This morning like every morning I got up at 4:30am, took a shower & got ready. At 5am, I woke up Rebecca - this takes about 20 or 30 minutes to get her out of bed. It is difficult to wake up a child who cannot hear and will not look at you. She covers her head with pillows and blankets, which I remove 1 by 1 until there's none. She then uses her hands, legs and chest to cover her head. After shaking her, tickling her, motioning and talking to her when I can, she finally sits up in her bed. Then she normally lays back down & we play that game a few times until finally she is standing - sometimes she lays back down after I leave the room and we get to start all over again. By 5:30 she is usually in the shower and out by 5:45. For those 15 minutes I am getting lunch together and listening to the weather, because once she is out of the shower she wants to know the weather so that she can spend the next 10 minutes figuring out if what she picked out the night before is still sufficient, which most of the time she finds that it was not good enough and wants to change her outfit again. After the clothing drama is complete, she starts to eat the breakfast that I have made for her in the 10 minutes that she was changing clothes and getting dressed. Now we only have about 15 minutes before the bus gets here, so I am brushing hair while she is eating. I also get her cochlear implant out with her glasses and set them on the table for her. After she is finished eating she puts on her shoes, grabs her backpack, jacket & lunchbox. While she is doing that I am turning on Christmas lights & our sidewalk lights so that she walk independently to the bus. If we have extra time before the bus comes, we make sentences out of sight words. Once the bus is here, about 1/2 way to the bus we do the textile ILY and then we hug. I wave to her as the leaves on the bus.
I then have about 30 minutes before it is time to wake up my other daughter. During those 30 minutes I pick up around the house and do my daily devotional.
At 7:45, it is time for round 2. I wake up Jasmine which goes a lot quicker getting her out of bed, but she takes longer in the shower and is really slow at getting dressed. While she is in the shower I am making lunch #2 and while she is getting dressed I am cooking her breakfast. I normally sit down and eat breakfast with her - this gives us some special time since the rest of the day will be more about Rebecca. She then finishes getting ready for school & I drive her to the school which is about 10 minutes away. We do a small devotional on the way to school with a memory verse and we also talk about anything else that is going on today - appointments, activities, etc.
After I drop her off, I am off to work. I work in the real estate field, but I am not a Realtor. My boss has been very good about offering me flexibility, even though my job is not a very flexible position.
Rebecca goes to an after school program and I pick her up around 6pm. We live 45 minutes from the school, so I spend all of that one-on-one time with her. Once we get home, we usually go out to eat (I know, I'm horrible - but it is 7pm!). While we are out we are all pointing things out and filling Rebecca with words. When we get back home it is around 8pm and now the girls get ready for bed. After both the girls get ready, we talk about our day - name the favorite part of our day so that we can thank God for that. Then we each take turns with saying prayers and I interpret the prayers for Rebecca.
If both girls have had a good day and have not lost any privileges, they can earn "bonus time", this is time that they have to do an activity of their choice before bed. It can be a bedtime story, finishing something that they started earlier that day, watching television, playing on the computer, playing with toys, etc. They both really work hard all day to earn this time. If they lose this time earlier in the day they also have chances to earn it back. While they are having their bonus time, I am making a bedtime snack and getting each of the girls a water.
After we pray and have bonus time, we go individually into each girls room and tuck them in and say goodnight. I remove Rebecca's CI and glasses. We do the textile ILY with both girls and continue signing everything that I say to them. We hug and kiss them and then it is time for bed.
They finally get in bed around 8:30-8:45. Now my husband and I go to our room and write the notes for the day, and anything personal that we need to discuss. I turn on the television and maybe get through one of my shows or finish the one that I started the night before. We are both exhausted and go to sleep around 10pm. Now we are ready go get up and do it all over again.
The weekends, school activities and other things of course come up that make this much more fun, but this is our normal day. We try to go to as many school activities as we can. Last month I went to a pep-a-rally, science fair, story time (that had an interpreter) and a school dance. We've also had Christmas parties, gave out gifts to the less fortunate in our city, had Foster care yearly training, CPS visit, agency visit and went to a holiday breakfast. This next week I will have 3 more holiday parties, school parties and caroling.
We never have a dull moment and try to get the girls as involved as we can. Everyone knows Rebecca and she melts hearts where ever she goes. I want her to experience everything that any child would experience. I think that is really important.
Our life is pretty normal except for us having to count stairs, make sure everywhere is lit well, having the long commute to and from school, dealing with 2 different school districts, guiding in crowded situations & always having to explain the condition to people who don't know better.
Anyway, there's my life in a nutshell.
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6 comments:
Why don't you get your daughter an alarm clock? There are vibrating alarm clocks that would work well with your daughter.
Get Rebecca a vibrating alarm clock. I have one, and the vibration wakes me very easily, as it is quite powerful. If I oversleep, it is because I went back to sleep, not because the alarm did not work well enough! So I have no excuse...
One is forced to wake up at 5 AM the other 7:45 AM, 2 hours and 45 minute difference (almost 3 hours). Yet they are both put to sleep at the same time.
Do you wonder if that missing sleep time has any impact on your daughter, is it fair to her?
How do you deal with that?
Wow, as always, you seem like Supermommy! It's great that you are so involved with your children and that you take the time to be with them each day despite having a job and all these things to do.
I do not agree with Anon #1, I got up earlier than my siblings. The school bus (van) picked me up at 6:15 in the morning for a half hour commute. The bus picked up six other deaf kids, too. I never thought it was unfair that I got up earlier than my siblings. I was something I just did because I had to. I went to a different school. However, since I was the youngest in the family, I did have to go to bed earlier than the others. But again, I was the youngest. Rebecca is the oldest. I wonder if the Sonic Boom alarm clock with the vibrator would help?
Kudos to you for these decisions. Merry Christmas. Happy New Year.
I would also recomend a sonic boom alarm clock with a vibrator we have three in my house. and all of the my deaf sisters appreaciate them. The youngest , age 7, even has a heart shaped one. Also my second oldest sister has Ushers she is 24 and still has surprisingly good vision considering. She just got a CI because her vision is rapidly deteriorating.
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