Rechargeables! Yahoo!

So, big news!  I found out that the Nucleus 5 rechargeable battery packs have been approved by the FDA...  last week.  They are approved to be water-submersible.  Cochlear should start sending them out soon!  Just in time for swimming season --- nah, probably not, but one can hope. 

Speaking of swimming, Taylor is becoming more of a swimmer.  She is in swimming lessons this week.  She really likes playing in the water, but it is going to be a challenge to help her learn how to swim until she can wear her ears in the water.  She is sooooo observant though - she already does a pretty good job of moving herself around wearing her infant life jacket.  Last weekend, we swam all weekend in the grandparents' pool.  She got a lot of practice.

Taylor had her 4th mapping appointment last Thursday.  It went really well.  The audiologist was able to map 7 electrodes on the right side and 5 electrodes on the left, interpolating to the other electrodes (there are 22 on each side.)  After her mapping, we went in the soundbooth.  Taylor was able to respond to sounds at 10 dB.  A normal hearing person begins to hear sound between 0 and 20 dB.  From a noise level perspective, she can hear very quiet sounds. 

Taylor's latest skill is counting -- sometimes we say "one, two" and she adds the "three." Sometimes she says "one, two, three" with us. When we ask her how old she is, sometimes she says "two" while holding up four fingers. Other times, she says "three!" She just likes saying Three. Usually it's followed by a jump or somersault. One, two, three - Jump! One, two, three - somersault! There's always a lot of physical activity happening in our house.

We have been doing Y week for the last couple of weeks. 
http://www.cochlearamericas.com/PDFs/Speech_Sounds_Y_Semivowel.pdf

I find it interesting that y and qu sounds are both included in the Y week.  Some good ones:  Yum-yum, Vacuum, Tortilla, Quesadilla.  Currently, hot dogs are out of favor and quesadillas are Taylor's current fave.  She even tries to say it.  I'd say she gets the number of syllables right, but that's it. 

She has started saying more words, including Me, Mine, Tay (as she points at herself). One, Two, Three. 
Cookie, Pizza, a lot of these she has been saying for a while.  There is more and more every day.

At every therapy appointment, the therapist goes through the Ling sounds and asks Taylor to let us know if she heard them.  Aa, ee, oo, mm, ss, and sh.
http://www.advancedbionics.com/UserFiles/File/Ling_Six_Sound_Check-6.pdf 
Taylor has started imitating the sounds back to the therapist.  She even covers her mouth to the hide the lip position and movement.  It is too cute!

W Week and what? So many words...

 We did "W' week for the past two weeks.  It has been fun! 

http://hope.cochlearamericas.com/sites/default/files/Speech_Sounds_W_Semivowel.pdf

Wow!  is a favorite word of Taylor's. 

Some of her new words and phrases are:
Where are you?
Right there. 
Sheena
Come here.
Choo choo train
Love you
What's that?
Candy
Cereal

Did you notice that?  She's adding more verbs!  Yeah! 

We had her second birthday party this past weekend.  It was a wonderful time.  She got a Barbie bike with training wheels, dancing tutu's and outfits, a Bitty Baby American Girl doll, and several other outfits and toys. 

Although she really loves her Bitty Baby, you will see from the following pictures that this birthday was all about Frosting!  I made carrot cake cupcakes with cream cheese frosting.  Taylor tried to eat the frosting off of as many cupcakes as she could get her fingers into.  I also made the famous family chocolate birthday cake, but mixed it up a little bit with a ganache topping.  It was lovely, but entirely too much effort for her when frosting was clearly her favorite.  Next year, it's a can of Betty Crocker cream cheese frosting for Taylor...  the guests will have to fend for themselves!  Or maybe I should admit now that I am a chocolate lover and the chocolate might have been mainly for myself.  :)

Yesterday was the one-year anniversary of when we found out that Taylor was profoundly deaf.  I look back on the past year with amazement of the journey that our family has been on.  From sorrow, grief and guilt to joy, gratitude, and determination, we have experienced it all this year. 

How can you not love this kid?  Streaking around the house naked and busting into a bag of Daylight Donuts, she is so full of life, energy, enthusiasm, intelligence and affection, I am nothing but thankful for getting to be her mom. 

Next word -- DONUTS!