Jazzy

My Grandaughter Jazzy was born about sixteen years ago. When i seen her in the hospital, i got that good feeling you get when you see a newborn ( especially one of your own ) she was a beautiful little baby. The next day i was at work when my wife called me and said there was something wrong with the baby, i just got this ugly feeling, so i told my supervisor i had to go home. It was really scary when the doctor told us what he had to do to her, she was an infant and she was going to get operated on. The doctor told us she had hydrocephalus, she got operated on and we all went through some very hard times with her. Jazzy, Gwen, Belinda and myself, there was some weeks when we had to go to the hospital sometimes three four times a week, because something didn't seem right, sometimes we would be there till early in the morning. We would wait for the doctor for hours, just to have him come out and say she's o.k. It was scary when she used to choke when she was drinking from her bottle, you just felt helpless, but i'll tell you what, this is one strong kid. All the health issues she's had and now she's very very healthy. she hardly ever gets sick now. I give Belinda and Gwen a lot of credit for being so strong and taking care of Jazzy during these critical days of her life, Adrienne wasn't living with us at the time, but i knew we could count on her if needed. When we brought her home and she had that bandage on her head, she just seemed so fragile. I was afraid to pick her up, because i thought i might hurt her. There was one therapist that came to the house for awhile to kinda see how she's doing and he told us that Jazzy would never be able to remember anything for a long period of time, he said when she learns something , she'll forget it right away, one guy told us that she'll never be able to walk or talk or do anything. Jazzy sure proved them wrong, she can walk, she can't talk but she can do sign, she can get the remote and turn the t. v. on and find her favorite program, she knows how to operate the d.v.d. player. This kid just trips me out all the time. Sometimes when she's thirsty she'll go and get the juice out of the refrigerator and bring it to you with her cup and you better be ready for it. sometimes my wife or daughter's having a real hard time with her and i have to go help, a lot of times i calm her down by singing to her, can you imagine me singing, itsy bitsy spider, wheels on the bus, twinkle twinkle little star, you are my sunshine and many more. It calms her down. If for some reason she doesn't like what i'm singing. she has her way of letting me know, usually a grunt and when your not paying attention to her she'll give you a head butt, upper cut, kick, or all of the above. I've really gotten good in self defense. she's tricky though and she still gets me with that upper cut, i never see them coming. Sometimes you'll be walking by and she'll kick you and start laughing. Now if it would have been one of my other Grandkids they would hear about it because they know better, but not Jazzy because she doesn't really know any better, but in some cases she does know the difference between right and wrong. I know this sounds a little contradictory, but you would have to walk in our shoes to know what i'm talking about.

Sometimes she does things that you just have no idea why she does them. Like when she was a little baby, the squeak of a door hinge would set her off into a major tantrum, but now she'll go get the cabinet door and move it back and forth to make it squeak, one day we were sitting in the kitchen and Jazzy comes running in the kitchen and goes over to the cabinet door and opens it and makes it squeak a few times then goes back in the living room, we all just look at each other and think what the heck was that all about ? We just kind of attribute that to living with Jazzy. She is special you know.

Sometimes we sit on the couch and i do, this little piggy went to market thing with her over and over and over again, it's her favorite. I also do the one potato two potato and the one little two little indian thing with her, she loves it. I also do my imitation of James Brown and one of his doo wop songs and some others. She cracks up.

Everybody just loves Jazzy, my Grandkids understand her situation and they are very good with her. My favorite is when she gets that Jack Nicholson look, that's when you need to watch out. Today Maya told me she was going to go to her Dads house for Christmas, so i pretended that i was crying and i was telling Maya please don't go and Jazzy thought it was funny, she just started cracking up. When Maya cries Jazzy thinks it's funny.

