Demo Days, continued

It's now been about one month that Hadley has been trialing a new set of hearing aids. We haven't made an official decision to purchase them, but it's looking more likely than not (especially since it's been one month since Hadley last wore her old aids, so her brain has truly moved on to the new technology). I'm not jumping up and down with glee over these aids, but two events in the last week have definitely caught my attention.

Hadley was playing with friends outside, while the mom and I chatted nearby. Like most hearing people, I was vaguely aware of the usual sounds of nature and neighborhood. Suddenly, Hadley gave a little yell and a jump, shouting, "What was that sound?" While Hadley is often deserving of an Academy Award nomination for her theatrics, the expression on her face was clearly one of surprise, perhaps even a little fear. I took a quick mental inventory of what I could hear, and realized she was hearing cicadas. This was the first time she had heard the sound clearly enough to be able to distinguish it from random background noise.

Last week, Hadley and I had breakfast on the beach, enjoying the calm before the storm (well, the storm that wasn't). Hadley had discovered a ton of new seashells on the bay side, so we spent a lot of time wading through the water and exploring the tidal pools. Hadley kept looking across the bay for a motorboat that she could hear. Most everyone had taken their boats out of the water in anticipation of the hurricane, so it was clear that she wasn't hearing a boat. Finally, I realized she was hearing a landscaping crew at work at one of the properties across the bay. Sure enough, as we drove home, we saw two men at work trimming down some hedges at a property that backs up to the water. Boat motor, weedwhacker: they sound pretty much the same to me, too, from 1/3 mile away.

We'll be making a decision by the end of September, so I'll keep tracking all the little things that grab my attention and make a difference.