ADSL's questions, pt 5

And finally...A Daft Scots Lass asks, "Whats your most challenging part of being a daddy?"

That's an excellent question! This allows me to answer in many layers, such as early days, crawlng/exploring, safety issues, maintaining discipline, sibling rivalry, etc.

The early days - I worried constantly about the girls not breathing anymore. Yeah, I was aware of SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome) and I was afraid that I would not be able to know when they were having problems. I never forgot one night when my younger daughter (about 8 months old) was in bed with us, sandwiched in for her safety. While sleeping, I started to become aware of the rocking motion sensation. I woke up and I freaked out when I saw why...my daughter's face was covered by our bed sheet and she was moving her head back and forth to try to breathe better. She was starting to suffocate and I woke up in time. I didn't sleep again that night.

Crawling/exploring/safety issues - I live in a two-story house, so the bane of my existence was the stairs. I've had near heart-attack moments from not being able to find them, only to discover they were UPSTAIRS. Incredible that they never had an accident on the stairs! Once they learned how to operate the doors, I had to post warning signs on the doors to remind the visitors to close and lock the doors behind them. I also worried that they inherited my intense nature of curiousity. Yes, I child-proofed the house, but... You know the saying, "Curiousity killed the cat"? Well, my girls are still alive. ;)

Maintaing discipline - this was made harder once the girls realized they could ask me for permission after being denied by their mother. How was I supposed to know she had said "No" already? I did try asking, "What did your mother say?" and they would lie, of course. Now, we tell each other what the decision was so they can't manipulate us...well, mostly me. ;) As for maintaining discipline, we make sure to be consistent and follow through with our warnings. They know we will warn them just once and second time will result in a time-out.

Sibling rivalry - I coined the term "Little Sibling Syndrome" after seeing a friend's youngest son constantly fight for his portions or rights or turns. I have noticed that he would go into the LSS mode even if he didn't have to fight for it at all. Since I don't want that in my younger daughter, I have repeatedly cautioned my older daughter about LSS. I have warned her that she must share things with her sister or include her in play...and guess what? Because my older daughter has exluded or refused to share with her sister, my younger daughter doesn't like to share out of fear that she will not get back whatever it was. Sighs.

Personality clashes - my older daughter is just like me, right down to the shape and look of the fingernails and how I walk. My younger daughter is just like her mother, willful and stubborn. Drives me CRAZY that I not only have to deal with the stubborn daughter, but the stubborn mother too. However, nothing frustrates me more than my "younger self"...she lets her fears spiral out of control. She's afraid of deep water/drowning and she has jumped into a spring (that is at least 30 feet deep) from a dock 10 feet high when I held her hand and jumped with her...and she has yet to jump from a 3 feet high diving board...at our public pool populated by lifeguards...solo.

Anyone else got questions for me? I would be happy to answer them.

ADSL's questions, pt 3

"Is there such a thing as a singles bar for sign languagers? If so, have you ever been to one and whats it like? Is everyone signing all over the place?"


Cute questions, indeed. :) What we like to do in order to have our own version of a singles' bar is we take over a section of a bar and chat away. The en masse of flying hands can be intimidating to waitresses and bar patrons.

There are three reasons for having our own singles' bar: 1) for deaf people to socialize, 2) for interpreting students (they're called that because they are studying sign language in hopes of becoming an interpreter) to help enhance their signing/comprehension skills, and 3) looking to get lucky.

Yes, I have been to one - that's how my wife and I started dating. ;)

Q & A #18

This is the most interesting question I've ever gotten. So far. Editor's note: I meant to publish this on Monday the 28th. C'est la vie!

Q: What is your favorite cartoon character?

A: Right now? SpongeBob SquarePants. Never can get enough of Patrick's antics. Always amuses me to no end that SpongeBob turns to Patrick for help/answers.

I used to follow Avatar: The Last Airbender until it concluded. Surprisingly deep story arcs in there. Yes, I was disappointed in the live action movie...so many things were thrown out and the movie felt rushed or the dialogue seemed out of place.

Iroh is played by a thin actor? Please, someone get Sammo Hung or a fat actor trained in martial arts. Cliff Curtis as the Fire Lord? He didn't look imposing at all. The actor playing General Zhao didn't look like he had watched the series at all. Not menancing at all or even...clever.

