Duck, Duck, Goose

While playing Duck, Duck Goose with the kids (and ten of their stuffed animals), I kept my eyes closed when it was their turn.  I wanted to see if I could discriminate between "duck" and "goose."  I know they sound nothing alike.  But to me, right now, almost all speech sounds exactly the same "ding, ding, ding, aling."  I'm working sooooo hard on speech.  But it's just going to take time.  So after about ten rounds of playing, I could tell the dings apart between duck and goose.  Progress :)

I also can sometimes distinguish Joshua saying "mommmmmmyy" when he's upset.  He's two.  So he's upset quite a lot and I get lots of practice hearing him say "mommy."  Tonight I heard it while I was in Aleah's bedroom.  I left her room to go and find him and he was in the kitchen.  With the scentsy wax dumped on top of him.  After I made sure he wasn't burned, I cracked up.  It was hillarious how distraught he was after the wax hardened on him.  I loved that I could hear him calling for me from a different room in the house.  While cleaning up the wax, I again heard "mommmmmmmyy" from another room.  I went on the search.  He and Aleah were in his bedroom yanking the christmas lights off his wall.  Oy.  I'm telling you, this bionic ear is good for mothering.  Haha.

And just an FYI, I know I am probably making it sound like I've never heard sound before.  I'm in an odd situation.  With both hearing aids, I did hear lots of sound.  My hearing loss is just so bad, it was very difficult to distinguish between sounds.  And I had to hyperfocus on speech to understand what was being said.  So I've always been able to hear my children say "mommy" when I am right in front of their face and they are looking at me.  However, I could never hear them say "mommy" if I was in a different room.  Now, with an implant, I mainly leave my left hearing aid out.  So I'm only relying on my implant for speech and it's super difficult at this point of my learning curve.  So I'm understanding less speech with my implant now than I did with both hearing aids right up to surgery.  However, once my brain is trained, I will be able to understand speech better with my implant.  In the meantime, I'm hearing other sounds that I haven't heard for years.  Like the wind.  Like my clock.  Like boiling water.  Like pants swishing together when I walk.  Does that make sense??