Buzz's Journey - to hearing and beyond

Merry Christmas Everyone!!

2011-12-14T07:40:00.005-06:00

It's been 5 years---really??

2011-09-27T19:52:00.004-05:00

My how time flies!! Five years ago today we were welcoming our 3rd son into the family....little did we know what the next five years were going to involve. Countless doctor appointments, tests, therapy sessions, one surgery, more doctor appointments, more therapy, a surprise addition to the family with Bella, more therapy, more doctor appointments....did I mention therapy? :) It's been a very busy five years...but we wouldn't change a thing.

Landon's party isn't until this weekend but to celebrate today I took him to Target and let him pick out a toy. He also got to pick what we ate for lunch (Pizza Hut pizza at the Target food court with an icee), we went for TCBY for dessert, and he chose pumpkin noodles for supper. He had a blast!

Happy 5th birthday Landon!!

Another great video

2011-07-21T20:12:00.002-05:00

Just goes to show, kids with implants can do anything other kids can do---even play major league baseball :)

Great video

2011-07-21T19:05:00.004-05:00

This is a great video that tells about cochlear implants. It was neat to see Dr. Graeme Clarke interviewing kids with implants and their parents. The second part lets you see some of the kids a few years later so you can see how well their language progressed.
part 1

part 2

Taking a break

2011-07-12T08:46:00.004-05:00

We decided to take a break from therapy this summer. Landon is doing really well with his speech. According to the testing his AVT does, he still has a little delay, but we've both come to the agreement we think a lot of his scoring has to do with his personality. Landon does not like to just sit there and "perform". He'll cooperate for a while but after 30 minutes or so of answering the questions, pointing at pictures, and naming objects, he is ready for something else. The testing at this point is very specific-like if he doesn't have the s on the end and it should be a plural then it's wrong. His therapist and his dad and I think he is really above where he is testing-it's just we aren't able to get him to do it at that time when he needs to. The only things he is really still in therapy for is fine tuning his pronunciation--getting certain letters pronounced right. Right now we are working on F, V, S, Z, and L. He's got the pronunciation of them down so the focus now is just getting him to use it in every day speaking. Just like any typical kid, he's gotten lazy with his speech so we are trying to get him to take the time and really pronounce things correctly. Like when he says his name, instead of just mumbling it like he does....getting him to put that good "L" on the beginning so it's clear. Until you are going through speech therapy, you never really pay attention to how certain sounds should be produced. Like a "S" should be made with the tongue behind the teeth. Shelley caught both Garrett and Connor saying words incorrectly with this so we've been working on them too to get teeth together and give a good S. It's the fine tuning of these types of things that are the focus of Landon's therapy these days.

Cochlear Celebration 2011

2011-04-05T18:29:00.014-05:00

WOW!! After going to the Cochlear Celebration at Disney World we are already trying to figure out how we are going to be able to make it to Cochlear Celebration 2013 in San Diego---it was that much fun! Even though we weren't able to attend as many of the sessions as we would have liked, Eric said the ones he went to were exceptional. Landon had a blast being able to meet other kids with "ears" like his. Everywhere we went he would point them out "look, she/he has ears like me". We were able to talk with several families on the buses going to the parks, too, so it wasn't just at the cochlear events. It was so nice to be able to talk with other families going through all the same things as us. The first night there they had a welcome reception/ice cream social down on the beach at the hotel. Several of the Disney characters were there for pictures. They were handing out glow necklaces, bracelets, and flashing Cochlear magnets. All the recipients were wearing the magnets on top of the magnets on their coils. It was so cute on the kids to have the flashing lights/ not to mention how adorable it was on the elderly gentlemen and ladies :) Here is a pic of Landon with his on.

Kaci the Koala was at several of the events and the kids loved meeting him.

On Saturday morning they had an Expo where you could see their products/accessories and they had tables with interactive experiences. One was on therapy for kids and how to incorporate it with toys/playing. They also had a table set up for "decorating your implant". Landon loved that one.

