Signs of Life : The Brownie Chronicles

I wanted to comment on Dr. White's TedxTalk video " Establishing a Sound Foundation for Children Who Are Deaf or Hard Of Hearing" .  With my permission, he used video of our boys signing in the car with their dad.   I will comment in order of the lecture, so you may want to watch the first several minutes to get a context: First, Karl White says, "If not identified early, the deaf child fails to develop language, has a difficult time in school, is socially isolated, and will have a menial or no job later in life."  The entire opening is a typical scare tactic used on hearing parents.  The opening line of this TedTalk begins with a negative view of being deaf. Let me enthusiastically state that I support early identification! It WILL increase the child’s chances for success IF the parents begin pouring language into their child right away. But, even if it is not discovered that the child is deaf until later, the child CAN succeed and doesn’t have to be beh...

Although they make rare appearances here, we DO have three older kids.  However you want to say it: birth kids, original 3, biological children, fruit of our loins, made in America.  Some of those are politically incorrect and one is just gross, but they are all terms that could be/have been used to describe the oldest three Brownies. Could you just die?  December 2006 Five years later, they would NEVER agree to do this pose! They love their brother, but would no longer be willing to smooch him on the cheek and have it saved as a framable photo forever.  Ah, the sweet, younger years. The three oldest kids have had quite a 2011!  They moved from a kids' dream house and neighborhood into an apartment half the size of the house. They went from having their own room to sharing a room.  They left the street that held some of their dearest friends.  They happily, and without a second thought, gave up a spri...

A couple of months ago, I blogged about the negative comments my kids were hearing regarding our choice to homeschool.  In addition to the homeschool comments, my kids have been told by other kids in our neighborhood that they "don't matter," they are "idiots" "fa**ots""gay."  They have a stupid family.   They've been introduced to the "n" word for the first time ever and have gotten an earful of other colorful expletives.  We can deal with so-called "bad" words, but the name-calling and cruel terms are the ones that get to me. The kids had an interesting way they learned about the "n" word.  They were playing with two of their friends who are Black.  An older Black boy casually called another Black boy this name.  My girls wouldn't have even noticed, but their girl friends gasped and covered their mouths.  My girls asked them what that meant and the girls said, "You need to ask your mom, but it...