Let My Words Be Few

He's driving me nuts. I admit it.

First it was English. Then we added algebra. Then we started on the driver's handbook. Then about three weeks into a lovely lazy summer, the school sent home papers explaining a summer reading project and poster that the kids had to complete and bring back to school with them, so we had to pick a book and start reading that together.

Now that the algebra dropped out, I'm okay with teaching all that other stuff. I was never a big math afficionado to start with, so I couldn't have been happier once the school figured out how to resolve that situation. (See January's posts "Baby Einstein" and "No More Mama Einstein.")

But now Charlie has come home from karate camp, where he spent a week with hearing people, and he has reached a momentous decision: He wants to learn speechreading.

But wait--there's more! He doesn't just want to learn to READ it--he wants to learn to SPEAK!!

We've already gone there with the school. They evaluated him and said he is so profoundly deaf that he does't have enough residual hearing left to work with, and they agreed with me that since he is so smart, his energies were best used to focus on his academic subjects rather than hours and hours of speech therapy just to get out a few understandable phrases.

So I reminded him of all this--they aren't going to put him in that program since he wants to go to college.

Yeah, yeah, I know all that. That's why YOU'RE going to teach me.

'Scuse me? Do I LOOK like a freakin' speech teacher????

So now, in addition to the English, and the summer book and poster, and the driver's handbook, I am being shanghaied into teaching Charlie to speak.

Can I just point out that I'm not exactly TRAINED for this?

Sometimes I have no idea how to explain to him how to make a particular sound. It's a little frustrating for both of us, because he will run through every possible permutation of sound that he can think of making with that particular mouth/tongue position until he stumbles across the right combination, and then when I get excited and say "That's it!" he doesn't remember what it was he was doing to get that sound.

So far he has learned to say Aymom and Pop-Pop (his grandparents' nicknames that Rick gave them), Mama, mooooo, Bama (his best friend's name), and he's working on "How are you?" He has the "how" part down, but r's and y's are a little harder and we need some more practice there.

The day he learned to say "Aymom," it was hard to keep him from putting a glottal stop in betwen the two syllables. At one point, we decided we needed a break, so I leashed up the dogs and headed outside for a while. The dogs and I strolled onto the path that leads back around behind our house, and as we were approaching the house from the back, I heard what sounded like someone vomiting. As I got closer and could see up alongside the house, I realized it was Charlie. He had gone outside to practice so he didn't disturb Rick, and he was vomiting the word Aymom--the A sound was coming from deep in his stomach, and the mom sound was the projectile. I very quickly turned away so he wouldn't see me howling. I had just about gotten myself back under control by the end of the walk, but then I tried to explain it to Rick, and the giggles started all over again.

Today we started on the "how are you" stuff, and he had no trouble getting the how down pat. But then he started playing with it. He would say it in a variety of ways, and sometimes it would sound like a kid who had just sucked helium out of a balloon, and sometimes it would sound like a guy trying to project a deep, sexy voice. I'm sitting in my chair with my back to him while he's in the dining room practicing, and I'm hoping he can't see my shoulders shaking from the laughter. It just sounds so damned CUTE!

Maybe I DO look like a freakin' speech teacher--to him, anyway.