We were also able to meet Jim Patrick, chief scientist for Cochlear. He is the engineer that worked with Graeme Clark to develop the first implant.

That night they had the celebration party at Hollywood Studios. Private Disney buses brought us from the hotel to the back entrance of the park and literally dropped us off on the Streets of America. First was dinner-several buffet stations were set up and the food was great. They had face painting for the kids and the arcade at Pizza Planet was open (and free) for play. Mickey and Minnie were there for more pictures. We were then escorted to the Sorcerer's Hat in the middle of the Studios for a fabulous fireworks display. The area by Hollywood Tower of Terror and Rockin' Rollercoaster was setup for a huge block party with a band playing and the two rides were open for use.

It was a great time and we can't wait to go to more celebrations! Disney was awesome as well :) We extended our time both before and after the conference so we were able to have a nice long vacation there. Of course, I still wasn't ready to leave--but is anyone ready to leave Disney??

Stop the clock

2011-01-31T21:54:00.005-06:00

Where did January go? It seems like we were just celebrating Christmas and it's almost February. I'm still trying to figure out where 2010 went. The days sure fly by with 4 kids. The holidays are always a busy time for us, in the middle of all the Christmas activities we also have birthdays for 7 family members and our anniversary all crammed in the month of December.

We've been talking about the Cochlear Celebration at Disney for so long I can't believe it's almost time. Eric's parents, sister, and nephew are going so they can help us with the kids during some of the sessions. Maybe when Landon is older we'll let him do some of the activities for the kids but at this point we're not comfortable with the idea of him going off alone with strangers. We are really looking forward to all the "family" activities they offer. I've gotten to talk to several families online with kids with implants but we haven't been able to meet many in person so it will be nice to finally get the opportunity. It's going to be interesting to see how Landon reacts to seeing other kids with "ears" like his. He's only seen a few kids before with implants.

We took the kids to see a Star Wars exhibit at a nearby museum a few months ago. We were surprised to find a section on cochlear implants. They had a display showing how the technology of star wars (droids, robots, etc) translated into everyday life-like prosthetics and implants. We took a picture of Landon in front of the CI display and then Garrett walked by it and Landon told him no-those were his ears.

a little late but....hope you had a good holiday!

Cochlear Celebration-2011

2010-10-12T14:59:00.003-05:00

We have our hotel reservations for Cochlear Celebration 2011 at Walt Disney World. After looking over some of the videos from past celebrations it looks like it is going to be a blast. We can't wait to meet some other families and see what new things Cochlear is working on. As for their latest, the Nucleus 5, we love it. It is so much easier keeping it on Landon's ears. He now wears the BTE's with no additional equipment to keep it on-no snugfits, no toupee tape, nothing. The only time it seems to fall off is when he is wrestling with his older brothers but the freedoms did that too-even with the snugfits and tape, so we can't complain.
As far as any speech improvement, we can see a huge change in his language since switching to the N5. He's at a point now we have to have another language evaluation Friday to see if he will even qualify to continue receiving speech therapy through our insurance. We had moved down to only once a month AVT sessions and insurance is saying that is maintenance which they don't cover-they only cover if there is a delay. So we'll have to see how his testing goes and decide from there what to do.

What we've been up to

2010-09-26T20:36:00.002-05:00

These past few months have been super busy. We have a new addition in the family--my brother and sister-in-law had their first baby~~Mateo Jack. We took a quick trip to Austin, Texas to meet the cutie. It was nice to get away for a few days...and the weather in Austin was so nice compared to the 100 degree heat we've been fighting with all summer.

We had Landon's birthday party today at Chuck E. Cheese. This was the first year he really got into the whole birthday thing. All he has talked about the last 2 months is he wanted a choo-choo birthday cake at Chuck E. Cheese-so that's what he got. He had a blast. I can't believe he's going to be 4 years old tomorrow--it seems like I just had him and we started on his journey to hearing.