The other day she woke up and turned on the t.v. and she had it on the Spanish channel, they were playing some pretty hot salsa, some times she'll have the t.v. on the Jazz channel, she also likes the song by James Brown, Get on up. and a bunch of others. Sometimes i'll get her and whistle a tune and start dancing with her, I put one of her hands on my shoulder and i hold the other and we dance, i'll spin her around and she loves it, but if she's not in the mood, she'll just grunt and push me away. I know better than to push my luck, so i just leave her alone. She can get moody sometimes, but that's o.k., you just have to know when to back off and let her be. The other day i was taking her out to the bus to go to school and i had her hand on my chest as i was walking out the door and i let go of her hand to open the door and pow, upper cut, right on the jaw, then i took her out to the bus and i was standing behind her as she was climbing up the steps to the bus, she tried to get me with a backwards head butt, but she missed, so then she tried to kick backwards and she caught me on the leg. I tell you, she keeps me on my toes. I've seen her catch the bus driver a couple of times, it's not funny but i can't help myself, i have to laugh, after i get back in the house. She has gotten better though, or maybe we've gotten faster. Jazzy is a beautiful little girl and of course she has her problems, but she is capable of learning, it's just going to take her longer than others.

This kid really loves to go cruising, especially to McDonalds, you have to put her in front though, she won't ride in the back, so that means when Belinda's driving, i have to ride in the back, like a big dork. That's o.k. if it makes her happy, then i'm o.k. with it. Sometimes you just have to go with what ever makes her happy. She's suffered so much because of her disabilities, that you get to a point when you say that's alright as long as she's happy.

There was an amazing thing that happened once, it was when we went to have Jazzy baptised, it was after her operation and she was having seizures all day and night, we had taken her to the Doctor, but he said there was nothing he could do about them, well when we went to the church to have her baptised i prayed to God to please make the seizures go away and not knowing it at the time, Belinda was praying for the same thing. When Jazzy left church, she had one more seizure and that was it. Thank you Lord.

When Jazzy learned how to use the t.v. we put in her room for her, it was hard to keep her off it, one thing she loved doing was turning up the volume real loud and we would go running in the room to turn it down and she thought that was hilarious. I tried putting duct tape over the volume controls, but she just pulled the tape off, I even went as far as putting bondo on the volume control, but she managed to pick at it, until she got it off. I finally ended up gluing the control with super glue, she managed to break it loose one time, so i put it on real thick and that did it, poor t.v. looked like hell after all that, it had residue from the duct tape, bondo, super glue and little pieces of plastic that i tried gluing over the volume control that she broke off. After that it was the d.v.d. player, once she learned how to use that, she just kept on changing the discs and eventually she broke it, after about three d.v.d players, we tried hiding them, we hid one below the t.v., she found it real quick, we tried hiding it in a drawer, she found it, we put it in a box, she found it. I finally had to disconnect it and put it away. Gwen bought her a c.d. player cause she loves music and Julian made her a c.d. with her favorite music on it, she learned how to operate it, so now we were stuck listening to James Brown, Lady Gaga, and Sesame street. We also gave the bus driver a copy to calm her down if she ever started acting up and she did play it for her, so now Jazzy's cruising in the bus listening to her c.d.

One thing i want you all to understand, it's not easy trying to correct some one like Jazzy, because she doesn't understand things the way other kids do, i guess that's why they came up with the name special needs. You have to just keep trying till you find something that works, but something that works today, might not work tomorrow, some of you might think we're spoiling her, but that's not the case, We believe Jazzy's tantrums come from her frustrations from not being able to communicate verbally, she does know how to do sign, but that only helps so much. If only Jazzy could talk, if she could, i think it would make a world of difference for her. Raising a child like Jazzy is not easy, but at the same time, it's very rewarding. Every time she learns something new it just makes you so happy. I've taught her how to say Mama, what a trill that was when she first said it. Yesterday i was teaching her how to say no and she said it, but it came out sounding more like "not", close enough. I was told that if she didn't learn to talk by the age of five, she would never learn, but that's not true. There has been cases where children have learned to talk when they were in there teens. So you have to keep trying. Sometimes when i'm trying to teach Jazzy how to talk, i'm the one who sounds like the one who's special needs. Jazzy's brought a lot into our life. she's an amazing child. Like i said before, you would have to walk in our shoes to know what i'm talking about.