When I was a kid, I loved to wake up and catch my Saturday cartoons. Never got enough of Tom & Jerry or The Looney Tunes. Even Popeye was entertaining. As I went through the 80's, I'd run home to watch Thundercats or Voltron (I got confused when it was suddenly "different" and lost interest, not knowing it was in a different universe).

When I went away to college, I lived for Reboot and Batman. Stopped watching Batman when he sported a triangular torso frame.

Q & A #17

Gillian from A Daft Scots Lass asked me this question in my Q & A #16 post - "Were you born deaf?"

No, I was not born deaf. I was a normal healthy boy with a massive shock of blonde hair on the head.

When I was 13 months old, I contracted a case of spinal meningitis and that put me in a coma for about two weeks. During that time, the high fevers destroyed some of the hair in the inner ears which made me deaf.

When I finally woke up, my mother was the first to notice that I wasn't responding to audio stimuli and the tests confirmed her suspicion. My deafness was measured at around 96 decibels. To give you an idea how loud something has to be for me to hear it, a lawnmower is around 110 decibels.

Funny thing is, I do not hear the lawnmowers...even when I operate one. My theory is my body picks up the vibrations first, negating the need for my ears to "ring" with the noises. The only effective way for my ears to pick anything up is if you do a high pitch scream into my ear or create a loud noise close to my ear - thus eliminating my body as the middleman.

Strange, huh? What's even stranger is how my ears work differently. My right ear picks up "sharp" noises like knocking or a barking dog while my left ear picks up "soft" noises like a ringing phone or a meowing cat. That's with the hearing aids...and no, I don't use the hearing aids anymore.

Why? For a long while, I kept getting confusing mix of sounds on my hearing aids...remember how my ears work independently in the last paragraph? That wasn't discovered until I was in my mid-20's. I had given up on the hearing aids when I was 12. I tried the hearing aids again with this new discovery and a better understanding of how my ears work...and that was still a failure, so I quit for good.

I think it has something to do with the atrophy factor in the part of my brain that processes sound. Just like the legs of a person who became paralyzed - they atrophy after a long period of no activity. Because of that, I am no longer a viable candidate for cochlear implants - I wouldn't be able to process sounds effectively at all. I do not want to be a candidate anyway - I love sports too much and I wouldn't be allowed to play softball or racquetball or football or anything with physical contact.

Formspring Q & A #16

Q: How is your speech? I mean, how well do you speak? I don't know if you do talk or not.

A: A legitimate question. Some deaf people do not speak and they do not for either one of the two reasons - they do not want to speak for whatever reason or they are unable to speak.

I do speak and I have interacted with other hearing people who have had zero experience with deaf people. I've discovered that there are three types of people when it comes to understanding my speech. Those who understand me with no difficulty, those who need to use imagination to understand me, and those who don't understand at all.

With that said, I've been told that my speech is "good" or "pretty good" for those with my level of deafness who do not rely on hearing aids to aid in communication.

Formspring Q & A #15

Q: Ever been pulled over by a cop? If so, how would you handle that? Would you be afraid?

A: Oh yeah, I have been pulled over several times by a cop. Yes, I get nervous every time no matter how many times I get pulled over. Why? I have no idea if the cop wants me out of the car with hands up or put my hands out the window or whatever. The cop could use the loudspeaker and it would not matter one bit. Can't hear!

Bullying at home

Someone e-mailed me to ask this question - "Were you ever bullied at home? I would think you were. Is that too painful to discuss?"

No, not painful to discuss at all. I just talked about three instances of bullying at high school. Didn't talk about grade school (actually I did, you can read about it in my spitting war post) or my deaf school, let alone at home. Good question.

In Bully #2 post, I wrote about having been in fights. Most of the fights occurred near my house. The biggest one involved 3 boys jumping on me. As you will recall in Bully post #2, I made the leader pay by making the brick wall meet his head.

All of that paled in comparison to the kid who lived next door to me. I was a day older than him, but he had major issues - his mother left when he was a baby, he was 4th of 6 children, he had an older brother who was sadistic, his dad kept marrying his secretaries (his mom was one, his 1st stepmom was one, his 2nd stepmom was one, etc.), he got in fights with anyone and everyone, was held back in school twice before dropping out as a sophomore and he frequently stole things.

