Willothewisp

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De Geleidehond – Nederland

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When you are out and you see a person with an Assistance Dog (for blindness, hearing impairment, disability, epilepsy etc) PLEASE do not distract the dog because the results of you doing so can be unfortunate for the person they assist. This rather good video from KNGF (The Dutch Guide Dog body) is amusing but is also a good illustration.

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A few weeks ago I was walking into town to do the day’s chores. It was still early in the day as I pushed the buggy with Mariaske and Joost on board, my guide dog Sissi was with me of course. Sissi protects my right side as I am now blind in my lower right quarter. We were about to swing onto Minckelersstraat from the alley behind De Bijenkorf when Sissi was distracted by two young men, tourists. As a result I walked slap into a metal bollard in the pavement, it was the exact height of my crotch. The blow was painful enough to knock the sense out of me for a few moments and I had to use the nearest wall for support. Sissi was very distressed at me coming to harm so I tried to reassure her while my eyes watered and I fought the pains radiating out from my pubis. After a few minutes I tried to continue but the pain was such that I feared I had perhaps damaged myself or one of the metal plates in my pelvis. It took me thirty minutes to make it to Tyjardia & Nonke;s house. Ty is also my doctor, it’s a walk that would normally take five minutes. Ty examined me carefully and concluded there was no damage to bones or plates, but the bruises were already very clearly visible on and around the upper part of my vulva. By that evening when Nina got home and took a look my vulva was black and blue. So please, never distract a guide dog at work, what they do is important and disturbing them at work can cause those of us who rely on our four legged friends injury.

Now I can see the funny side of what happened to me even though at the time it hurt. Below is another bit of amusement that had my children rolling around laughing………..

Author: Judith.

I went into town during the week to deal with paperwork regarding our oldest two children and their respective disabilities. I will not tell you which particular arm of government department  I was dealing with because I have lodged a formal complaint, so until that is dealt with I think giving specifics would not be fair.

With Hilke and Nicholas off to school, Mariaske in playgroup in Looierstraat I put Joost into his pram, harnessed up Sissi and trekked into town. Upon finding the building I wanted I went up to the front desk in the lobby. The young man there was very helpful, recognising immediately from Sissi’s uniformed presence that I was deaf and partly sighted. Instead of just directing me to correct part of the building he made a phone call, got a large print floor plan out and marked on it where I would need to go and also very thoughtfully marked out the baby facilities and the lady’s wc and also where we could go for refreshments and gave me the map. By this time a colleague had arrived and she took over his position so that he could escort us to where we had to go. He always took care to speak to my face, he controlled his hands using them to make only meaningful gestures, he was at no time condescending or belittling, in short he was a perfect model of help and assistance to a person with impaired senses.

After a going through many corridors and up an couple of floors we arrived at the right department. My escort explained my needs to the girl at the recption desk before departing with my grateful and sincere thanks. The young lady directed me to take a seat in the waiting area, along with about a dozen people. She informed me where the baby facilities were and the wc and asked me if my guide dog need anything. She was not as careful as the young man had been in talking to my face but her heart was in the right place and she was considerate.

So far so good. After almost an hour the number on the large TV screen in the waiting area finally matched my little ticket and directed me to room four so rounding up Sissi and securing Joost off I went.

Now I should explain that despite being lesbian, despite having a few disabilities, even despite being a woman, that I am not into all this politically correct silliness. I am deaf so call me deaf, not “hearing impaired” for goodness sake ! As long as people are not out rightly insulting I really do not mind how I am described. There is nothing more likely to get me annoyed than having to watch someone tying themselves into knots trying to work out how they should be speaking to this deaf, partly sighted lesbian mother of children with disabilities of their own. Just have a little thought, like the young man above because that is wonderful, don’t play the game of PC linguistics invented by middle class sociology degree graduates with no real role in life.

So I sit us down in the interview room and just as I am settling down a woman comes in. I say a woman but in fact it could have been anything underneath all that idiotic black clothing. From head to floor it was covered in shapeless black islamic dress, all that was visible was a little slit with two eyes showing. My heart sank.

I can of course see the funny side, lips, face and entire body hidden behind a black mask interviewing a lip reader, pretty comical really, but when you are dealing with your children’s welfare I prefer to leave the comdey out. I asked her to remove her head covering, explaining that I was deaf and needed to see her face and read her lips. I do not know if she said anything, I imagine she did, but the negative shake of her head provided her answer. Holding onto my irritation I repeated myself, and again there was a nod of her head and this time she waved a little book at me. I looked at the book and sure enough it was a copy of the quran, she was waving it like it was some sort of get out of jail free card from Monopoly. Rather than get annoyed any further I just asked her to get her supervisor in here.

