- [Interviewer] If somebody
wants to be your friend but they don't know sign
language, what should they do? - [Mom] Like I could
teach them how to sign, or I can use paper or
my phone, and I text. I usually like to write on paper, or I like to teach them sign language. Writing back and forth,
a lot on my phone too. - [Interviewer] Does it make you happy when people try to learn? - [Mom] Yes. - [Interviewer] Why? - [Mom] Because like people, if they really wanna, you know, be happy, they can learn sign language, and they can learn how to
communicate with me a lot easier through sign language. - [Interviewer] Peyton,
tell me about your mom. - My mom's nice and funny,
and she makes me laugh. And also sometimes she
bothers me, you know, if she tells me I have to clean
up things or pick up stuff. Four things my mom does that annoys me. She taps on my shoulder, and tells me to do things to clean up. She gets mad at me if I'm
on my phone for no reason. She always is like watching
me if I have an attitude. My mom always tells me to
put my things upstairs. And I told her, "I need to use my things for a little while, short time." And she's like, "No, you need
to keep your things upstairs." - [Interviewer] How would you describe your relationship with Bella? - [Mom] We're always
learning, you know, together. She helps teach me all these dances. She talks about things, you know, about her school and her friends, and I like to learn about things. She's always shown me, like
videos or dances, cool things. And she's always, always, you know, being, we kind of pick at each other, a little bit sassy sometimes,
but we play together. - [Interviewer] Bella, what's it like to have Peyton as a sister? - Like we get to go, like theme
parks, and we skip the line, so we have a lot more
things that we can do than other people. Yeah. - [Interviewer] What's it like
to skip the lines, Peyton? - [Mom] It gets me excited, I feel lucky. - [Interviewer] Does
having a sister like Peyton make you a better football player? - Kind of. - [Interviewer] How? - Because I could take out
some of the anger I have on the field. - [Interviewer] What
type of anger do you have because of your sister? - Well, sometimes she's annoying. - [Mom] She's probably the most sassy, but we do back and forth. - [Interviewer] She's
even sassier than you? - [Mom] No, no, I am definitely more. I am the top of the family with the sass. Very sassy. Almost every day I'm sassy, always. Definitely the top in the family. - [Interviewer] Do you wanna
be the sassiest in the family? - [Mom] Yes. It's my favorite. (Peyton vocalizing) Why is Kenzie starting
to look taller than me? Before, we were like this. (Peyton laughs) I'm laughing because, my feet are on the
ground, and hers aren't. My feet can touch the
floor but hers don't. - [Interviewer] Does
Peyton ever tease you? - Yes, all the time. - [Interviewer] What does she say? - Like she tells me do I want something, and then she just takes it to herself. - [Mom] I'll tell her, I'm
like, "Yeah, do you want this?" I'm like, "Nope, it's mine," and I'll eat it or something like that. - [Interviewer] Do you think it's funny when you tease your sister? - [Mom] Yes, 'cause
sometimes she gets mad. And then I get really sassy, and then it makes her even more mad. And then I continue to kinda
irritate her sometimes. - [Interviewer] Do you think
it's funny when she teases you? - No, very annoying. - [Mom] He doesn't like
when I pick on him, and I bang at his door. Or, like if I voice like that,
(Peyton vocalizing) he tells me to stop. - [Interviewer] So you'll do
your voice just to annoy him? (Peyton vocalizing) - [Mom] This voice. (Peyton vocalizing) - [Mom] Hold on, I gotta
remember which one. (Peyton vocalizing) - [Interviewer] How you
feel right now, Brock? - Annoyed. - [Mom] Yep, that one. - Sometimes I do it right back
to her, what she does to me. - [Mom] No, no, it's not
sometimes, it's always. You said, you know, "Oh,
you're being weird," or like Kenzie says, you
know, like sassy attitude. Loser, like this. She does that a lot of me. And that makes me irritated. - [Interviewer] Do you
ever do it back to her? - [Mom] Sometimes. (Kenzie vocalizing) "Always," she said. You do it more. You do it more than I do it on you. She said, "No, you do it the most." We learned when she was
around two that she was deaf, and then we moved to Georgia, and lived in like a deaf community. Had a lot of deaf neighbors. I think most of, all of our neighbors that we
actually knew were all deaf, so we kind of just had
to learn sink or swim. Very frustrating at first. It took about a year, year and a half to become fluent enough to
not be frustrated. (laughs) And then it just kept
on improving since then. - [Interviewer] Why was it
important for you to do that? - I've always wanted make sure
we have full communication. I want her to be able
to communicate with me the same as her siblings. If she has a worry or
concern, or if she gets upset, or she's happy, and she wants
to tell me about her day. I want her to be able to tell
me that in her own language, and not through text messaging or writing. I want her to feel comfortable. - [Interviewer] I heard that
