Sozlet stories

Saw similar with my daughter who is know 18. She is a forthright intelligent motivated young woman now. Skills being developed are communication and controll of a situation. Dont forget to teach that there are limits to how she can speak to or treat other people especially her parents. Traffic lights are good. If she is out of order tell her "yellow light" If the behavior continues tell her red light. A red light means any continued behavior of this nature will have consequences. a discussion of what consequences might apply should be held prior. This actually helps later on during preteen/teen years. consequences change obviously. Dont overuse the "red light"

It's well under control, just gets tiring some days. (Has been better since that spate.)


Latest thing is that she has desegregated the playground. :-) There is this play structure that has two climbing/ slide sections connected by some monkey bars. Somehow it developed that the right side was for girls and the left side was for boys ("girl's club" and "boy's club"). :-? We got there early one day (kids mostly play before school) and it was just sozlet and another boy she hasn't had much to do with. She approached him and said that he could join the girl's club if she could join the boy's club. They discussed it a bit and then shook on it and trundled over to the left side of the structure to play. As more kids arrived they were a little shocked -- hey! But sozlet and the other kid explained and they accepted it. So now she's over there playing most of the time when the girls are lined up to do jumprope -- she thinks that's boring.

I'm happy about this because she's been a little more conformist than I'm comfortable with since she started school -- a little too ingratiating, too passive, and that's SO not her personality. This is much more her. And I've noticed that now that she's finally easing back into a maverick/ leader role, she's getting more people following her rather than vice versa.

More on nonconformity: I asked her at some point (I forget why) whether it sometimes frustrates her that I'm deaf. She said, "No, I like it!" I said something like, "It's OK if your frustrated, I know it's frustrating sometimes..." and she said "No no no... let me explain. At school today we read 'A Bad Case of the Stripes'* And afterwards the teacher asked who liked lima beans, and I was the only one! And I'm also the only one who has a deaf mom!" This was all said in an "ain't that cool!" kind of way, like it should be obvious that it would be great that she was the only one -- definitely an "individuality = good" thing that I like to see. :-D

*This is a great book that we've checked out from the library often. Rather than giving a synopsis I thought I'd link to Amazon, but was shocked by the mixed reviews there. "Disturbing"?? Seriously? Very weird. I think it's fabulous and sozlet loves it.

I see a bright future for that one.

Do you think she capitalized the "D" in Deaf? I'm not surprised at all that your kick-ass, 'top-secret' sign language would get high coolness ratings from a six year old. Some of us invented secret signs when we were in school, but no doubt did it badly compared to you Deaf guys. The individuality factor seems the only explanation for the Lima beans though. Either way, I like it.

Thomas--

Children are great family cheerleaders. When I found myself Single Again with two small boys, I overheard one of them playing One Up with the son of a neighbor (also a Single Parent).

"My mother can run a rototiller better than your mother."

I've also heard:

"My mother makes the yukiest pea soup in the whole world."

"Your mother's pea soup isn't as yucky as my mother's zucchini bread."

and:

"My mother drives slower than your mother."


All parental qualities add to the luster of a beloved child.

ASL most definitely has something to do with it, yeah. It keeps popping up at school (which is great!!). The music teacher knows a fair amount and teaches it during his class, there was a local play that came to the school and that was signed as well as acted + sung, etc. Plus a couple of times when I've volunteered I've done my automatic "private communication" thing and signed to sozlet from across the room -- kids thought that was WAY cool. So you're right, I bet that's part of it.

Sozlet got a jones to listen to "When I'm 64" -- we usually go to Youtube when that happens (when she wants to listen to something we don't own). I sat down to do that and checked here first and then responded to something and as I was finishing up she put a yellow post-in note in front of me with the words "YOU TOOB NOW!!!!" printed in red. Yes ma'am!! :-)

(As I was writing THAT she wrote "YOU TOOB NOW NOW NOW NOW!!!!!!!!!!! on a new piece of paper and put it on the screen...)

Like others, I didn't know you were deaf. I'm currently in ASL 1. It's so much fun. I wanted to take it to teach my son it. I'm getting so much more out of it.

We have to have "X" amount of cultural experiences to pass, so I went to play Bingo with them and went to see a comedian (who both signed and talked). I noticed he got a little tongue-fingered tied. My teacher said it's hard to do two different languages at once: English and Sign Language. Also funny because at a normal show, it would be considered rude to be texting/on cell phones the entire time, but it seemed to be what EVERYONE did at this show. I guess it's exciting to have "text messaging" now. I was so still the entire time because it seemed like if I moved even a little, everyone would lean to the side, so they wouldn't miss what was signed.