Took me a long time to figure out that he was friends with me only to take advantage of me. I didn't know better and I finally had enough of him when I was a junior. The breaking point happened that May when he cooked up some elaborate explanation about how he needed my car and how he would make a lot of money with my help.

After loading a full case of vodka bottles into the trunk of my car, he told me to drive to a certain location. I asked him how he got a whole case and he claimed that he took it from his father. I knew that his father doesn't drink vodka and I pressed him on that, but he stuck to his story.

After arriving at the destination, it dawned on me how he intended to make money with the case. We were at a prom party (this was BEFORE chaperones were commonplace in the mid 80's) and I felt sick to my stomach...he was trying to sell liquor to kids without regard to how they may or may not arrive home safely...or how the date may not turn out well while under the influence of alcohol.

Luckily for me, the night got cold and I managed to convince him that I would drive him back here after I went home to get my jacket. He had not sold any bottle yet and he went with me because he knew that I knew I was the getaway driver. He had no way of escaping if he stayed behind and got busted.

The moment I went into my house was the moment I told my mother what was going on. She immediately called his father and asked that we all meet in their living room. The son glared at me as we came in. She then told his father that there was a case of vodka in the trunk of my car and his own son was trying to sell them to the kids at the prom party.

His response? "I want to call the police and press charges on your son for trying to sell liquor."

My mother was shocked, but recovered quickly and said, "Want to bet whose fingerprints the police will find on the bottles? Want to bet what the witnesses will say who tried to sell them liquor? In fact, I wonder how YOUR son got a case of vodka. Hmm?"

The father just sat there.

Then he tried to blame me for putting ideas in his son's head. I was stunned by that. How could he say such things about me? I lived next door with the family for about 10 years and he said that? My mother explained to me afterward that he was in denial. He did not want to admit that his own son was so screwed up like that.

About 5-7 months later, he was arrested for burglary at an electronic store along with 2 other friends and not surprisingly, he made one of his friends the patsy by fingering him as the ringleader. After I found out about that, I went to the patsy and said, "I know you were not the ringleader." He felt better about that, but the look on his face...as if this...whatever it was...would be permanently etched into his face...I didn't and still don't know exactly what his thought was at that moment.

Out of curiousity, I covertly checked out the son on Facebook 2 months ago...wasn't hard with an unusual last name like his. He didn't list any family (I was unable to locate his siblings), didn't seem to have kids, his status showed that he is not in a relationship, and has 2,000+ friends. He looks THIN and looks old (remember...I am just one day older than him). Pathetic.

Q & A #14

Q: (from Formspring widget) So I saw that you learned to sign when you were 25. How long have you been deaf?

A: I contracted spinal meningitis when I was 13 months old. After I woke up from a coma, the doctors discovered that I was deaf. The hearing nerves in my ears were damaged/destroyed from the high fevers.

Bonus Halloween pics!

Almost done...

All done!

My demonic mask...

...with black acrylic paint (not black cream - forgot!) covering my eyes...

Q & A #13

Q: When you talked about your senses being more alive or on fire - however you put it in your post about playing softball, do you compensate for your deafness in other senses like a blind person does?

A: Yes, I have compensated for a loss of a sense with my remaining senses. I pick up vibrations that people don't even feel. I smell scents/odors before others get a whiff of it. I notice things quickly because I am more aware of my surroundings. On the flip side, I can totally shut down and not notice at all that I'm oblivious to everything. That, is the rare event you can sneak up on me. :)

Formspring Q & A #12

Q: You seem to be an intelligent man. What's your IQ?

A: Thank you. To tell you the truth, I honestly don't know...been decades since I was "officially" tested, when I was 18. The IQ test, at the time, measured me at 126 or 128. I took one online, few years ago and I scored 143. I think. I know that having an IQ of 130+ puts me in "above average" or higher. What's amazing about that is I am deaf and I cannot pick up on things aurally.

