Testing ... 1, 2

I took the boys to get their hearing checked yesterday. I took Abbie too since she’s too immature to stay home alone even though she can apparently remove her diaper when she’s dirty and pull things out of the refrigerator when she’s hungry or just feeling the need to eat out of boredom.

This turned out to be a major problem. The boys had to get their hearing checked. I had to come to hold the boys during the examination. Abbie had to come because I couldn’t leave her alone. Therefore, since Ellie was stuck at work, occasional commenter and close personal friend Patty had to come to watch Abbie and the boy who wasn’t being examined while I held a boy in another room. Patty’s 1-year-old daughter also had to come for the same reason Abbie had to come, especially since her girl hasn’t yet figured out how to attain and drink milk straight from the jug like Abbie has. That works out to a support system of four mostly extraneous people arriving in two vehicles so two babies can have their hearing checked. And just so I don’t forget, THANK YOU PATTY!

The boys aren’t showing any signs of hearing problems. When I talk to them, say their names, or yell at them when they’re misbehaving, they behave exactly like I expect 10-month-olds to do, which is to say they mostly ignore me, but they at least look in my direction long enough that I know they’re choosing not to listen to me. The hearing test is just a formality that all NICU babies are encouraged to undergo, especially when they received supplemental oxygen like our guys did.

I arrived at the test center about five minutes before Patty, which worked out great since I had ten minutes worth of paperwork to complete before the tests. One of the first things anyone said to me upon arrival, right after the obligatory “you’ve got your hands full” comment, was “you wouldn’t by any chance have another adult coming to help watch the kids, would you?” When they sent that letter proclaiming they do not provide childcare for children not actively being tested, they meant it.

When Patty arrived, they whisked us all to a conference room because my double-stroller alone took up most of their waiting area. After finishing the paperwork, they took me with one boy at a time into the hearing booth for the testing.

This was the same center that checked Abbie’s hearing a couple months ago, so I knew the routine. The test on the boys was almost identical to the test on Abbie, except the boys lacked the coordination to pull equipment from their ears. First the audiologist stuck implements in their ears to measure their physical response to sounds and pressures in the canal. Then the audiologist went into a separate room while her voice came through speakers to the left or right of the baby. When he turned his head to the sound, we knew he was hearing it properly, and a darkened box containing a stuffed animal would suddenly illuminate and the toy would spring to mechanical life. The animal was supposed to be a reward for the baby, though by the end I think both boys were whipping their heads back and forth to try to figure out what the h-e-double-hockey-sticks those things were, and whether or not they were about to kill us.

As I expected, both boys passed the test, so I know they can hear me just fine when I tell them to quit playing in the pet water. When I returned to the conference room, Patty swore everybody did great without me, though she did admit that every toy was out of her diaper bag and every child’s song she knew had been sung. Perhaps Abbie would have been more easily occupied with a refrigerator in the room.