Say What?

Those who know me, know that I have hearing issues. I've had a hearing aid since I was in sixth grade.

Those who know me well, know that I hate wearing it. It makes me feel like I'm in a tunnel and sometimes all I can hear is my own breathing...which I guess for a severe asthmatic can be fairly reassuring.

Those who live with me, know that I actually don't exactly know where said hearing aid is...

They also know that my daughter, Grace is either hard of hearing or has completely picked up my mannerism of saying "What?" to everything that is said to her. Seriously - it's like it's a habit. Does anyone else's kid do this? She'll have hearing testing next year in Kindergarten and right now, I really think it's a lack of focus or just because she hears me say it, but it is driving.me.crazy!

For example the following conversation ensued last week. (prompting this post)

Grace: "Mommy, can I have more milk."

Mommy: "Sure - just a minute while I finish changing your sister's diaper."

Grace: "What?"

Mommy: "Yes, in just a minute."

Grace: "MORE MILK, MOMMY!"

Um...what?? I cracked up. It's like the deaf leading the deaf. Good grief. It totally reminded me of a similar scenario I had in college. You may not find it as funny, but I'm still in tears over it. Maybe you had to be there, I don't know. It was hilarious at the time.

I had gone with my roommates comedy/ministry team to stay the night at one of the other members' home (Adam Powers for my fellow Cornerstonians). The whole team was staying the night there after getting ready for the program they were going to put on at a church the next morning.

So there were about 8 or 9 of us who had to get ready in the morning for this service, so I woke up early, before everyone else, because I wanted to get in a shower and then I'd be out of the way. So I head in to Adam's bathroom and I canNOT figure his shower out. It was one of those systems where it has a strong ring around the faucet at the bottom and you have to yank that down in order for the shower to come out. I totally know how to use one now, but in 1999, I had never seen one of these before and I was just completely baffled as to how to get water to come out of this shower head!! I worked on it for about 10 minutes, before I realized I was going to have to go ask Adam for help.

So I tiptoed in and knocked on his bedroom door, it's completely dark by the way, all over the house and I don't know why I knocked because I wasn't going to hear him say "Come in" anyway. So I knocked, waited the appropriate length of time for him to answer and opened the door. Adam was still in bed.

"Adam?" I whispered.

"What?" he whispered back.

"Adam." I whispered again.

"What?" he replied.

"Adam!" I whispered louder, hoping he could hear me - I really needed to take a shower!

"WHAAAAAAATTTT????" He whispered even louder.

And I cracked up. He had been answering me all along and I had no idea. The poor kid had to get up in his boxer shorts so that I could take my shower, because I couldn't hear him whispering.

Yikes. Is this Karma? Adam had a great sense of humor, so he thought it was funny too. A lot more funny than I am finding Grace's incessant "whating."

Maybe it's just a phase? Anybody else's kids doing this? I'll be interested to see how long it goes.