Here's a quick video of the last few months.

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

The man behind the miracle

2010-09-17T16:57:00.002-05:00

The international Lister Medal, one of the most prestigious honors a surgeon can receive, was won by Australia's Graeme Clarke this week. We profile the man who made the 'bionic ear' a reality.

For 10 years, Graeme Clark had been working tirelessly to develop an implant that would help the deaf to hear. The theory made sense. The electronics had been developed, and the design was near finalised.

But there was one seemingly insurmountable hurdle: how to actually get the implant into the intricate spiral of the inner ear.

During one Melbourne summer in 1977, he took his young children to the beach to escape the heat. While they were playing in the shallows, Clark noticed a seashell lying on the ground - and that its helical structure was a crude replica of the human cochlea.

Inspiration hit. He pulled up some grass blades and experimented with teasing them into the shell's opening. Owing to their flexible tips and stiff bases, the blades slid smoothly into the tightening spiral. It revealed a simple solution to a complex problem.

Read the rest of the story here

App for learning to listen sounds

2010-06-08T12:28:00.002-05:00

Eric just finished an app with the learning to listen sounds. You can see it at the itunes store here

You can also see it on his website

Landon's technology journey

2010-05-14T21:58:00.019-05:00

Thanks to all for the kind words about Landon's iPhone application. I can tell you it was fun and frustrating experience to conceptualize and develop the application. I thought it would be neat to see how my little technologist has evolved along with his technology.

The first attempt was nothing more than a failure. Trying to get the bilaterals working with a Y connector into each ear, with you plugged into it with the parent microphone to see if there was sound was nothing less than a nightmare when working with a one year old. I was finally able to just get a normal YouTube video working to start teaching him about music, but was never able to get the equipment to work as I wanted. The first generation iPod presented its own set of challenges. The touch interface for a one year old was just too tempting. Also, I never felt I was giving him a real-world experience with that equipment. Here is our first major attempt at 1 1/2 years of age. Hot dog dance worked, but not well.

Based on the limitations of the CI's connectivity and the first generation iPod touch, I decided that the second attempt should be a web based, computer only approach. I developed The Sound Garden on the UseMyEars website. That work ok, but it was still not sufficient because a 2 year old does have problems with mouse manipulation. Yet another epic fail.

One day in Radio Shack, I go there or the Apple Store or Best Buy for lunch sometimes, I was looking at headphones when I ran across this handy gadget.

Ah finally, now we are getting somewhere, I was able to plug this into the generation 1 iPod and cut out all the wires for the CI. I access the UME website's Sound Garden and bamo, instant Ling 6 bliss. Except there was one more problem, you needed to have WiFi access for it to work. Another epic fail, but not so monumental.

Ok, so 9 months ago I was browsing the shelves of the Apple store and saw a book on Cocoa Touch. I knew about the SDK previously and attempted to write a few apps, but the iPhone was so new that documentation was sparse at best. Additionally, the growing pains for the App Store is well documented and I decided work on the app and not publish it for a while. Lots of reading, writing bad code, locking up my iPod touch, and running the program about a million times (you know the normal development process), I finally got a rock solid version of a highly mobile self-contained sound application; Ling 6 Sound App.

I am even more excited now that I see the iPod touch coming with internal speakers and the iPad version of the Ling 6 app is really nice for Landon. The sound on that device is superior to the iPhone and iPod touch. I hope that one day I can get him an iPad to keep up his "studies."

