Lauren's second surgery



Lauren just before her surgery



Lauren had her second surgery on August 7. It went so well! The actual surgery took about two hours. We stayed at the hospital until about 9 hours after the surgery. We wanted to let the effects of the anesthesia wear off and make sure she wasn't nauseous and could keep pain medication down. All went well. That night, she ate a regular dinner and played around, walking and crawling normally. One of the possible side effects is to have balance issues for a few days after the surgery, but we didn't witness any problems with balance at all. I know we are so fortunate that we have had 3 surgeries now, between Taylor and Lauren, all without incident. Considering that when I found out about Taylor's deafness and made the decision to do CI's, the surgery was one of my biggest concerns, I now feel such a relief and want to share that this really was a blink in their life. And the benefits are so boundless.




Lauren trying to do "gymnastics" the night of her surgery



We continue to see great progress with Lauren. For the first 6-7 weeks after activation, we used the Hanna Anderson pilot caps to keep her hands from the CI and headband. Since then, she has really been leaving it alone (other than the car seat where the coil gets knocked off anyway). We actually have more trouble keeping Taylor's ears on than Lauren, because Taylor is continuously doing cartwheels and handstands. We are going to harness that energy and have enrolled Taylor in both gymnastics and tumbling this fall.

Lauren's activation on the right side is tomorrow. We can't wait to see how excited she is when she can hear with both ears!!



Taylor starts in a new preschool next week. It will be 5 days per week for 2.5 hours in the afternoon. Derek started kindergarten last week. Taylor is really as bored as can be without her big brother, aka side kick since birth... So preschool cannot get here fast enough. Every time I turn my child over to someone new, it's an education process. What is a CI? Can she really not hear without it but still speak normally? Can she hear me from a distance? And wow, how does she talk so well? You really can't tell she is deaf ... That's kind of how it goes. I try to continually educate and promote the benefits and absolute success of the technology in helping these kids to hear. You never know who it might help or impact along the way. I am so proud of Taylor and where she is at today. We are hoping for a great year!



Derek and Taylor swimming with Grandpa









Summer Fun

Summer has been a busy time at our house! It is just flying by.

We got the rechargeable battery packs for Taylor’s Nucleus 5 processors. They are the exact same size as the regular battery packs, so – good news – all of the decorative covers and headbands still fit with them. Saturday was the best day! We got to let Taylor go swimming/splashing in a small pool for hours and hours with our neighbor’s grandkids, with her ears on! No problem, no (well, minimal) worries. With the new rechargeable batteries, they are approved to be water-submersible. At this point, Taylor doesn’t go under water. She runs and splashes around in the pool. Being able to have her “ears” on puts us both more at ease.

We did swimming lessons the week before the 4th of July. Both Derek and Taylor did really well. Derek, at 3.5 years, is swimming around really well with his life jacket on. Taylor, at just over 2, is really brave and will jump off the diving board or into the pool from the side. She has a harder time controlling her swimming movements with only the life jacket on if no one is holding the jacket. But the best part is, they both love swimming and playing in the water.

We went to see my parents for the 4th of July. I have 3 sisters and they were all there with their husbands, kids and Yorkies… we are a Yorkie family. One of my sisters just got a new puppy. Her name is Kona and she is adorable.

Taylor knew she was a “baby” puppy and went easy on her thankfully. Maverick, our Yorkie, usually is getting carted around and chased. He gets away from her more easily than Mikea, our cat. Mikea will amazingly put up with quite a bit of handling from Taylor and Derek.

