Not-so-naughty Shannon!

For the last couple of weeks Sean and I have been getting more than a little irritated with Shannon who has been ignoring us! Calling her seemed to have no effect and she would just carry on with what she was doing. I would call her for bath or for supper and she wouldn't come! Not sure what had come over our normally fairly compliant child, I began to wonder if she had gone deaf... So I did some experiments! She HAD gone deaf! Well partially at least! I conducted one of my experiments for Sean and he was HORRIFIED! How could we have been cross with her when she couldn't even hear us! Sean then spent the whole night awake - not sure if the two are connected but, knowing Sean, more than likely.

Next step was to mention this to her teacher who, as luck would have it, was teaching sounds at school that day! So she did an experiment on Shannon. Taking the shaker with the quietest sound she shook it behind Shannon. To confirm that she had heard Shannon nodded her head! The teacher then shook her empty hand behind Shannon, Poppet still nodded to confirm she had heard... hmmmm!! (Naughty MOMMY - how could I not notice?)

So this morning I took her to the doctor. She has bilateral effusion (I think) which means fluid build up behind her ear drum! Thanks, for the most part, to her ALLERGIES (why are we all allergic to everything, whose gene is it and why can't we have it removed???) So now I have to spray stuff up her nose 3 times a day, give her some other allergy thingy and some OTHER allergy thingy, in the hope that in 10 days the swelling has gone down and the fluid has drained! If not it's grommets (and to be perfectly honest, with a name like that, THEY can't be much fun!). So here is hoping.

In the mean time more patience, louder voices and eye contact are the order of the day when it comes to talking to the young lady whose most common response to me at the moment is: "What you say Mommy?" and to Sean - who obviously requires fewer words than me: "Say Dad?"

The upshot of all of this is that I feel like a nasty Mommy! How could I get cross with Poppet for not listening when actually she couldn't hear???? She always looked at us in total bemusement when she eventually did hear us and I thought she was being cheeky! "Naughty Mommy, needa gedda smack!"