Ling 6 App for the iPhone,iPod Touch,iPad

2010-05-12T18:33:00.006-05:00

Eric wrote an application for working on the Ling 6 for the iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad~~~~and it has been approved by Apple and is now available for purchase in the iTunes store. WAY TO GO ERIC!!!! We were at a point where Landon was tired of doing the typical Ling 6 test in the morning so Eric came up with the idea to do an application so Landon thinks he's playing now and loves doing the test. We can also change the volume on it so we can test his hearing at different levels. He loves to just play with the application during the day saying the sounds~~it helps me by keeping him busy in the grocery store. He's starting to show more independence with his hearing - such as coming to us when the batteries die and helping to change them - so this app will allow him when he's a little older to test his implants himself to make sure they are working properly.

You can see it at the iTunes store here

He's already got ideas for several more applications he is going to write for these devices. His next application is going to be one for teaching the learning to listen sounds. He also wants to figure out how to write one that will quiz the user--for example have it ask "what makes the aahhh sound" and then they will have to pick out the correct picture from a few choices.

Batteries

2010-05-03T21:08:00.002-05:00

Landon has been doing great with his N5 processors. We just thought he talked a lot before---now he's never quiet. The only thing we can figure is he has to be hearing better with the new ears. Even his AVT made the comment he is more talkative during his therapy. They stay on a lot better too. He has started to get more independent with his hearing--asking for his ears in the morning and asking to keep them on later at night. He has also been wanting to help with changing the batteries in them. Today he came to me holding his left ear open--apparently the batteries had died so he pulled the cover off, threw the old batteries in the garbage, and came to ask me for some new batteries. I gave him the 2 batteries, he put them in the right way, put the cover back on and turned it on. We've been using the old mic loc tubing off the freedoms to hold it on so I had to put that back on but it was definitely a sign he is growing up and taking charge of his hearing.

We got an EOB on the processors from his insurance and got quite a shock---it said our portion was $25,000. Needless to say I sent a quick email to our case manager to check in to this. She replied back that it was processed incorrectly. The insurance company processed it as DME (durable medical equipment) which has a cap of $2,500. She said it should have been processed as prosthetics because that is what they consider his ears and there is no cap on that. So we will end up paying our deductible and then our max out of pocket for his upgrades--which is not bad considering insurance was billed almost $28,000-and this was after the trade-in allowance for his freedoms. He is definitely hearing better-talking more-and they are staying on better--so it's worth every penny.

Connor and Bella's party

2010-03-28T21:26:00.009-05:00

We decided to do a combined birthday party for Connor and Bella. Between Easter, Connor's first communion, and Eric going out of town, they would have ended up being a week apart so we figured we'd make it easier on everyone and just do them together. After beautiful weather all week, we had a cold front come through Saturday so the day of the party was freezing.

Bella fell asleep in the middle of opening her presents.

She had to be woken up for the cake. She didn't make as big a mess as the boys did.

Connor's half of the party was Saints themed. I cannot believe he is going to be 8. They grow up too fast.

Bella also slept through her pinata.

Bella's new trick her daddy showed her~~~really lady-like :)

Landon using Bella's car to make an indoor drive-in~~he was watching Mickey Mouse.

Can't believe she is already 1!! This first year has flown by.

Landon's new ears are here!!

2010-03-11T08:41:00.007-06:00

We got Landon's new ears in--2 weeks after the order was placed. We were told it would be 6-8 weeks but could be longer so we were pleasantly surprised when we got the notice they had shipped after a week and a half. We go on the 22nd to get them mapped. I took some pictures comparing the Nucleus 5 to the Freedoms for those families out there trying to decide if it is worth it to upgrade. There is a big difference in the width between the two processors and the Nucleus 5 seems to sit higher off the top of the ear so they don't hang down near as long as the Freedoms--you can't even see them from the front. If anyone wants a particular picture of something just let me know and I'll post it for you.

Just a clarification for those that don't know, the Freedom (his old ear) is the beige processor and the Nucleus 5 (his new ear) is the dark brown processor.

Doesn't look like a huge difference, but the N5 is shorter. It may be even smaller once we get the rechargeable batteries since there is a compact rechargeable and a standard rechargeable.