Editor's note: Feel free to ask me more questions, but I have disabled Formspring due to its unreliability factor. People have told me they sent in questions and I have no way of knowing if I got all of the questions. This post is THE LAST QUESTION that has been answered...if you do not see your question in here, you would have to e-mail me (check my profile for my e-mail address) and you can ask that I not credit you if you do not want anyone to know it was you.

Formspring Q & A #11

This didn't come from Formspring...rather, the question was posted as a comment in my Formspring Q & A #8 post. In that post, I was asked "When did you learn how to sign?" and I answered with "When I was 25 years old."

This prompted Shelle BlokThoughts to ask "Why did you start to learn? Especially after all that time?"

Here's my short answer - I didn't want to learn until then.

Here's my medium answer - I didn't want to take the easy way out and thought I was doing fine as is.

Here's my long answer - I went to a school for the deaf where emphasis was placed on oral communication (meaning speech and lipreading) instead of using sign language or total communication (combining both oral and signing).

Here's my long, long answer - Because I learned in that environment, I developed a bias for those who eschewed oral communication for either sign language or total communication. I thought that they were taking the easy way out to communicate with other people. I even thought that using sign language harmed their ability to communicate clearly in English. I had met a few who couldn't speak at all and/or lipread and their grasp of English was...atrocious. They didn't attend the same school, hence my ignorance.

So...why did I learn at all? I, at first, viewed this as a challenge to learn a new language - I even thought learning it would be a snap because I discovered that I have an ability to mimic what I see perfectly. I learned that ASL (American Sign Language) is in fact a whole language that comes with its own syntax and grammar...just like Chinese, Spanish, German, etc. I was even surprised to discover a whole different set of customs and culture within ASL. I didn't learn everything within a year...I am still learning and I am loving it.

When I visited my uncle for the first time in more than a decade, he was surprised to see that I had learned sign language. The last time I visited, I had been using sign language only few years and there was nobody around who knew how to communicate in sign language, so I had no reason to tell him that. My uncle was mesmerized by how I could silently communicate every word, thought, and emotion to my wife and all of that would come out of her mouth as she translated ("interpreted" is the better word) for me. He understood my speech clearly enough, but he was just utterly fascinated with this. ;)

What did I take away from all of this? I learned a lot about myself, picked up a bunch of great friends, and gained a wife. ;)

Formspring Q & A #10

Q: How did you meet your wife?

A: This is easily one of my favorite anecdotes to share with people. Thanks for asking, really. Here it is...

People kept asking me where they should go to meet their potential mates. I get asked for advice on many things and I get why - they know I have the answers or I'll say something that makes perfect sense to them. I always tell them to never go to the bars because the people they meet there are under influence and are not necessarily who they are when sober. I've seen way too many relationships fail on that merit alone.

So...where did I meet my wife? At a bar, no less. LOL You need to know this about me...I do not drink and I refuse to drink on the account of my father. So, why was I at a bar? That's where deaf people hang out to socialize (it's a deaf culture thing) and where interpreting students go to help hone their skills by interacting with deaf people. I really never liked going to bars - the people you know aren't the people you know later on.

I had met her earlier when a friend of mine introduced her to me as his girlfriend so I put her out of my mind. When I went to the bar few weeks later, I found out she was single again so I asked around and found out that she is hearing and was studying to be an interpreter. That meant I could go over to talk to her and communicate easily with her. I was just interested in her mind and her personality...to see if she was really someone I could talk to. Guess what?

Yep, we hit it off right away and when I found out where she lived, I invited her to watch me play in a dart league at a bar 10 minutes from her home. The opposing team never showed up and we talked.

And talked.

And talked.

Until the bar kicked us out. We went to her house (I lived almost an hour away) and talked some more. I finally left at 7:30 am. Now you know why I love to tell this story. The moral? Despite my rousing success (going to celebrate 10 year wedding anniversary soon), I still say "don't meet people at bars". ;)

Formspring Q & A #9

Q: Sorry if this seems personal, but I am curious. What is sex like with hearing and deaf partners? I'm assuming that you've experienced both.

A: I don't think that is too personal. In fact, I get asked that sometimes when I agree to be on the hot seat for students in sign language classes who are either studying to be sign language interpreters or just interested in deaf culture.