After a few minutes another woman comes in, clearly not a muslim this time. I told her that I was deaf and had to lip read and had therefore asked the lady to remove her head covering and that she had refused thus rendering her useless to me and unable to do her job effectively. The supervisor looked uncomfortable and told me that she could not ask her colleague to remove any of her attire because it was part of her religious belief. I asked her to show me the part in the quran that specified where it said that she had to be covered head to toe, thus cutting her off from the outside world and normal interaction with human beings. I pointed out that her colleague kept a copy of the quran under the folds of her clothing as she had been waving it in my face a few minutes earlier, now she looked very, very uncomfortable, and so she should. She told me that she had to respect the beliefs  of her colleague, clearly thinking that would in some way shield her from any further comment from me. She was wrong, very wrong, it was an approach that was not going to fly with me.

I got out the map the nice young man had given me earlier along with a broacher about service offered by this government department. While waiting for an hour to be seen I had looked through it, including the part that proudly stated that their charter required them to  ”strive to meet the needs of their clients regardless of age, ability, gender or race”.  Giving a deaf lip reader an interviewer who insisted on hiding like some coward behind layers of cloth was not going to help them meet the noble goals of their charter. Her solution was to ask me to go back to the waiting area for a different member of staff to be available. I refused, pointing out I had already been waiting over an hour and that I was not prepared to be penalised just because of the selfish actions of one of her staff. I wanted to have my interview and I could be having it if she were doing her job properly and demanding that her idiot colleague remove her head gear and DO HER BLOODY JOB. Instead I was now faced with two government employees who were refusing to do their jobs, one because she had chosen to imprison herself behind a mask and hide behind a religion that really has no place in European society and the other who was too much of a coward to stand up to an irrational religion.

The supervisor than said that she could call security to escort me from the building. I agreed that she certainly could do that, except for two points; 1. I had not done anything wrong, but she and her colleague had.

2. Throwing a deaf, partly sighted mother with baby and guide dog out by force for merely asking that she be able to lip read her interviewer was not going to look good on the local TV news that evening, and it would make my lawyer very happy as she liked nothing more than suing for a civil rights breach.

It was the tipping point, that moment when she could do something sensible or do something incredibly stupid. She chose sensible, in other words she interviewed me herself and sent her colleague away. Finally I could get down to business and go through the paperwork. I could read her face and lips as she took care to speak at a normal pace to my face and so in just twenty minutes we had completed all that was required. I thanked her for the assistance that she had given, and added that I would be making a formal complaint about the incident as soon as the rage I was currently experiencing subsided.

In the end my letter consisted of two parts, one praising the consideration of the two receptionists and one damning the stupidity of the muslim woman and levelling a charge of cowardice at her supervisor. I also left a card and a gift of handmade chocolates to the front desk because good actions need to be encouraged. I am now awaiting the response to my complaint, I will let you know how it goes.

Footnote: Oddly enough this little incident did not worsen my general level of anxiety. It had been a big mental effort to overcome my worries over being out and on unfamiliar ground but the dispute of the idiocy of the muslim woman did not worsen matters as I feared it might. In fact I think my anger may have been something of a counterweight to the anxiety, and so I wonder if perhaps I have found a tool I can use to regain some of my lost ground.

Author: Judith

Last night was movie night,  we do not have a TV in our household so on movie night we hook up one of the laptops to a projector and a set of speakers. The main living room is equipped with a screen that folds up into the ceiling, but on summer nights when good weather can be assured we sometimes move the entire evening outside. The kids have the choice of the main film, the one shown right after evening dinner, it is largely their movie night after all. Last night’s choice was Mousehunt with that very funny English comedian Lee Evans, a man whose face seems to be made of plastescene which can produce this stunning array of expressions. If he were ever laid deaf and mute he would have no trouble communicating with the rest of the world, his face is a shout in the quietest of rooms.