The difference in width is huge. It sits so much better on his ear being skinnier.

Wearing the N5--from the front all you see is the clear ear hook over the top-you don't see the bottom of the processor at all.

The N5 from the side. It sits higher on his ear than the Freedom but doesn't hang down as long.

wearing his Freedom

Happy 1st Birthday Bella Grace

2010-03-07T19:13:00.003-06:00

Landon’s Lip Reading Abilities

2010-02-11T14:27:00.000-06:00

Over the past few weeks I have noticed that Landon has become really good a reading lips. The other night while I was watching the Saints NFC Championship game, he came to hand me he ears; which he readily pulls off when he gets tired at night. After he place the devices in my hand, I instinctively asked him if he was ready to go to sleep to which he answered, “Yep, night, night.”

In that instant it made me pause, and I thought to myself “Did he hear that?” Of course, within one second of that thought the reality came back to my mind. It was interesting to me to see how far I could take it and he was able to answer readily to the few question I asked him about getting his night-cap; chocolate milk. I have begun to force myself to speak to him verbally even when I know his “ears” are not being used to help develop his lip reading. He certainly is one smart little dude…

New ears on order!!

2010-01-30T21:02:00.004-06:00

Landon's new ears are on order!! Cochlear has joined up with another company-Mediquip- to help people get approval/purchase the N5 upgrades. Since we already had approval from our insurance, the process was a little faster for us. It does save us from having to come out of pocket for the full cost and waiting for reimbursement from insurance--which is wonderful!! Mediquip got a copy of the approval from our insurance, they have ordered his N5's, and when they get them will send them to us. They will then get reimbursed from insurance and we will only have to come out of pocket our portion of what insurance doesn't cover. We are sooo excited!! Hopefully these will be a lot more durable then the plastic freedoms because Landon is definitely hard on his ears!

For another parent that asked our insurance, through Eric's work, is PPO Plus. We've been really lucky with insurance through all this. The way it is set up, Eric's work has their own medical review board that approves/precerts insurance requests and then passes it on to the insurance company to pay. With the upgrade, we had Landon's audiologist write a letter,which the surgeon signed, requesting the upgrade. Our case manager put it before the medical review board and it was approved. One thing that I think has helped us through all of this with Landon is he is the first person there to go through something like this. His being approved for simultaneous bilateral implants and now the upgrades is basically setting the precedent for anyone that will come behind him needing this. It doesn't mean we haven't had to do any work. When we put it before the review board for the surgery, I had a book of research and insurance policies that we gave them to back up our request. But I have to say we have had a very easy time with approvals compared to most families going through this. As many problems as people generally have with insurance, our company has been wonderful through all this.

Approval

2010-01-09T18:46:00.004-06:00

Just wanted to share with everyone that we received an email from our case management worker. Landon has been approved to upgrade all 4 of his Freedoms for the new Nucleus 5 sound processors. Still trying to decide on what color we are going to order. Here's a link to take a look at the new "ears" he'll be getting.
http://products.cochlearamericas.com/cochlear-implants/nucleus-5-system/smallest-sound-processor

Happy New Year!!

2010-01-06T14:07:00.009-06:00

Happy New Year everyone!! I can't believe how fast 2009 flew by. Hopefully 2010 will slow down some so I can get back to regular blogging.
The kids are all getting over colds right now. Connor started on Christmas and it's gone through all of us. Bella and Landon both got ear infections with theirs. They are all either on medicine or just finishing up so hopefully they'll all be getting well soon.
Landon's speech is getting better and better. He's talking in phrases and sentences now so no more one word answers. Right now we are working on getting him to understand in/on/under and my/yours. Everything he says is with a person's name-so we are working on getting him to learn pronouns.
Bella is crawling, standing, and cruising. She walks with her baby buggy so I don't think it will be long before she's running after her brothers. It seems too soon for her to be doing it but I think that has to do with Landon having such a delay in his gross motors. She has been a little earlier than the other 2 boys though.
Here's some pics from our Christmas...Hope you had a great one :)

