When Turkeys Fly

The past few weeks many of my friends and family have felt like crazy turkeys. For us it has been frantically trying to fit in a day what should not be possible. Colin starting Kindergarten has been challenging because he is not use to the long hours and homework load...he has become quite the turkey. Peter's work schedule has been crazy, after all he works with a bunch of turkeys. Kendall has been shuffled around each day to a different turkey pin so to speak. I am driving Amelia down to speech school 4 days a week, which driving in Atlanta traffic makes you feel like you wont to cuss gobble, gobble. All of this ironically coincides with Thanksgiving upon us!!
On a more serious note, yesterday I sat down for an interview with Project Aspire. They are out of Chicago and are putting together this curriculum DVD to help parents of hard of hearing kids. Amelia was videotaped yesterday as well....superstar
here is link: http://surgery.uchicago.edu/researchers/dsuskind/
Two questions that I thought were worthy of repeating on Amelia's blog.
1. All parents have dreams for their kids. How did hearing your daughter's diagnosis change the way you thought about her future? My answer: In that moment when they told us it was like my perspective of Amelia changed instantly. It went from Amelia my baby to Amelia my deaf child who probably does not even hear me right now. Why do I even bother talking......how am I going to communicate with her? The best part of this story though is what the audiologist said, " You are leaving with the same child that you came in with." That statement was profound....it shifted everything out of the haze. I guess we could apply that to life in general. Through all the ups...the days that you feel like you could fly(even as a turkey:)) and all the downs....those days when you feel like you are being chased for dinner.. If you can still leave with the same soul you came in with everything will be alright.

2. Can you give me some examples of how you advocate for your child on a daily basis? The word advocate has come up in these past few weeks. Some of the moms at speech school are working on getting insurance companies to do what is morally right....pay for kids hearing aids. One of my friends is trying to get their kid some speech therapy and the system is catching her. Parents everyday have to act like turkeys in order to get what is best for their child. My answer: I use to wonder how parents of sick kids and disabled kids held it together. I get it now. You are so busy advocating for your child that you do not have time to break down. My advice is for parents to not be that rude parent but be the one that will call 100x till they get the answers they need. That is advocating and sometimes it is ok to act like a turkey:)

I have attached some pictures of Amelia's thanksgiving celebration at speech school in keeping with this post theme. Scarlett