Sitting in the waiting room, waiting to get his new hearing aid, Dad asks “why are we here?” “To see the ear doctor, Dad,” I explain for the 43rd time. “I never noticed that you needed to see an ear doctor,” he responds, much to the amusement of the other people waiting.
When we got home with the hearing aid, Dad was full of questions. “What is all that running water?” Dad asked. “It's raining, Dad, and that's the sound of cars going over wet streets,” I explain. He's amazed and I'm thrilled – the hearing aid really works! He even heard the creaky floorboards between his bathroom and bedroom. Of course, now we're going to have a lot of “What the hell is that?!” while he gets used to all the “new” sounds.
A couple of days later, Dad is still having trouble differentiating wet sounds. “Is it raining?” he asks. “No, Dad, that's someone in the bathroom, peeing!” I explain, trying not to laugh.
In an effort to get Dad back to a normal schedule, Jaelynn has tied his bedroom curtains back so that in the morning, he can feel the sun on his face. It seems to be working – lately he's been up and demanding breakfast at 6am – but it had an unintended consequence; the other night Jaelynn was putting Dad to bed, sitting with him in his darkened bedroom. She looked out the window, and observed one of Dad's neighbors, a man in the building behind his, performing a Britney Spears dance, stark naked. Dad, sensing that her attention had wandered, asked, “what are you looking at?” “This man is naked,” she explained. “Bacon?” asked Dad, who has to take his hearing aid out at bedtime. “No, naked!” yelled Jaelynn.
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