It was a glorious day here yesterday with next to no breeze, so with the weather holding I prevailled on Ty and Nonke’s boys to help me set up out in the garden so we could have the movie after dark. At least the lawn area was clean and clear ready for the movie, unfortunately with me ill for the last week with a stomach bug no one had trimmed back the outdoor dinning area Wisteria Vines. I had trimmed them a few weeks back before they flowered but now they were a riot of uncontrolled growth that I had to crouch under. Using my shears I was part way through cutting back to the trellis when big Nik dropped by, poor fellow, it was such bad timing on his part. I set him to work immediately. Nearly two hours later I realised the time and sent a long cold fizzy fruit cordial down to him and some food to sustain him. He did a wonderful job even though he is not a natural gardener himself. He even managed to muster most of my mismatched garden chairs to the table and cleaned the table down, great going Nik. Between food prep and garden chores I had to root through the store room for an hour looking for the big container of Christmas lights. This was much to the joy of my guide dog Sissi and my cat Pip’s delight, they love rooting around in there for some reason which is a pity because they rather get in the way when trying to neatly work my way through dozens of storage containers. I finally found the lights in the last box I looked, isn’t that always the way, it seems the Universe does enjoy it’s little jokes ! The boys strung the lights in the shrubs behind where the screen was going to be. It would make a lovely back drop with some five hundred grain-of-wheat size bulbs strung out across the vines and shrubs of the Roman wall, even though I was not be able to see it properly myself.

This time the choice of film for the grown ups fell to me, <Sigh>, I hate having to choose. I was going to go for De Vierde Man (The Fourth Man) but in the end decided something lighter would be better. I settled for La Dolce Vita, the 1960 Fellini film. It stars Marcello Mastroianni, probably not really known much outside of Europe and the delicious and sexy Anita Ekberg (ok, so my lesbian leanings creeping in there !), and Yvonne Furneaux. I picked it because I felt it would most suit the feel of my summer garden and the lovely family and friends that would be in it. Several of our number speak Italian and those who do not would still enjoy its wounderful lyrical ride while reading the Dutch subtitles. The subtitles would also equalise the gap between the deaf and hearing members.

Food was a tricky balance. It was primarily the children’s evening so the food needed to have a distinctly Mousehunt orientation. I made up a Swiss cheese soup as an easy quick win with sunflower seed crackers. Keeping to theme I prepared grilled cheese toasties with some Dutch cheeses. A Roomano cheese, grilled with some pine nuts because as the cheese has a butterscotch flavour so they go well together. Yet another version I used Parrano, it is a Dutch take on an Italian cheese and cooks well as long as you are gentle with it. In fact I guess our version of grilled cheese is more like a bruschetto than an American idea of grilled cheese, as it employs good hams, sun dried tomatoes, garlic and half the bread of American grilled cheese. There is just too much bread in the American version of bread top and bottom. I made up salads using the first of the seasons leaves and herbs from the vertical garden in the solar with a Honing & Mosterd (Honey & Mustard) dressing. For deserts I baked a Mouse cake, Mouse Moose (mouse moulds), then mouse cookies for during the film. I was at the market stalls in town at six that morning, just as they were setting up stalls, and got some great early English strawberries. There are two types of strawberry that are supreme in taste, Alpine Hautbois vine strawberries and English Chandler strawberries, and to get the English strawberries from the Kent area so soon was a real coup’. I stood there in the cool of the early morning sun and dropped the most wonderfully vivid red berry into my mouth, pressed my tongue against it to squeeze it until it blew apart inside my mouth in a fireworks of sweetness, utterly, totally, perfectly balanced. My focus on my pleasure was broken by Sissi putting a paw up to ask for a taste of what was so obviously pleasing me, a moment later her disappointment with her taste of a strawberry was clear, definitely not doggy food ! It was only then I realised my strawberry tasting had gained a number of male on-lookers, all starring intently at me. I glanced down in a hurried check that my girls were behaving and had not leaked milk or risen in the cool air but all appeared well. Clearly someone thought I had put on a good show though because my order for six boxes had been supplemented with three more. It was only as I walked back thinking about the looks that I realised I was bouncing more than I should. With a bit of a start I realised I had forgotten to put my bra on when I dressed, and my white blouse was just a touch too thin for wearing bra-less against a low morning sun – Oooopps ! Still, it had been a fruitful mistake. Back home I turned one third of the stawberries into sorbet, a third into ice cream, a third as they are. I did not think that much would actually be eaten but I have learn from much entertaining to always have a little something in reserve.