Taylor keeps adding words, including tractor (followed by Yeah!) and more food words, more often.  i.e.Cookie, Candy, Hot Dog, etc. She is a real eater and gets pretty excited about her meals and snacks.  She also knows her manners and that if she really wants something from Mommy, "Ppppleaase." She's got that one down! 
Taylor has had so many new cool experiences this summer.  She spent the weekend at Papa's farm and got to help feed the cows.  She has ridden in a tractor and a combine.  Loved that.  She has gone to Tanganika wildlife park near Wichita, where she fed lemurs and climbed to (I'm told) the tallest slide ever.  I'm hoping to add some pictures of that soon.  Our family is pretty active and outdoorsy in general, and we seem to never be indoors during the summer.  But when we are, Taylor has mastered riding her tricycle.  It is so cute.  Of course, as with all of her toys, they are old news for big brother Derek until she likes them... then he wants to fight to get them back.  However, with all of this outdoor fun, maybe we should be reading more with Taylor...  but I know that all of the outdoor experiences -- watering flowers/spraying our dog Maverick, ant-stomping, flower picking -- create learning opportunities as well.  As always, we are thankful to have Derek as her big brother and role model.  We hope that she continues to learn from him, just not every little thing he does.  You'll see what I mean....

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!

Oh SH!

This week, we did SH!  Lots of Shhhh!  
For starters, Derek stepped in a big pile of this bull mastiff's sh** (I mean, poop.)

We washed our hair with shampoo and applied lotion.  We put on our shirts, shoes, and shorts, and brushed our teeth.  It finally was warm enough for some shorts. 



We got to look at our shadows outside and Shake our whole bodies to the tune of Little Einsteins.  We tried to encourage sharing as we toasted marshmallows.  We took out the trash and washed the cars.




We finally finished all of Taylor's immunzations. (Don't forget that the words with "tion" are also SH words.) We still had a few 12-18 months shots left, but they are all done as of Friday. Yeah! No more until kindergarten.




We visited to local Wildlife and Parks museum to get up close and personal with some fish. Today's Sunday; maybe we can go get a milkshake later.

http://www.cochlearamericas.com/PDFs/Speech_Sounds_SH_Fricative.pdf


I have to say, there are a lot more words with SH than I ever realized.  It was a fun week.  Taylor is talking more and making more sounds all the time.  She had one great day filled with "Dada" this weekend.  Maybe D week is paying off a couple weeks later.

P WEEK

It's "P" Week at our house! 

Well, it started with the kids on Sunday before I had even announced it was "P" Week.  
Taylor is really good at fighting while getting her diaper changed, and a poopy diaper fight resulted in my getting a poopy bottom flipping over in my face and getting poop smeared on my chin.  As I'm finishing the cleanup from that, Derek wants me to assist him in the bathroom because he has decided to start peeing standing up, rather than sitting, and has peed all over the seat and floor.  I had rushed away from Taylor before getting a fresh diaper on her, and when I came back to her, she had peed on my bed.  Later that day, Derek peed on the floor in the bathroom two more times while trying to figure out how to pee standing.  Why he decided to start it on that day when his dad was at work is beyond me.  And this was all in one afternoon.

The next day, we annouced it was "P" Week.  The Cochlear website has some really helpful educational materials, including Speech Sounds.  Please see the attached link: 

http://www.cochlearamericas.com/Support/2294.asp


It has a weekly/bi-weekly instruction guide for various consonants, complete with associated activities, words, books, songs, foods, etc.  It is great!  We are going to cover a consonant per week.  It is working double-duty for both Taylor and Derek (age 3). 

As I said, this is P week.  Our dog Maverick celebrated on Monday by eating a mouse/rat/baby rabbit and then PUKING in our house.  The P's continue...

On Tuesday, Derek started at Pre-school.  He was terrified when getting dropped off, but perfectly happy about preschool when I picked him up. 

So far this week, we have

 Popped bubbles

Ate pizza, pineapple, and peanut butter

Napped!

Peeled carrots

Listened to a purple piccolo dinosaur on Little Einstein's

Hopped like a frog

Poured Sand

Ate Spaghetti

Wiped Up

Patted and clapped to music

Played with a Purse

and experienced Pee, Puke, and Poop.

We are loving P week and all of the language learning opportunities and ideas that it is giving us.  Check it out!  19 weeks to go!