FROM THE MOUTH OF AN 11-YEAR OLD DEAF CI WEARER

First of all, if anyone is trying to send me emails, my email server has been down for two days...SO FRUSTRATING! I have a little story to tell about something that happened yesterday, but first I want to say that a decree was issued in Italy that requires the telephone companies to allow all deaf people 50 free text messages a day. Does anything like this exist in the USA? Pretty psyched about it, it is supposed to go into effect immediately, but things here are always so slow...
Okay. Yesterday, my friend and I took Jordan and two friends to the movies. After nine years of never going for a Sunday matinee because the theaters here sucked, they finally opened a multi-plex cinema, so I am making up for lost time with plenty of popcorn - real popcorn, American-style, heaven. Jordan had been bugging me to see Io Sono Legenda (I Am Legend - Will Smith)

for like three weeks. Being the freakin' idiot that I am (AND figuring that this would be a typical Will Smith action film), with my head in Blogville at the moment, I neglected to read what the film was about...well, I certainly was not expecting THAT! Terrifying, dark, psychologically traumatic for my brain, especially where it is right now and my son, my sensitive, small, eleven year old child was there sitting through this film - not at all suitable for his age group. But, see, he's at that age where I can't MAKE HIM LEAVE A MOVIE THEATER, especially when he's with friends. (This is where the helping him find his balls part comes in:)) However, one of the friends he was with, I could see was having a difficult time dealing with the concept of the total decline of humanity, so I grabbed him and took him out of the movie theater. Jordan refused to leave...I let him choose.
This friend, Giacomo (James) and I went to the lobby and I gave him my iPod to listen to some Rhianna to lighten his mood, he was pretty destroyed by the film's content...as was I:) After we used humor to combat the effect created by the scene in the dark house where you can see all of the alien-looking naked people, Giacomo said, "Well, I'm kind of curious to see what happens next." And I was thinking, there just has to be some type of thing going on in the movie that takes you out of darkness to light, so I thought to myself, "Maybe it's okay to go back in, so he can let go of some of the fear." Another one of my brilliant ideas...we walk back into the theater and sit down just in time for Will Smith to explode the one hundred alien-people storming his house, gun shots, animal-like screaming, dark vs. light, neverending torture. I covered Giacomo's eyes and Jordan reached over at the same time to help me cover Giacomo's eyes, yet continued watching. I grabbed Giacomo again and we left...for good.
We waited outside for Sonia, Jordan and Simone to come out of the movie. When they finally got outside, we started talking about the movie, and I said, "Jordan, why didn't you just get up and leave? How could you sit through that movie?"
Jordan looked at all of us and said, "During the bad parts, I closed my eyes and shut off my ci!"
My deaf child is amazing.