I was still preparing food when the first guests arrived early evening and so I set them to work setting the places, checking on the boys, entertaining the children. If I am providing the food and facilities I have no problem in making my guests work for their supper ! With the arrival of Jette (God daughter) and her little charge I had someone I could set to chasing Nina and finding out where she had got to. As I expected the report soon came back that Nina had spent the last few hours between the open thighs of another woman, but she was now, finally, on her way home. Some people might expect me to be angry at learning that my wife had spent the afternoon between the thighs of another while I slaved away in kitchen and garden, but I am pretty relaxed about such things. It is not the permissive Dutch attitudes that produce this sanguin approach’ but rather the nature of Nina’s job of midwife. I have often thought of having a bumper sticker made up for her and her colleagues – “Midwives Do It Between The Thighs Of Other Women”. I sent Hilke upstairs to pick out some fresh clothes for Nina, get her shower ready and stay up there to chivvy her along as soon as she got in, while at the same time more guests let themselves in.
I was throwing the chesnut sized new potatoes into the steamer, peeling garlic for the boiling water, chopping mint and getting the last of the breads ready. Somewhere in the back of my pantry was the butter from my parents farm that I wanted for the potatoes when cooked but goodness knows where, yet to be found. The slightly tangy smell now filling the kitchen was the roast peppers about to pass that point of perfection and trip down the road to oblivion unless I got to the oven double quick. It was in the midst of all this when Tayeska (deaf friend, mother of a deaf baby girl – remind me to tell you more one day) comes in ask where she can find four more chairs and place setttings. So imagine me, knife in one hand slot ladle in the other try to sign “What do you mean FOUR more ? The table sits sixteen, I am expecting twelve, what is the problem ?”

To which Tayeska replies, in sign; “Table sits sixteen, BUT you now have twenty guests, not including children !”. My reply was un-lady like and not suitable for children, but as it turned out it was the least of my problems as I dropped my knife narrowly escaping skewering my bare foot, and hit myself in my face with the ladle as I signed my expletive. Cursing further I had to rescue my grilling cheesed up breads.

Cursing the day I had agreed to “having a few people over on movie night” I was vowing to myself to never do this again and about to have a bit of a hissy fit when Nina, along with her little chivvy shadow, wandered into the kitchen. She looked wonderful and fresh in her long white summer dress with a white and gold shawl drapped over her shoulders. She gave me a hug and I drank in the freshness of her recent shower, while still being able to pick the hint of a scent of a newly delivered baby (it tends to have a distinct smell). I told her we now had twenty guests, not sure how, and food for twelve.

“No problem, I will go and sort them out, the invited can sit at the table the self invited will have to fend for themselves. You work a miracle in spinning out what we have. It will be fine, go, go, go”

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And saying so it really was, as my Mother says, “Faith manages“.

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The light was just beginning to fade as food went out and by the time everyone was squeezed in around the table the light had gone and fairy lights and candles and table lights switched on. I could not see details by that light but I was told many times it was a good table. In the end there was enough food, the ice cream was called upon to give the ultimate sacrifice in the end. Our own little mice enjoyed their mouse hunting movie, but twenty minutes into La Dolci Vita they were asleep against various owning adults. By two am everyone had exhausted the supplied vittles, as well as conversation and had gone home to their beds and we finally locked the doors and went to bed as well. Putting the children and baby into our bed Nina and I tucked up on the bedroom couch. As I settled down I realised that through the open French doors I could see a cloud of blurry lights down in the garden, it took me a moment to realise what it was, but I asked Nina why she had left them on;

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“Well” she said, “I thought five hundred lights was appropriate, one light for each un-inivited guest that has turned up over the last eleven years by my reckoning, each leaving us only when fully fed, appropriate don’t you think. So you can see the lights then darling?”

Me; “Nahhhh, just a blurr to me now”

“Just like all those un-invited guests, how apt” she said as her white dress slipped from her shoulders to form a rippled white pool at her feet. It seems she had also gone light on underwear that day, the naughty girl, she had been naked under there all evening !

Me; ” So, tell me about this woman who kept you so late this evening.”

“Mother to her first, a boy, both well, getting to know each other now, changing each other’s lives for ever.” She said with something of a reminiscent sigh. I knew she would be recalling her own first moments with our little ones even as she said it, recalling those unique first warm minutes together with her own newborns, now sleeping in our bed. Drawing her mind back to the present she said;

” Now, how about you just show me your thighs my good Wife………………………………………………….”

The perfect ending to a movie night, and maybe the start to another, not so public story, one day.

Author: Judith.

Foot Note by Nina:-

With everyone seated, and the table fit to bursting with all manner of, well manner I guess, one of the un-invited (a Canadian lady) asked loudly if she could say grace to thank god for the food. Nik kindly replied with a hearty suggestion that HIS thanks would be going to Judith for the food and that god would do well to know that his place was to not go anywhere near Judith’s kitchen if he knew what was good for him ! The laughter was the signal to tuck in.

