Sing Like a Bird

An afternoon aspie-jaunt to the local zoo turned up not only birds and animals, but kids on the playground who SOUNDED like birds and animals. There was a kid there (not of our party) who had the most shocking and amazing voice - like an emergency siren or a shrieking water bird. The volume she could achieve was incredible. She was pretending to run from monsters, which was a game that most of the kids on the playground seemed to be participating in, but of course this meant she had to scream. Rosie's pal was trying to be one of the monsters, but eventually had to hang back and keep his hands over his ears. Rosie simply faded out of the game after enduring a couple of those shrieks, and went to go play on her own in a quiet corner. The girl happened to be standing a few feet from me (about ten!) when she let out one of these ambulance noises, and I swear for a moment I thought I might need an ambulance myself. My eyes did this weird jittering thing and I'm pretty sure I actually blanked out for a second. Took a couple of minutes to recover from, too.

But it's not the first time I've had that reaction - a memorable other time was when Rosie herself let out a corpse-raising shriek as a toddler, when at a friend's house for dinner. So I found myself slightly concerned about what the heck that was. After a little poking around in medical articles it seems that it's probably sound-induced nystagmus, which appears to be related to inner-ear issues. (That would certainly explain the nausea afterwards.) Doesn't explain my blipping out for a moment (though stress would!) but could explain my lifetime sound sensitivity.

Rosie is looking forward to learning an instrument next school year, since fourth grade is the year they let you start band in public schools. Our homeschool, being also a public school, follows this pattern. She wants to learn a wind instrument - saxophone or clarinet or flute. Though I do like how those sound, I think I'm going to be in for a rough ride for a few years. Seriously!

Good thing I have a set of the best earplugs ever. SilentEar are just the best I've ever used. You have to get a starter set in all 3 sizes so that you can fit them correctly - it turns out for instance that one of my ears is bigger than the other, so I use two different sizes - but that's under $20 so it's WORTH IT.
http://earplugstore.stores.yahoo.net/silnatrubear.html

I'm sure that sounds like a commercial, but I can't not rave about them. Total relief for someone with sound issues. I haven't fitted Rosie with a pair yet, but I keep a pack of the squishy ones for her until she's old enough to take care of a reusable set.