Baby Gym

It has been a while since I have written, and I think that reflects the fact that my life has moved away from being a mum of two children, one of whom is deaf, to just being a mum.  Who knew ‘normal’ was so wonderful!   

I was reflecting on this yesterday when I took Henry to his weekly Baby-Gym class.  When we started in the class, Henry was the only child who couldn’t walk (the class is for 18mon- 24mon, and Henry started walking only at 18months).  So activities like running around a circle were difficult, despite Henry’s super-speed crawl!  Henry had very limited vocab, so instructions from the teacher like “okay, everyone come and get two shakers from the box, one for you and one for mummy”, meant little to him, even if he had been able to hear the teacher properly above the background music and other children!  However I wasn’t too worried about what the other kids were doing, and what Henry couldn’t do, I was doing the classes to teach Henry new things and expose him to different activities, and as long as he was progressing in his own way, and having fun, then that was all that mattered.  Each week I patiently repeat each instruction from the teacher to Henry to ensure he has the language to go with each activity we are doing.  And over the weeks I have seen his confidence blossom, in himself, his understanding of what is happening and in his abilities.  Before we started the class I was worried that his CIs were going to keep falling off at inopportune times (like when he is demonstrating swinging on the bars to the class) – I didn’t want everyone to see him as the boy that needed these hearing aids that kept falling off- I just wanted Henry to be another little toddler trying to balance on the beam.  I needn’t have worried- his headbands keep his CIs on so perfectly, they have only come off once, when he was being shown how to do a backward roll and very awkwardly got stuck halfway!

Yesterday in class, just over two months after we started, he was running around with the rest of the kids, fighting over the balls and calling out ‘mama’ when he couldn’t see where I was.  At one point the teacher asked Henry if she could help him do a handstand.  He nodded and said “yes”, it was so cute.  I know he didn’t really understand what she was asking, but he understood enough that it was question and Henry had to answer and that then he was going to do something with her.

Henry is an individual, with his own strengths and weaknesses, but it is so nice to see him with other children his age and see that he is not missing out on anything, he can do everything they can do, it’s wonderful to see.