Last time I posted about this personal issue, I felt a sense of guilt and worry as I shared my feelings with the wider world. With a click of the button, I held my breath, but I needed not worry. Sharing our story of Hudson’s mild hearing loss, and my feelings about dealing with this challenge was met with great support and praise. For this, I am truly thankful to all of you.
As a person, I’ve always been an extrovert and someone who really needs and relies on talking about my feelings in order to come to terms with how I’m feeling and work through a solution. Sometimes this is fine, but sometimes it may border on over sharing. My blog has always been a platform, first and foremost, to document the growing memories of my family. To look back upon, in years to come, much like a photo album. Over the past three years, the blog has evolved into something more. It’s somewhat of a community of followers who share their feelings, advice and stories with me and each other.
Sometimes it’s real easy for me to share my feelings and stories of Motherhood. When it’s great, its wonderful. It’s easy. However when I’m going through things that are challenging, frustrating and sad, I often dwell on whether or not to share. Not because I don’t want to expose myself as a failure, or someone who can’t cope….in the real world it’s actually refreshing to read stories of people who are going through the normal ups and downs. My feelings of reservation are about wanting to protect my children. I am very aware of the fact that I manage and write this blog, and my children have no real say in what is written about them. They have not consented to my posts. They have not given me permission to post photos about them. So I always ask myself if Ella and Hudson would be ok with what I have written. About myself, about them, about our family. This blog is a digital footprint that has the potential to last forever. I hope that they, in years to come, look back over this blog with fondness and smile. I want them to see that our life is wonderful, amongst all of the challenges. I want them to see how much they are loved. I want them to read about how, as a Mum, I have done my best. Being my best is not without feelings of frustration, exhaustion and sometimes a hint of sadness. However it is always outweighed with an overwhelming sense of love, pride and happiness.
It’s been playing on my mind lately to ensure that I remain positive and don’t let the feelings of negativity take over. I’ve been appreciating so many small moments lately, and with Hudson’s new challenge of wearing hearing aides, this has really helped me to see small steps as giant leaps. Hudson has been wearing his hearing aides only at home, and with me by his side, reminding him, and praising him for wearing them. We put them in, he takes them off, we put them back in. I’m getting so much quicker at putting them in his tiny little ears. They are personalised for his ear shape and so you need to know the right parts to pull and poke to have the perfect fit. My life saver has been the safety strap that connects to the back of the aides and the back of his jumper. Much like a sunglass strap does, this helps to ensure that they don’t get lost if he pulls them out. That said, he has learned that he can just ‘yank’ the strap to pull them out, and then happily chews away on the silicone ear buds. Needless to say I’ve already had to reorder a new pair.
Some positives also include the fact that he leans his head towards me when I attempt to put them in. Clearly he is learning the routine. He can wear them for about an hour before it just gets too much for both Hudson and myself. During that time we do some reading to ensure that he hears a range of sounds, talking and playing. I’m still unsure whether or not he feels a difference himself as his behaviours have always been age appropriate. But we’ll see!
When I write these things down I feel a great sense of relief and pride. I’m proud of the small things we are achieving. I’m proud of Hudson, and I’m proud of myself. Over sharing or not, it is helping me to help my son. Surely that can only be a good thing. Maybe over sharing is caring….sometimes!
Until next time…..
