Lost and Found

Jeffrey likes to talk. A lot. From the time he could talk he hasn't really ever stopped. He would giggle and coo as a little baby and make the obligatory sounds that are so irresistibly yummy. I could have listened to him all day, was there ever a more perfect baby? Even at 2 and 3 when his speech bore a striking resemblance to the Swedish Chef from the Muppet Show, a dialect that nobody understood but everybody found amusing, he was undeterred. I should qualify that last statement, everyone was amused but me. He was my first child, I didn't know any better, didn't have anyone else to compare him to. The Dr.'s assured me he would grow out of it, boys just aren't verbal as early, he'll be fine. Will he really? I wasn't so sure. Then Christmas season came along. Christmas shopping, ear infections, you know, the usual. And for us, usually a combination of the two. Jeffrey had 7 ear infections his first year. We were used to it. He was on his second set of tubes by age 3 and we both knew the drill well. In fact we had just left the pediactrician's office where he assured us that it was just a mild infection, an antibiotic wasn't even necessary. Less than an hour later we were next door at the mall doing our last minute shopping. Both boys were asleep in the stroller, how lucky could I get? And then he screamed. And that was the beginning of months of Dr. appointments and tests that led us to where we are today. His ear drum had ruptured. He sat up with blood and fluid streaming out of his ear. Horrifying, but not so abnormal, it happens to children all the time. Except that he couldn't hear for 6 months afterward. He literally had to hold my face in his hands so he could look right at my lips and attempt to understand what I was saying. At 3 years old. Again, the Dr.'s said he would be just fine. Screw them. We went to another Dr., and then another, and then another. He has some mild hearing loss, they said. Could be genetic, could be from all the ear infections, we're really not sure. Not sure? Whatever. We finally ended up at Primary Children's. Test after test told us in terms we would understand that he had about a 50% loss in each ear. Like trying to hear with ear plugs in and ear muffs on. Not tragic. It could be much worse. Hearing aids would help, blah, blah, etc. But because he had likely had it all his life he had missed out on much of his key development in speech and hearing as a baby and toddler. Which is why he spoke like the swedish chef, very tonal, up and down, which is what he can hear. We were lucky enough to live right down the street from the district school for early intervention in speech. He went there for pre-school the first year and a half we lived here. And they taught him how to talk. It was kind of a miraculous process really, to watch him develop, listen to him improve every day. A process I tend to take for granted these days. Especially when we are watching a movie and he can't stop asking questions and commenting on the actors and...you get the idea. But the fact that I can understand him, that he can hear the answers to his million questions, is really such a great thing. He is really a great thing.
I was reminded of that on Sunday. Sometimes Jeffrey's talking becomes problematic. Apparently it did during primary. He was asked to leave his class and then promptly disappeared. My friend Kristie came and told me that they had searched the entire building and he was missing. I was completely surprised, missing, really? That is so unlike him. I hit all the bathrooms, the janitors closet, the stage, nothing. Hmmm.... do I start to panic now? When? My mom circles the building again while I get in my car and follow the back route home, around the school, the playground. Somer follows the other route on her way home. One of us has to run into him, right? But what if we don't? Then where do we look? He likes to talk, to everyone, even strangers. crap. I am beginning to worry now. My mom has called my dad who left church early and we run into each other at the school. Seeing him panics me a little, no Jeffrey. Then his cell phone rings and it's my mom, she found him in the nursery with Paige, reading everyone stories. So typical. I am a little furious and a lot relieved. I get back to the church and talk to him. What happened? I was talking too much, he says. He is more concerned about returning to Paige who he is sure will be devastated without him there. I will not let him go back. He does not understand why I am upset. I try to convey my worry to him, how I was terrified for a full 20 minutes that my baby had somehow disappeared. I am not a baby, he says. You are my baby, and you are only 7, 7 is not old. And I guess that is it, 7 is not old enough to understand the way a mother feels about her child. The panic that sets in when that child is lost, even if it is only for a short time. He assures me that he was actually not lost at all, just not where I thought he was. You're right, I say. And he is. And I know it sounds overly melodramatic now, but sometimes the little things make you think of bigger things. And thinking of the bigger things, I couldn't stay mad for long. He likes to talk, apparently that got him into trouble that day. But, there are worse things. There was time when he couldn't talk and couldn't understand. And now he can. And if it gets him into trouble every now and then, I can live with that. So, as long as he keeps me informed of where he will be instead of where I thought he was, I think we're good.