Eloïse woke up very excited this morning because today was the day that she was going to get to finish the bag that she’s been working on at school and bring it home. She been cross-stitching it for a few weeks and then she made the strap with yarn and got to sew that on today. Her teacher made the bag part and attached the cross-stitch, I think. She is extremely proud of it. It’s my favorite thing that she’s made at school so far.
When we moved in to this house three years ago we made the ominous discovery of a box of mouse poison under the sink. However, we’ve never had a problem in all that time until a week ago, when we discovered a little hole in a loaf of bread with a small mousy snack removed from one crust. It became clear that they were coming in through one shelf of one of our cupboards and the problem seemed to be truly confined to just that shelf. We removed all the food from that shelf and kept the door to the cabinet closed whenever it wasn’t in use but we’ve still had a turd or two in there every morning despite the lack of food.
Ian went to the pet shop today to get a catch-and-release mouse trap. He had to visit three pet shops to find one with any in stock; it seems that this is mouse season (one shop has sold 50 this week). We set it up this afternoon and waited.
Lo and behold, we heard a little snap from the kitchen this evening, so we crept into the kitchen and cautiously opened the cupboard to find a gorgeous little brown mouse in our trap, sitting so perfectly still that I was afraid he had been hurt.
He hadn’t, though, and we brought the trap out for a better look. It seemed obvious that the poor little guy was feeling very stressed, so Ian took him to the park straight away to release him. He got to keep the chunk of cheese for his trouble.
Lukie was very much looking forward to going along to the park to release anybody that we might catch tonight, so here’s hoping that we have another visitor after the hour that Ian is no longer prepared to go out, stressed mouse or not.
Eloïse had her annual weigh and measure appointment at school on Wednesday. They also did vision and hearing tests. The hearing test was the type where you wear headphones and raise your hand when you hear a beep.
Over the last few weeks I have found myself saying “are you deaf?” to her enough times that it had occurred to me that it was a good thing that she was having a hearing test. So when Ian came home and immediately asked me if she’s ever had her ears checked my heart sunk. She never had the newborn test because she was born at home in America and the complete lack of infrastructure surrounding home birth means that there’s nothing in place to facilitate hearing tests for babies who aren’t born in the hospital. When we moved here we asked for a hearing test when we first went to the consultatiebureau, but they only have the machinery sitting around for 2-week old ears. She was 3 months and in order to arrange a hearing test we were going to have to jump through some hoops. We eventually decided not to jump through those hoops because we could see clearly that she could hear.
Apparently at the test at school Eloïse only raised her hand for one beep. The woman turned it up to 60 dB and she still didn’t hear the beep. Shit.
I told Ian that my suspicion was that she was confused by the directions somehow. He assured me that he had questioned her at length and she had definitely heard only one beep. At school pick-up time Ian questioned Eloïse’s teacher. She had also never noticed her having a hearing problem. But she told us that one boy in her class is extremely hard of hearing and no one would ever know it because he compensates so well with lip-reading. But it’s pretty hard to get Eloïse to look at your when you’re talking and she always responds verbally so I didn’t see how that could be the case with her.
When she got home I questioned her about the test. She told me that she only heard one beep on the first test and no beeps at all on the second test. I said “didn’t you hear anything at all?” and she said “I heard oo-oo, but not ee-ee.” Ah ha. “How many times did you hear oo-oo?” “Lots, but that wasn’t what I was supposed to listen for!”
She went back for a repeat test the next day and passed the test. Case closed. It’s funny because at the parent evening the teacher was going on and on about how the current group of kids is really attentive to detail (read: anal) such that she can’t get away with anything. If she promises that a certain book will be read four days later and a different book is read, they will point it out. If she tells a story differently, they correct her. If she moves something from its usual spot, even something that they don’t play with, they ask where it has gone. When I heard about this class make-up I certainly recognized Eloïse’s personality in it. I guess it’s no surprise that she took the directions to listen for the “beep” very literally.
In unrelated news, this is a picture of Eloïse’s latest school craft project. It’s a spiderweb that she made all by herself. She is very proud.
Eloïse did a self-portrait this morning before school. She gave it to her teacher but I had to take a photo first because we were both impressed with how the little figure matched her outfit today. Ian didn’t want her to give it away!
Eloïse has been asking for guitar lessons on and off for the last year. We finally arranged them and she began last week. She was painfully shy at the first lesson, sticking her fingers in her mouth and clinging to us, not speaking, etc. It bordered on embarrassing. But the teacher had been forewarned and he was really great with her. She actually participated for the second half of the lesson and was very keen to return.
Ian took her to the Spanish guitar shop this morning and bought her a beautiful little guitar that is just her size. Then she had her second lesson this afternoon.
This one was much better. She still didn’t utter a word but her hands weren’t in her mouth and she sat on her own. She did everything he taught her and, to my eye, did it quite well. By the end of the 30-minute lesson he had begun teaching her to read music.
When we got home the guitar came out immediately. She arranged her animals in an attentive position and gave them a concert. She asked me if I wanted to hear the sun (she plucked the highest string), the wind (she strummed across all the strings), the thunder (she knocked on the body of the guitar), or the mouse (she played the strings up at the top of the neck by the tuning pegs). These little analogies were all her own invention. (As an aside, her school certainly has no academic focus at this age but I think it really does foster this sort of imaginative thinking.)
I’ll be eager to see how her enthusiasm holds up to the test of time.