You're right - I've had experience with both deaf and hearing women and I know that this is day and night when it comes down to that. The differences? Communication style changes (you can use your voice with hearing partners and you can't with deaf partners), senses (not having one sense can enhance the other senses, it's true), cultural differences (think of this as having different religions, beliefs, or race), and the "worship" factor.

Let me explain the "worship" factor. Think of your celebrity that you have a major crush on. You'd do anything for that celeb so you can have your experience. Not quite the same here, but...you have someone who wants to be with you just because you are deaf or hearing. Some deaf people do WANT to be with a hearing person for selfish reasons (having a "built-in" interpreter is the most common reason) and hearing people want to be with a deaf person for selfish reasons too (most common is to accelerate the learning process). I made sure that I wasn't with each woman for selfish reasons; I couldn't say I made sure each didn't choose me for selfish reasons - I don't have their brains. ;)

I know there's the inevitable question that begs to be asked - which is better, deaf or hearing? - and I do not have a preference. You could argue that I've been with hearing women more often than deaf women...but that's because the circumstances were right more often with the hearing women. That's my respectful answer.

Formspring Q & A #8

Q: When did you learn to how to sign?

A: That's the shortest question I've ever had. Here's my shortest answer - when I was 25 years old.

-Editor's note: I am on vacation as of today and will not be returning until the end of the month. I will respond when I can. Enjoy!

Formspring Q & A #7

Q: I've seen/read about deaf people who can lipread 100%. How can some do that perfectly while others can't? I must say I enjoy your "Say What?" posts - they're hilarious!

A: I've never met a deaf person who can lipread 100%, let alone a hard of hearing or hearing person. My "Say What?" posts show the pitfalls beautifully where a word could be "misread" as another.

Want to make the bed/bet?
Sex/six would be great.
Go stand in the order/corner.

I could go on. I used to be envious of such people, but I realized that after meeting thousands of deaf people...I have yet to meet one who can. I am NOT saying that their claims are dubious - just never met one who could. My opinion? I doubt there's anyone who can lipread 100%.

-Editor's note: I am on vacation as of today and will not be returning until the end of the month. I will respond when I can. Enjoy!

Formspring Q & A #6

Q: What's the dumbest question you've been asked regarding your deafness?

A: I never forgot that day. It happened on my first day on my first ever job. I was hired as a bag boy at a commissary, working for tips. Pitiful, I know. I was reading a newspaper during a break and a co-worker saw me doing that, so he said: "You can read?" Umm...yes. I wanted SO MUCH to say to him "No, I like to sit there and pretend to read in a desperate hope of fooling everyone." He then asked me to read out loud an article. I did that without missing a word. He deliberately pointed at another article few pages in. I read it out to him perfectly, word for word. Jeez.

Formspring Q & A #5

This is just too funny...a blogger friend asked me this on the last Friday of May and I got this last Tuesday...

Q: What is your opinion on cochlear implants and the impact it has on the deaf community?

A: Some of you are not aware of the firestorm the cochlear implant (CI) has on the deaf community. I'll educate you briefly (you can find more on Google) on why that is controversial. The deaf community is strongly opposed to CI for two reasons - "genocide" of the deaf culture and the age of the CI recipients.

Many deaf people feel that by allowing CIs in the kids, these kids would grow up and not embrace the deaf culture anymore. That does happen and their fears are justified, I'll grant you that...but on the flip side, I have seen children of deaf adults (who have not received CI) either embrace or disdain the deaf culture, regardless of their hearing ability.

As for the age of the CI recipients, that is even a bigger controversy. How so? Imagine that you are 21 years old...some government agent or doctor tells you that you must give up your love for sports and allow the doctors to scoop out some bone from your skull, compromising the skull integrity. You must wear some bionic modification and you must maintain it at all times. You do not have a say in this. You would not like that, right?

Now, imagine that you are a baby and you lost your hearing. Having CI will restore that, but at a price - you lose your skull integrity and some residual hearing when the doctors cut through the nerves to implant the CI. What if...you grow up and you want to play baseball? No, you can't because there's a risk of a line drive to your head. Football? Nope. Lacrosse? Nope. Any sport? Bowling, sure...darts, sure...anything NOT remotely possible of injury to the head and that's not much else you can do. Sorry.