Bingo was quite an experience too!

sorry if I missed it, and I'm sure you've shared, but is your husband Deaf as well?

The whole text thing actually started with the deaf community -- that's why/ how it was developed. I got my first one in 1998, and all kinds of business types were intrigued when I'd use it at a restaurant or whatever -- WHAT is that?

Never figured it would become so huge with hearing people -- they can use cell phones after all.

The etiquette is variable, depends on the situation. That sounds a bit iffy, but not if it wasn't distracting to the guy.

Yeah, speaking and signing simultaneously is way difficult! There isn't really any way to do them both at the same time -- either your English or your ASL grammar is going to be way off -- but you can do a sort of in-between thing.

Husband's hearing, pretty good at ASL though. (I lipread and we usually talk. Language at home is a mishmash according to utility -- we'll talk when cutting food and sign while chewing it, that kind of thing.)

Was it hard to teach your daughter how to talk? Of course she has her father, and was learning and developing her brain through learning signs, but did it delay her speaking?

I can't imagine what it was like before mom's had devices that make raising a child easier. My teacher said WAY back in the day, moms tied a string around the baby's ankle when she went to bed. Eventually babies learned that a kick got mommy's attn. Amazing. I know there have been times I have forgotten to turn up the speaker on the baby's monitor, so poor lil J probably screamed the entire night!!!

Next weekend, we have another cultural event at the movie theater. I can't wait!

Again, *I* speak at home, too... I didn't become completely deaf until I was 18, and speak pretty much normally.

Her speech was delayed a bit because she was so comfortable with communicating in ASL, though, yeah. When she was 18 months she knew... ugh, forget the figure -- 250 signs I think. She could hold pretty much regular conversations. The things she wanted to talk about were NOT what I expected a baby to want to talk about -- some were about food or whatever but a lot were observational ("look! the girl is wearing a red hat!") or storytelling ("orange gorillas" [orangutans] who lived in our tree and had a pet fox, etc.)

When she did start to talk though she quickly got to a much more advanced level than her peers, and her vocabulary/ articulation has remained way up there since, though studies show it should level off by the end of kindergarten (hasn't happened yet). When people meet her that's usually one of the main things they comment on, that she speaks so well. Her ENT did a speech evaluation when we were figuring out whether she was having problems with her own hearing when she was 4 or 5 and said she spoke like a 7 or 8 year old. :-)

Which is to say, early ASL exposure seemed to really help her general language skills. (Which is what the studies I refer to above have indicated.)

I was curious if I could find the speech thing because I couldn't remember exactly what it was, it was here on this thread... from August 2005, so she was about 4 1/2.

Oh, I'm sorry. I just happened to glance at the thread and saw you write you were deaf. I missed the details. I should have read more. I got too excited to reply.

Yeah, I'm such a firm believer in teaching your child a second language! My sil's child had a very delayed speech, but she is so good at sign language and so smart!!! I think it's great that your daugher knows sign language. I love watching it. I learn more from some of the "signing" baby einstein videos than my son.

It's very cool. :-)

Meanwhile, gawd I love invented spelling. She made a menu before dinner. (The chicken teriyaki is what we actually had -- I helped her spell that, everything else was all her.)

1.) Chicken teriyaki stir-fry

2.) Stromboley [stromboli]

3.) Ceshe [quiche]

4.) Speshool jelybyns [Special jellybeans or Special: Jellybeans, not sure].

I can't believe how close she got to quiche. no way. That's pretty good. most people would try spelling it with a "k" and two "e's"

Kid decided to write a book.


When I first entered the world, I came from a pea pod.


I was as little as a pea.


And one day when I was 5 I met a fairy.
[note pea on leash]


When I was 10 I finally grew the normal size.


And finally I got a dog instead of a pea.


The dog was very cute.


I love to go on walks with him.


Now I have a lap top.
[No, she doesn't, but she was sitting across from E.G. who was working on his.]


One time I built a snowman.


And one day I tried my first pea.

How cute is that
I especially love the jump from the dog to the laptop. You've got one talented little girl there, sozobe. She's precious!

Don't you love how kids write at the beginning?
"Deer ongl Def" (dear uncle Dave) was
one phrase I always will remember

Yeah, she decided at the beginning it should be 10 or 12 pages long, and after the dog just kinda tacked some stuff on.

I just LOVE invented spelling. Deer ongle Def, makes sense! (Poor kids, English is such a nonsensical language...)

I also like the laptop. It looks like a monster that might bite any minute!

Did you notice that she's painting herself skinnier and skinnier as she grows up? I find that interesting. And she obviously likes stylish dresses and little dogs with a personality. Sweet!

I like how she worked in the umpteenth request for a puppy!