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Sitting around here in Amsterdam, not allowed to do anything much during convelesence I decided to wade through the mountain of mail I have. I got as far January’s mail, shamefully far behind I know, when I came to this mail from a young man:

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“In what language do the profoundly deaf think? I think in Dutch, because that’s what I speak. But since deaf people cannot hear, surely they cannot learn how to speak a language but nevertheless, they must think in some language. Would they think in Dutch if they use sign language and read Dutch? How would they do that if they’ve never heard the words they are signing or reading pronounced? Do they just see words in their head, instead of hearing themselves, how on earth do they do it?  The more I think about this the more confused I become. I gather you became deaf well after you learnt language is that right? How about your deaf child does he use the same language as yourself? What about those who are blind in addition to deaf ?”

Henk van S, Naningweg, Ooststellingwerf.

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You are not far off being right in your thinking. Let me explain, but first a little context.

As my deafness was “acquired” in my twenties I had already developed my language (Dutch, English, German). Our son Nicholas was born profoundly deaf, and worse, his biological mother was not in a position to help him develop properly. Then to compound matters he was left in near isolation for the first 20 months of his life, it was nearly disastrous for him. As you can see though we are both deaf we come from almost polar opposites of experience and shows you cannot  just consider deafness to be a single term.  Based on this background I now frame my words.

If you are wondering what it is like to be a mother teaching her deaf child then this video may help you;

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Congenital/Hereditary Deafness

Can we think without language? The short answer is no, at least not at the level of cognition that we humans are accustomed to and this is why Congenital/Hereditary deafness can have far serious consequences. In fact it can be more serious than blindness in the development of the intellect. Being blind is undoubtedly hard, I know this from personal experience,  but even those sightless from birth acquire language by ear without difficulty as they grow up. A congenitally deaf child is not so fortunate because unless a parent, medical worker, teacher etc realizes very early on that she/ he’s not developing language because she/he cannot hear then their grasp of communication in any form may never progress beyond a rudimentary level, this is why one of the very first checks a midwife makes after the birth of a baby is on their hearing.

About one child per twelve hundred in Western Europe is born with no ability to hear whatsoever. The vital age range for language acquisition is 21 to 36 months. During this period children pick up the basics of language with ease (remarkable ease as it happens), and in so doing establish essential cognitive infrastructure in their brains. Beyond this age it is far more difficult. If the congenitally deaf aren’t diagnosed before they start school, they will face severe learning problems for the rest of their lives, though this does not mean that their intelligence is not normal.

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Acquired Deafness

If ,like me, you do not become totally deaf until after you’ve acquired language, your problems are some what more manageable. You think in whatever spoken language you’ve learned, Dutch in my case. If you are still in education when you loose your hearing then given some commonsense accommodation during school/university, you will progress intellectually on a par with any hearing person. In fact in some small ways it can be an advantage, though they are usually far outweighed by the inherent disadvantages. I would always urge anyone with acquired deafness to learn to sign, it is so valuable to link you to others and believe me you will need to take very opportunity you can grasp to link you to the human race that you can seize. One thing I have noticed in the last few years is that I am thinking less in Dutch and much more in Sign.

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Sign Language

The profoundly, prelingually deaf can and do acquire language, sign language. Every country has it’s own sign language. Those not familiar with Sign may suppose that it’s an invented form of communication like Esperanto but it is not. It is an independent and natural language with a heritage as long as many spoken languages, evolved by ordinary people and transmitted culturally from one generation to the next. To the surprise of many it is more similar to Chinese than any other language because a single inflected gesture can convey an entire word or phrase.  Sign can be acquired effortlessly in early childhood, children are wonderfully natural language sponges. My children sign and have even developed their own dialect between them, one which Nina and I often cannot understand, but then I suspect that is the point of it - the little monkeys! Sign is wonderfully expressive and versatile, it  equips users with the ability to manipulate concepts, symbols, describe abstract ideas, actively acquire and process knowledge. I have never met a hearing person who after learning sign has not been impressed with just how rich signing is as a language of artistic expression. Though I can speak and lip read a lot of conversation between Nina and I is in sign, especially when we are exploring complex subjects. It is also wonderful as a language of love.

Unfortunately many hearing people who claim themselves to be  authorities on the subject of deafness have long insisted that the best way to educate the deaf is to teach them spoken language ! As if the astounding arrogance of them were not enough, in the past they often went as far as to  as to employ physically abusive methods to actively suppress signing which was always utterly disastrous for their victims.

