this for the last few weeks. I don't think it has anything to do with my hearing. On the contrary, I think it has to do with my signing.

A number of Deaf moms attended this event, and I was excited to get to practice signing with adults who can a) use signs I don't know, b) explain them to me, and c) talk about things other than their owies. But when a mixed group assembled - some Deaf and some hearing - I think that subconsciously began to worry that if I let any of the other hearing moms (many of whom didn't sign) really participate, the Deaf moms would start to drift away. But if the Deaf moms started signing, many of the hearing moms would be lost. So there I was, trying to hog tie the group together.

Apparently my subconscious has a pretty high opinion of both my signing and my conversational brilliance, because the fact is that nobody goes to these events to listen to someone verbally lurch along in uneven tones while signing badly. But that's what some of them got!

Well, I'm too much a child of my parents (and a student of their free-spirited ways) to not realize when I'm making a gaffe. If I'm lucky, though, maybe some of the more shy or reticent moms at the sleep-over actually liked standing by while someone else blabs on and on. Maybe it will form a foundation for future friendship. Because while I might be hard of signing now, I'll likely be hard of hearing later.

Posted at:Wed, Jan 17 2007 08:44:38 PM
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Wed, Dec 06 2006

Not since I've been standing here in my new coat ...

It turns out Joel and I are getting our vacation together after all! It is simply taking place once I reached the lowest fertility of my cycle. It's good to know God is on board with our plan to postpone another pregnancy for a while longer.

Monday morning that dreaded/hoped-for call from Chicago Public Schools Sub Office did not come, so Joel proposed a lovely idea: "Honey," he said to me, "you need a new coat."

I protested that not only is this the most expensive time of year to shop for a new coat, but most importantly my fleece sweater plus alpaca jacket plus refugee shawl was keeping me moderately toasty most of the time. It's a little character flaw of mine: I don't know when to abandon a sinking ship.

But the prospect of Joel taking me shopping for something remotely beneficial to me lured me in and off we went to Marshalls. That's where we found me a nice pair of New Balance cross-trainers that Joel said I needed if I were going to pursue my weight loss goals. What a guy.

Coats at Marshalls? Not so much. So we grabbed an early lunch at Potbelly's, and an early malted oreo milk shake we shared for dessert. On the way out we tipped the excellent guitar player.

Walking to the car I began to struggle with my shawl, which is supposed to cover my back and shoulders and then wrap around in front and stay put as the outermost layer of my Body Heat Maintenance System. But a blast of subzero winds whipped the thing out behind me, prompting Joel to grouse, "When did you get a cape? I want a cape!"

"Very funny," I muttered as I caught the thing before it got blown out onto Lake Michigan (no, we were nowhere near the lake, but that was some strong wind). I flipped the end of the shawl across my chest and over my shoulder, but instead of landing in its assigned place, the wind carried the thing up over my face and head.

There, in full view of the Potbelly's lunch crowd, the shawl went into burqa mode. I clawed at the beastly wrap, but as I pulled it down the wool knit grabbed my fleece hat, dragging it forward, off my head and onto my face, then away with the wind. In a final and doomed attempt to salvage my dignity, I plucked the hat out of the air and hurried into the car. Mortified; absolutely mortified.

"Joel," I said as we fastened our seat belts, "I am now convinced that I need a new coat."

So I did get a new coat, at Burlington Coat Factory. It's a women's coat, beige and grey, with a removable fleece liner; it is warm, looks nice and in warmer weather I can wear the liner as a light jacket. Joel picked out for me a blue knit hat and a green, blue and grey knit scarf; he said the black fleece cap I chose and the dark grey scarf said "writer" in a way I probably wasn't going for.

Joel's mom tells this joke about a guy waiting for the train in the morning. He conspicuously adjusts his sweater, struts around in front of the other commuters, admires it himself with a dramatic flair. Finally someone asks him if the train has gone by yet. And he answers,

"Not since I've been standing here with my new sweater!"

Posted at:Wed, Jan 17 2007 08:44:38 PM
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Fri, Dec 01 2006

God's contraceptive method

Last week Joel was officially on vacation! He had to go to his part time jobs, but he was free during all the time he would normally have spent at his full-time job. Needless to say, he and I had spent a long time anticipating this week-long date, during which Paula would be at school and he and I would frolic wildly through the autumn leaves and/or drifting snow. My friends and I had giggled at how Joel and I might just cause a little pre-Christmas bump in the stock prices of contraceptive manufacturers.

Yes, we had all sorts of ideas about how we would pass the time; some of them were even G rated. Matinees, coffee shops, reading the paper, converting the futon couch to a bed, lying there all day watching On Demand movies and eating out of crumpled bags of Cheetos and Funyuns.

We would do this all day until it was time to go get Paula. Then we would rinse off the Cheetos crumbs, throw on our coats and prance out the door like fools who had never worked a day in our lives. It was a beautiful dream.

Sunday after Thanksgiving the anticipation was peaking. Joel couldn't wait, couldn't wait, couldn't wait for all the lazy fun to begin. I was a little worried about Paula's cough and how I could see all the veins through her skin.

Monday dawned a mild autumn day, a once-in-a-lifetime November day in the mid-60's, but before the sun lit the sky Paula was awake and coughing like a half-century smoker. Poor kid. I'll spare you the phlegmatic details, but at one point she ran a fever over 104 degrees. At another point she was unable to stay awake. There was coughing, vomiting, more coughing. Our fantasy week of part-time childless-ness turned into a haze of sleepless nights and trips to the North Side for homeopathic remedies.

By Wednesday Paula was well enough to go out, and we went to the library. That evening before bed I thought, "This remedy is working so well, I should give her some more before bed."

WRONG!

For the uninitiated, that is not how homeopathy works. If it's working well, DON'T REPEAT THE DOSE. When it stops working, that's when you give another dose. Well, we all have to learn one way or another.

So I gave her that dose and it made her worse. Worse enough that Thursday she had to stay home again.

Friday morning we got up early and disregarded a few little coughs. Paula was going to school! She was well enough, and Joel and I were good and ready for some time off.

This is where it became clear that this was not just an illness. It was an act of God.

Friday, as my local readers know, a nice big snowstorm blew into town. It dropped a good six inches onto Chicago, which isn't that much for Chicago, but it was enough for many of the Catholic schools to announce - you guessed it - a snow day.

Well.

I took matters into my own hands. I called my friend Marylu, whose kids were also home for the day, and asked her to take care of Paula for a few hours so Joel and I could hit a matinee. And that is why Friday, while people in the collar counties dug out from their foot of snow, Joel and I ate an early lunch at Panda Express before seeing Stranger than Fiction. Two other couples shared the theater with us, but I'm sure none of them appreciated the respite more than we did.

Tomorrow Joel begins his three weeks of Being Available for Subbing. We really need the extra money, but I'm kind of hoping they won't call him. Maybe we'll get some Cheetos and Funyuns in after all.

Posted at:Wed, Jan 17 2007 08:44:38 PM
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