motherhood is hard.

Today we took bebe to the John Tracy clinic in downtown Los Angeles for a hearing assessment. My husband took the day off work so that he could come with us.

In the past at bebe’s school audiologists from John Tracy clinic and visited but both times they were unable to test him because he kept on crying. For the test they wanted to do, they needed the child to be still in order to have the sound waves echo back to the detector (I think) – impossible with a screaming crying toddler.

This was the reason why we made an appointment to go to the down town clinic site, where they could give him a hearing assessment without ever touching him.

For those in the Los Angeles and surrounding area, John Tracy clinic gives FREE (that’s right, FREE) hearing assessments and I think they are one of the best places specializing in children’s hearing tests. I’ve listened to lectures from a John Tracy clinic audiologist and a speech pathologist and both were extremely knowledgeable.

By the way this is one of the advantages of having a child enrolled in an early intervention program – I as a parent have opportunities to attend all sorts of interesting lectures that I wouldn’t know where to look to learn the information.

I’ve never driven down that part of down town Los Angeles and there were tree lined streets and grand red brick buildings. My husband said he had seen one of the buildings in a Huell Howser PBS show – a historical landmark. It was quite a pretty neighborhood even though as you exit the freeway you wonder if you are going into a bad part of town.

When we entered the clinic, bebe was already apprehensive. He could sense this was a clinic of some sort. Thankfully there was a little playroom full of toys and he immediately took to the plastic Little Tyke rocking horse and played with the little plastic vacuum cleaner.

Then it was time for the hearing test!

We entered a little room that had sound-proof walls.

Going into the room made me nervous because it was so tiny and full of equipment. Luis, the administrator of the assessment came in and started working from his bag of toys that would engage most all children. But bebe was scared to death and he clung onto me hard. I’m talking about pushing himself into my left boob and armpit like he was trying to disappear into me! I had to bite my lip to stop myself from giggling out loud, it was so ticklish, and we all had to keep quiet so that the hearing assessment could be conducted.

The audiologist went to another room where she could observe bebe from a one way mirror. She worked with Luis to trigger a series of sounds from different parts of the room. The goal is to determine whether bebe would respond by turning his head or at least his eyes to the source of the sound. Some of the sounds were quite soft – it almost sounded like a puff of air coming from the walls somewhere. Thankfully, bebe was curious enough that despite his intense anxiety – he turned to see where the sound was coming from.

At one point, the audiologist flipped a switch and a glass box containing a monkey dotted with LED lights light up and made some mechanical sounds. It was so bizarre looking that I started giggling out loud! Of course bebe turned to look at it long enough to push back onto my boob and armpit.

The whole assessment took less than 15 minutes, and they would have done more tests that would look at each ear, but bebe “could not tolerate it” (that was what the report said). In other words, he started crying loudly when they tried to place a detector plug into his ear. The audiologist said that he definitely can hear speech, which was good news! But of course our follow-up question to this became, “then why isn’t he talking yet, at the level he is supposed to be talking?”

As my husband had said, the only way we will start feeling better is when bebe actually hits each of these milestones that we were told by well meaning people that he WILL hit. This is probably how children teaches us patience.

Taking our son to the John Tracy clinic for a comprehensive hearing assessment tomorrow. Ruling out whatever we can rule out in terms of his speech delay, and the hearing test is usually #1 on the list. The audiologists have visited the school before but both times bb couldn’t be tested because he was too anxious and would not stop crying and refused to cooperate.

I am hoping that it works out tomorrow and they have tools to assess a “tough subject” like bb. At least that is what they told me – they said they wouldn’t even need to touch him to test him. But they don’t understand – all they need to do is look at him and he would start to panic because he knows they are trying something on him…

On an unrelated note, Mr. Fabu came over for a home-made wonton soup dinner tonight and it was a blast. We heard stories about him visiting Tahiti when he was married to wife#2 and making the mistake of drinking a glass of water from the tap! At the end, bb even gave Mr. Fabu a hug to say goodbye.