The answer to your question “In what language do the profoundly deaf think?” is that they think in Sign. This does of course assume they were fortunate enough to have learned it in infancy/childhood.

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Dutch Sign Language

“Nederlandse Gebarentaal” or “NGT” is the Sign Language used by Congenital/Hereditary deaf people in the Netherlands. Strange as it may seem it is not officially recognised. People like myself who become deaf suddenly or gradually (so-called deaf postlingual) generally use “Nederlands met Gebaren” or “NmG”. Since1995, more and more schools for the deaf in The Netherlands teach “Nederlands met Gebaren”, in English it is ” Dutch with Gestures” and it uses the same grammar as Dutch spoken language. but is supported by Dutch spoken gestures. This support with gestures makes it much more visual. NMG is basically the Dutch lexicon with elements of the grammar of Dutch Sign Language used for visual support. NMG largely follows the grammar of the Dutch language, including all proverbs, sayings and expressions. In contrast Dutch sign language, creates it’s own grammar which is necessary for those who have never heard their own language, this is why the two languages exist happily together.

As our son was deaf from birth he was taught NGT while I originally learnt NMG. I have adapted to NGT though I can switch between the two, while Nina and Hilke use NGT almost exclusively. My son is a very creative child in painting, drawing, crafts, model making, I often just watch him at the big table as I work in the kitchen. While he sits and thinks before he starts a drawing or model I see him moving his hands. It is as though he is sketching out in space his thoughts. When i ask his sister what he is doing she confirms this, in fact she does the same herself when they are sitting together. It seems that despite her being able to hear growing up in a household with two deaf people she has developed her own linguistic thought habits thus crossing the gulf between the world of the hearing and deaf.

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If you would like to see and maybe learn a little Signing at it’s simplest have a look ate the “Lotte & Max” kids books, they are required reading in our household !

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Deaf – Blind

In 2008 I spent a summer with very little sight, offically blind in fact, following a round of surgery. In this period I had to learn to palm-sign. Despite the description “deaf-blind” of deaf-blind people, most are not both totally deaf and totally blind It is a collective name for all variations in the combination of visual impairment / blindness and hearing impairment / deafness but whatever the exact nature I can assure you it is terrifying and painfully isolating. Communication is solely by hand and fingers.

• Vierhanden-gebarentaal - Four Hands sign language

The “vierhanden-gebarentaal” or four-hands sign language uses the same gestures as the Sign Language. The difference is that during the gestures of the speaker loosely holds the hands of the deaf-blind person so that he can feel what the other gesturing. Most signs are thus quite clearly be felt with practice and many develop custom gestures especially where some sort of specialist terms are required.

• Vingerspellen-in-de-hand - Finger Games-in-hand

The “vingerspellen-in-de-hand” or the finger games-in-hand is directly derived from the normal hand alphabet. For someone who knows Dutch manual alphabet, the finger can also be played-in-hand. It prints the letter in the palm of the deaf-blind. The rule is that spelling is done right with the right hand of the deaf-blind. An experienced person can feel the characters faster than the seeing eye can follow, though I never developed my skills to this speed.

• Lorm-schrift - Lorm-script

“Lorm-schrift” or Lorm-script consists Lorm, forming stripes and dots in the left palm of the deafblind. The reading is very difficult for the deaf and blind, but I am told that a skilled person cab get remarkable speeds with it.

The Deaf: Driving Cognitive Development Theories

The hearing can have only a general idea what this is like. Even I, deaf (acquired) as I am can only just grasp it and I have a son who thinks in sign ! The gulf between spoken and visual language is far greater than that between, say, Dutch and English. Recent PET Scan studies of the deaf and hearing brains have shown that there is a structural difference in brain structures. What  is even more interesting is that PET Scans of people with acquired deafness who have learn’t sign show structural changes taking place as their signing skills develop and this has provided the big clue to the theory that how we think can actually rearrange the physical structure of the brain itself. This has opened up a whole new area of study into the brain and it’s physiological reaction to external stimulus.

Author: Judith

Breast Milk & The Creation Of The Universe, a story in which I am naked on the couch under the softest of blankets with two males tucked up against me as I recount the creation of the Milky Way.

At three am Nina was sound asleep as I sat in the rocking chair by the French windows of our bedroom nursing Joost. I had drawn the curtains back and could feel the slightly chillier air coming off the windows despite the triple glazing. I do not know why I still do this it is not like I can see out into the dark anymore so I am guessing that I just enjoy the slight chill and the memory of looking into the dark. It did give me an excuse to draw the cashmere blanket, a beautiful and expensive Christmas gift from Nina, around mine and Joost’s nakedness wrapping us both in its soft warmth. Around us both the house and the world slept, or so I hoped.