you learned sign language so you could communicate with your sister. Could you tell me about that? - Yeah, I don't really like
remember learning sign language, because I went to a school
that was like all deaf, and I had to learn it, or else
I couldn't like pass classes, or like talk with anybody,
so I kind of just learned it, and I just just know it I guess. I don't remember learning anything. - [Interviewer] So you learned it when you were really young? - Yeah, and I think I was like four. - [Interviewer] Do you and your sister mostly communicate with sign language? - Yeah. - [Interviewer] Peyton, are you shocked? Why are you shocked? - [Mom] Because I thought
he was like six or seven when he went to the deaf school. I didn't remember he was four or five. So that kind of shocked me. I didn't know that. - [Interviewer] How old are you? - [Mom] I'm 14. - [Interviewer] What is it like being 14? - [Mom] I feel like a
teenager, I like to chill, and sometimes like I get a
little sassy, or a little grumpy. - [Interviewer] Does anybody
ever judge your sister? - Yeah, a lot of people. - [Interviewer] How do you know that? - It's just by the way
of the facial expressions when they see her. - [Mom] She said, "Yeah, sometimes people make that face on me, and then I had to look down like this, and I'm like, 'What? What? You can turn around now.' Always." - [Interviewer] Have you seen her do that? - Yeah, she does it a lot. - Some people in my class tell me that my sister looks weird, and I just tell them
that's her own personality, and that's who she is. - [Mom] Yeah. Sometimes if like people
say I look strange, or somebody says something, I say, "Thank you, that's just your opinion." - [Interviewer] What's it like for you when you see people maybe
staring or picking at Peyton? - It makes me upset. It's kind of sad to say that
like we've gotten used to it, but like it's, unless it
affects her or bothers her, and it's easy for me to ignore. Pro and a con, you know, about being deaf is she doesn't get to hear
all the things behind her, so she might not hear what they're saying. And she's very vigilant though, so she catches the expressions of others a lot easier than even than I can. Sometimes it makes me
laugh when I do like this. When I say, "Turn around." Sometimes I get upset but not really. Sometimes like, I like
to be more sassy with it. - [Interviewer] Is there anything- - [Mom] If they look at me, I'll look back at them like this. And then I'll go away. Or if people, you know,
are just staring at me, I kind of do like a slow look like this, and they'll look away,
and it makes me look back. If they notice me turn around,
look at them, then I do that. She was explaining it an
instance where they're at church, and two girls kept staring at me, and I said, "Turn around, turn around." - [Interviewer] Here's a screen
where you can see yourself. When you see yourself, what do you think? - [Mom] Like I look different,
you know, sometimes. And my hair looks different. I like looking different. It makes me feel like I'm
safer around my brother, 'cause I know he can protect me, 'cause he doesn't like
people picking on me. And also sometimes I make him mad, and then when I make him
mad, that makes me laugh. (Peyton laughing) - [Interviewer] How do you
feel when she makes you mad, and then laughs at it? - I just walk away. - [Interviewer] If somebody
wants to be your friend, what should they do first? - [Mom] Try and talk to
me or communicate with me. And then you know, after the communication
gets better and better, we could start to become friends. - When we first met five years ago, I asked you if you had one
wish, what would it be? And you said you wanted
a heart-shaped flower for your friend to give them as a gift. - [Mom] Uh-hm, I remember. - [Interviewer] If you found a genie, what would you wish for? (Peyton vocalizing) If you had one wish
today, what would it be? - [Mom] I'd really like
to improve like my family, like, and I wish my dog would get better. Like my family and my dog. - Is your dog sick? - [Mom] No, no, no. I want the dog to be
improve bad his behavior. He's really crazy. I want him to calm down a little bit. If he would just calm
down, I want a calmer dog. - You're telling me your
dog doesn't listen to you? - [Mom] Sometimes. Well, most of the time, like he'll listen to my
mom or my dad, but not me. - What do you think when
the dog doesn't listen? - [Mom] I get really mad,
and I almost wanna choke him. I'm like, grrr. And when I am home, I rest. I go outside, and play
with my dogs, I watch them. And like yesterday,
one of my dogs escaped, and I told the dog, I'm like, "You can't, you have to stay inside." And the dog ran out front
out, out in the front yard. And I had to run, and
tell him come inside. And then he ran inside
the house, and I'm like. So I watch him, you
know, when he's outside, so make sure he doesn't escape. - [Interviewer] Do you
communicate with your dogs using sign language? - [Mom] Sometimes. - [Interviewer] Do they understand it? - [Mom] No. Well, hold on, sometimes they know sit. I think that's it. - [Interviewer] What
