Friday, November 09, 2012

Like a Bat

Recently, I have realized something interesting about myself.  It's a somewhat new development in the past three years or so...one of those "mama" types of changes you undergo when you have your first baby.  What is it, you ask?  Well, I'll tell you.

I have ears like a bat.

Now, don't get me wrong...I'm also pretty hard of hearing.  I've been somewhat deaf all my life, although most people who know me pretty well don't know it.  I lip-read a lot when people mumble (I married a mumbler), and I'm pretty good at filling in the blanks of other people's sentences when I can't hear every word they say to me.  James has finally been convinced of this fact, because I am constantly asking him to repeat things that he says because I couldn't hear him. 

So how can I have ears like a bat?  Aren't bats supposed to have incredible hearing?  Well, here's what I mean.  I can stand in the same room as my husband, listening to him tell me something, and he'll turn his head away mid-sentence....which causes me to completely miss everything he says when I can't see his mouth, thus forcing him to repeat himself.  BUT, if one of my babies cries upstairs in the middle of the night with their door shut and their noisemaker on while I'm fast asleep, it wakes me up.  I will sit up in bed, trying to figure out what woke me up.  Then I will walk upstairs, following the tiny little sounds right to the source.

How can I hear them, when I'm so hard of hearing?  I don't know.  I guess that's just part of being a mama!

2 comments:

Kristen said...

Yeah, Ella has never once woken James up from sleep in her life. He just sleeps through anything from her. But when Charlotte lets lose with her high pitched, middle of the night shriek, he jumps up to attention immediately!

Vicky said...

I used to sleep through everything--even your dad's beeper and his coming and going to the hospital in the middle of the night but if one of my children stirred, I was immediately aware of it. It must be a sixth sense that mother's have.