Sissi stirred from her basket beside our bed and came to tell me someone else in the house was awake, very little escapes her notice. Rather than disturb Joost I sat and waited and sure enough within a minute Nicholas’s head peaked around the bedroom door. I signed to him to come on in and asked him why he was awake. A dream, not a bad one, had woken him up and now he was restless, standing there in his PJs he looked cold and in need of some hugs so keeping Joost firmly supported in one arm I moved us and the blanket over to the bedroom couch. Once settled I was able to open up the blanket and envelop all three of us in its softness, then just for good measure Sissi decided she want to be part of it and came up as well.

There we all sat cuddled together. Joost continuing to suckle, fall asleep, wake, suckle and fall asleep again on one side, Nicholas resting tight up against my other side watching Joost closely while glancing up to see the snow falling outside and all under a soft blanket warmed by a dog. After a few minutes I signed with one hand and asked Nicholas what he was thinking.

“The snow flakes in the moonlight look like stars in the Milky Way” He signed back. Nicholas is fascinated by astronomy at the moment and is devouring every book and internet site he can find about the subject so I asked if his new studies were going well.

“Yes Moeder, but………….why is it called the MILKY way, it does not look like milk” as he said this his finger scooped up a dribble of milk that had escaped Joost’s mouth and run out over my breast and held the milk drop up to me. I could not have designed the moment if I had been trying, by happy chance it was a perfect lead into telling him a little story, so signing with my free hand I told him………………………………………..

“ Many, many years ago during the times of the Romans and Greeks there was a tale of one of their gods, Hercules. In fact he was a demigod, being the son of the god  Zeus, and the mortal Alcmena. Alcmena was the daughter of Electryon, king of Mycenae. Her mother was queen Anaxo. It was said that their daughter Alcmene was the most beautiful woman in the world with a wisdom surpassed by no person born of mortal parents. Her face and dark eyes were as charming as Aphrodite’s, and that she honoured her husband like no woman had before her. One day her brothers were ambushed and killed by worriers from two tribes, the Taphians and Teleboans. She loved her brothers dearly and swore their deaths would be avenged one day. She asked her future husband Amphitryon to be the one to avenge their deaths for her and he agreed so they married. Some time before her husband had accidently killed Alcemena’s father Electron so she first asked her husband to go to Thebes to be purified by Creon because he had accidentally killed her father Electryon. Alcmene said that she would marry Amphitryon once he had avenged the death of her brothers.

Amphitryon decided to mount an expedition against the Taphians and Teleboans to avenge the deaths of her brothers thus fulfilling his promise to his wife. While he was away fighting that the god  Zeus visited Alcmene disguised as Amphitryon. Zeus had heard about her great beauty and wanted to see Alcmene for himself. As soon as he saw her he was entranced by this mortal woman’s great beauty and decided that he wanted to be with her, so he took his evil deception further and bedded her. Such was his delight with her he stayed several nights and so Alcmene became pregnant with Hercules all the time believing that she had been with her husband.

When the real Amphitryon finally returned to Thebes, Alcmene told him that he had come the night before and slept with her but of course he had no idea of this and so eventually they learnt what Zeus had done. Knowing his dear wife was an honorable woman and would never knowingly have betrayed him with Zeus Amphitryon forgave her though it was not necessary.

When Alcmene was about to give birth to Hercules, Zeus announced to all the gods that on that day a child, descended from himself, would be born who would rule all those around him. Hera, Zeus’s wife, asked her husband Zeus swear an oath to that effect which he happily did. Then Hera, angry at her husband for bedding Alcmene descended from Mount Olympus, home of the gods, to Argos and made the wife of Sthenelus, a son of Perseus, tgive birth to Eurytheus, the baby she was expecting, two months early, while at the same time prevent she prevented Alcmene from birthing Heracles. This cruel trick resulted in the fulfillment of Zeus’s oath by Eurystheus rather than his own son Heracles.