is Peyton's diagnosis? - Well, since her last interview, we've actually added on a lot. So she's got her, it's
called hypertelorism microtia clefting syndrome. She is the only one in the
United States with her syndrome. There's six others in the world somewhere. I'm not really sure where they are. We don't really know
anybody with her syndrome. And then she has neurocardiogenic syncope. She has anhidrosis. Her body doesn't sweat. The syncope, she kind of, her brain doesn't know how to respond when she gets either
hurt, or upset, or cries, and she stops breathing. She's got growth hormone deficiency. All her pituitary gland, all the hormones that's supposed
to control and regulate, it doesn't function. So she's got the patch that
she wears to start puberty. She's got growth hormones to grow. She's got adrenal deficiency. So her body goes through adrenal crisis, and she basically stops moving, it makes her just have to lay down. So if she has a rough week
and/or a long weekend, or does anything that's
out of the ordinary for us, even just going to the beach for the day, it wears her body out. And she lays around for two
days or three days at a time, because all her energy is going
to sustain her vital organs. And then she has ectodermal dysplasia with immunodeficiency disorder. So she now takes a autoimmune suppressant daily to suppress her immune system. - [Interviewer] Peyton, what is it like to have to deal with all of this? - Sometimes I get weak, or I
feel like I'm gonna pass out. I get like really hungry sometimes, and then I get really, really tired a lot. I get dizzy a lot too. - [Interviewer] What's the best thing about using sign language? - [Mom] Sometimes people don't
know what I'm talking about, and I can like talk about things, and it's almost like a secret talk, like a secret conversation. People have no idea
what I'm talking about. And sometimes if I could tell a story, like I think it was like
third or fourth grade. Something like that. And Payton was talking
to me, my friend Payton, and we were, you know, talking
about staying overnight, and then we put our hands down like, "What? Nope, we weren't talking." And then my teacher came
over and she's like, "Were you all talking?" And then my teacher, Mrs. Gilbert, she looked at us and we put our hands down like we weren't doing anything. So she didn't even know. So that's happened before, I remember. - [Interviewer] That's really funny that you laugh when that happened? - [Mom] Yes. I had to act like this though, 'cause my friend Payton almost laughed, I told her, "Don't laugh, shhh." I had to hold in my laugh. - What do you think is the scariest thing in the whole entire world? - [Mom] Like loud sounds, and people are mean. If I look at the person that
they have like a scary face, and they look at me, that's scary. (Peyton laughing) (interviewer laughing) Not that kind. - You said you think
loud sounds are scary. Can you hear loud sounds? - [Mom] I can feel it. I feel the rumbling, and it scares me. - What do you think when that happens? - [Mom] It gets me mad,
and I wanna scream, 'cause it scares me. My brother, he likes to make
loud sounds at me, like at me, and it makes me scream. And I'll stop, or like, he'll bang on things and makes me mad. I have to come down here, and calm down. If they don't ever prank me, I think I'd be a little bit maybe calmer, and not pick on them so much. (Peyton vocalizing) He said, "Nope, that's a lie." What, how did I lie? What kind of lie? And you would still pick. Well, only if you stopped picking on me, you know, if you only did a few times, the three of us, you
know, picked on me back. He said, "Lie." I didn't lie. - [Interviewer] What kind of
pranks do you play on your mom? - Sometimes I'll act like
I'm having like a seizure, or sometimes I'll fake blood, or sometimes I'll pretend
like I'm sick, sometimes. - [Interviewer] Those
are quite extreme pranks. - One time I acted like I was drowning. - [Interviewer] If you
could teach the whole world a few signs, which one would you pick? - [Mom] Friend and, oh, I love you. - Can you teach me how to sign friend? - [Mom] Yes, okay. Friend. Yes. - The next sign you said you wanted to teach people was love. - [Mom] Like this. - Why did you wanna teach people how to sign friend and love? - Because it can help
people understand like how to be friends, or how
to talk to deaf people, like you know, "Hey I love you," or "Hey, do you wanna be my friend?" She's a strong little girl. So sometimes she has rough days. And she is sassy, but behind that sass is a very sweet and loving person. She really does care about her friends. She always wants to be good
friends with everybody. - [Interviewer] What do
you think is the best thing about having a sister? - The best thing I think
about having a sister is that she's always there whenever I need her. - [Interviewer] When do you need her? - When I have a rough day. - [Interviewer] How do you help Kenzie when she has a rough day? - [Mom] Like I try to
help her feel better, and I say, "Do you wanna play, or you can have some my gum,
or candy, or something." And I said, you know, "Do you wanna play with me, do something?" Or try to do things to make
her laugh or being silly.