I am NOT going to debate whether or not the parents have the right to do this to their kids or even the moral/ethical obligations. That would be a LONG and protracted post. I'll leave that to professionals, educators, doctors, and deaf advocates to slug it out.

My opinion on CI is this...if you want one, go for it. What about those who cannot make informed decisions? I always hesitate to answer, but I would allow them to receive CI if I feel that this would not be a problem for them later on. I suspect that my older daughter would want to remain active in sports and I think my younger may like to play sports. If that is the case, then I would not allow them to receive CI. My girls are old enough to understand, but not enough to decide on their own. I would listen to them first though.

The other downside of being a person with CI is being shunned for having CI. I won't ostracize those people like some other deaf people do. I have known a few deaf people who got CI and some of them do benefit from having CI. They are VERY happy with having CI. However, few others have stopped using the CI completely because they didn't like it anymore. They cannot undo what was done to them in order to have CI. See what I mean?

There will ALWAYS be controversy when it comes to "helping" the deaf people. If a scientist discovers a way to permanently fix the hearing loss without any surgical modification (think "Star Trek")...do you think the deaf people would embrace that? Nope.

Formspring Q & A #4

Latest submitted entry: "What's your scariest and worst moment as a parent? This is a two-part question."

That's really interesting how that question was framed...asking me to identify two separate moments. I can tell you right off the bat what those two moments are with each child.

My oldest - the scariest moment was when she was 3...she was being a big girl by handling a bowling ball by herself at a bowling alley. I did tell her to watch for the step up to the wooden floor, but she missed it and fell over while holding the bowling ball. She landed so hard on the ball that her tongue got lacerated in two places. She needed stitches for her tongue.

Trust me, that wasn't even the worst moment. It came about 8 months later when she accidentally got stuck in her closet (the door had a tendency to stick)...while I was napping. She had apparently left the bed to get her baby blanket - she was stuck in there for about an hour and she was unable to hold it in anymore. Imagine how I felt when I discovered her and saw the mess. That day, I sanded down the door so it wouldn't stick at all and I ordered a new alert device for the bed that would shake me awake if something was happening.

As for my youngest, the scariest moment was when she was 12 months old and seeing her fall backwards off our bed - it rests only on box springs with nothing underneath and is only 1.5 feet high, but her fall may as well have been 4 feet...she landed flat on her back with the back of her head connecting solidly with the floor. She cried so hard that she started involuntarily shaking her head to one side as if she was having neurological damages from the fall. I was scared that she had suffered some lasting head injury. She's fine now with no nuerological damage and her memory is amazingly sharp.

The worst moment occurred few months ago when I lost my temper and yelled at her. I have never EVER yelled at my older daughter...and I did with my younger daughter. I felt so bad about yelling at her that I cried for a long while. I felt that there was no excuse for that, no matter what the circumstances were. She and I have learned how to relate to each other better since then.

Formspring Q & A #2

Q: What has been the biggest challenge as a father who is deaf?

A: Not counting the communication issues with my girls, I would say the biggest challenge was overcoming my paranoia of S.I.D.S. (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome) because I could not hear their breathing. I'd sneak up to their crib and look at their chests for breathing movement. I used to rely on a device called Cry Alert that would make certain lamps flash on/off and shake the bed when someone cried loudly enough. My problem with that was...I could not see what was going on, let alone know where the sound was originating from. So, I put up video monitors at strategic locations in order to pinpoint the source. The monitors didn't ease my S.I.D.S. fear though. And now? I would say it's keeping the youngest one on the straight and narrow. ;)

Formspring Q & A #1

I got two questions over the weekend. The first one asks:

"Here's a funny question...Does your wife blog too? My hubby doesn't but my ex does"

No, my wife doesn't. She used to, but she dropped it altogether because she felt there was no point in blogging on a recurring basis. The funny thing is, she loves to "mini-blog" with the frequent updates on Facebook.

The second one asks:

"Do you miss 'Morning Glory' at all?"

Yes, I do...it was always fun to check MG because I would have no idea what MG would do next.

Can someone please help me with a glitch on this formspring widget? I thought that by answering on formspring, it would automatically post on Blogger. It did...to the wrong blog. I need help. Thanks.