When Alcmene was in labour she was having difficulty giving birth to such a large child. After seven days and nights in agony, Alcmene stretched out her arms and called upon Lucina, the goddess of childbirth to help. However, while Lucina did go to Alcmene, she was instructed by Juno to stop the delivery. With her hands clasped and legs crossed, Lucina muttered charms and spells, thereby preventing Alcmene from giving birth. Alcmene struggled in pain, she cursed the heavens, and became close to death. Galanthis, a devoted maid and doula to her mistress Alcmene observed Lucina’s actions and quickly deduced Juno’s plans. She decided to stop their devious plot and so announced that Alcmene had in fact safely delivered her child. This surprised Lucina so much that she immediately jumped up and unclenched her hands. As soon as Lucina leapt up, Alcmene was released from her spell and gave birth to Heracles. As punishment for deceiving Lucina, Galanthis was transformed into a weasel but ever faithful she continued to live with Alcmene for the rest of her life.

Alcmene was so exhausted after her long labour with Hercules that afterwards she slept deeply, during her sleep Zeus returned and took Hercules and put him to his own wife Juno’s breast while she also slept. He did this because he knew that if his son suckled from his wife who was a goddess then he would become instilled with the power of the gods. As Zeus suckled from Juno she woke and she took her breast from the baby Hercule’s mouth and her milk sprayed out across the heavens and in doing so the vast spray of goddess’s milk created the stars of what became the “Milky Way”. Some milk splashed to the earth and where the drops fell a new flower, white Lilies grew. This is how the stars above came to be called the Milky Way”

I had been hoping that the story would lull Nicholas off to sleep but when I looked to his face it was to see that he was now more awake than before, in fact his visage was one of the utterly fascinated and entranced !

“Wow !” he exclaimed “Of course mother it could not really happen but it’s a great story” He paused a few moments before adding “I don’t think you or Mama spray the heavens…….. just the other side of the room sometimes !”Naturally I did not mention that on occasion I certainly felt that I could spray the heavens, instead I just smiled.

There then followed a lot more questions about Alcmene, Zeus, Lucina and the rest until eventually his hands slowed down, and his body settled more against me and he was asleep. It was nearly five am and in an hour my day would start again, so under our blanket with my two sons pressed tightly to my skin and the soft beautiful smells of them both filling my head and my feet warmed by Sissi I dozed while snow continued to fall outside. Despite really needing to sleep I did not because that would mean missing that wonderful moment in my life. Too often we live our lives surrounded by so much noise and chaos that we miss the most precious of moments, but there and then I had time enough to see for what it was, a perfect moment in time and perfect moments are so rare.

So there I sat as on my feet Sissi rolled onto her back with her paws in the air as she enjoyed the warmth afforded by so much company on the couch. On my chest Joost had fallen asleep his cheek pressed deeply into the flesh of my bosom, his tiny little hands moving about in his sleep as though waving to us even as he was deeply away in his world of slumber.

On the other side Nicholas slept with his thumb in his mouth, his face a picture of utter contentment. My mind drifted to the time six or seven years ago when he came to us. Then he was a terribly traumatized and neglected child, he could not be left for a moment without becoming terrorized that I might not return. When I held him to me he would be rigid, his hands gripping me so tightly in constant fear of the moment I might put him down and not return that he left deep nail marks in my skin. He had been born into a world of silence an so he needed to be touched constantly, to be able to see a face and see your lips moving even though he could not hear the words. I spent long hours caressing his face and hands while talking to him, but still terror remained. So deeply embedded was his terror of being alone that after three months I often despaired in the cold dark hours of dawn that he would ever be normal but then one day my mother, after watching carefully the daily struggle with him told me what he needed.

A couple of weeks later, with my mother’s knowledgeable assistance, some herbs and some deft stimulation I was able to nurse Nicholas. Instantly, really, truly instantly he was calm regardless of how much milk he drew from me. Within days he learnt that even if I was out of his sight that I would be back and any panic he has would be washed away. After a few weeks as my milk supply came fully in he was starting to gain weight, then his skin problems improved along with his digestive problems. He no longer screamed or beat himself against the cot sides, he no longer scratched himself just to feel some sort of stimulation and he no longer removed flesh when in my arms. As I poured something of myself into him I watched his body and his spirit heal. Over the next two months he sweetened into the placid and gentle child he is today.

He still loves to have his hands and feet rubbed, and when he needs comfort his face also. Looking now at the child he was and the child he has become, I now do the same with Joost I wonder how he will look in six years time. I watch their sleeping faces happy to see them growing up while also wishing they wouldn’t, trying in my mind to freeze that moment in time again.

Foot Note

A few random thoughts……………

I feel I have an embarrassment of riches, but it is an embarrassment that I am happy to have.

I am still so overwhelmed by what Nina did for me, without her kindness I would not have been able to write about that lovely night above.

I think we have finally settled things and have Joost’s final name, just have to check with a dear friend first before announcing it.

Author: Judith