Christmas 2009

2009-12-17T16:24:00.004-06:00

Scenes from summer

2009-10-15T21:27:00.001-05:00

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

IEP- where we are at now

2009-10-15T08:26:00.002-05:00

After starting the transition process back in April, 6 months later we are basically getting ready to start the whole process over. Here's what has happened so far.
1. In April we had a regular meeting with our Early Steps coordinator. She told me someone from the school board would be coming to it to start the transition process out of Early Steps into the school system. The lady from the school board came and left in under 5 minutes. She said she had paperwork for me to sign that would get the process started. She asked a few questions about his medical history and what type of therapy we had been doing. I told her we were specifically looking for continuing AV therapy. Point blank told her we were not looking to put him in a preschool program at that time and asked what would be our options. She told me based on his age he would qualify for in-home services or if they didn't have an opening available I could bring him to the school for his hour of therapy. Like I said, she was here maybe 5 minutes. I was told it was just a meeting for signing the paperwork to get everything going.
2. We got a letter in the mail with a time for a screening. The letter says "should the results of the screening indicate the need for an evaluation we must obtain written consent". That being said, we showed up for what we thought was just another meeting to find out it was his evaluation. I touched on this some in the previous post. I was waiting in the car with the other kids and they were gone just under an hour and Eric said most of that was them just talking and going over stuff with him. He said they started by signing with him, then started using exaggerated lip movements trying to get him to lip read. After 10 minutes of this, they finally asked Eric if were we able to communicate with him at all. EXCUSE ME??? Did they not read any of his history?? So Eric told them to just talk to him normally. Eric said by that point Landon was just looking at these people like they were nuts because they were making all these gestures,wild hand movements, and funny facial expressions he had never seen so he was starting to act timid and wanted to stay with Eric. Then they put Landon in-between two strangers who were bombarding him with different tasks. Eric said they tried to get him to do 50 things in less than 20 minutes. Example - asked him to count to 10. He didn't know what they were asking so he didn't do anything. So they said he couldn't do it. A few minutes later they took out 10 blocks and on his own he counted them 1 through 10. But because he didn't do it they way they asked he can't count to 10.

To give you an idea of how off the evaluation was, here's just a little comparison between the school board's evaluation and his exit evaluation from Early Steps in one section.
Under attention and memory, school board has him age equivalent of 14 months. Early Steps eval had him age equivalent 34 months. Reasoning and academic school board has him at 21 months - early steps has him 30 months. Perception and Concepts school board is 23 months - early steps is 34 months.
Both tests were the Battelle Developmental so it wasn't a difference in tests administered. I would expect a little difference but to have a difference of 20 months in a child that was only around 31/32 months at the time is a HUGE difference!!
I'll get into our "planning meeting" in the next post.

Summer? I think I missed it.

2009-10-05T20:28:00.002-05:00

WOW!! Time is flying! I can't believe I haven't updated since July. It's been crazy around here - and about to get crazier :) We were busy this summer working on projects outside. Eric, with the help of my dad, put up a fence around the backyard, we tore down and rebuilt the flower beds, painted the shed, painted the swing set and made a play area for the kids, and made a bird garden (Connor's request). We've now started back to school which has been an adjustment. Connor is in 2nd grade, Garrett is in Kindergarten, and I'm doing preschool with Landon. It was definitely easier when it was just me and Connor working at the table. Now trying to keep all 3 on tasks (and quiet so the others can work) is a job!!

We are also in the middle of doing Landon's IEP and I've reached the conclusion - DO WE REALLY HAVE TO DO THIS??? It's been an experience. I had our initial meeting where I signed all the paperwork to start the process the day before Bella went into the hospital (back in April). I told her point blank we were not looking for preschool at this time but just wanted to continue speech therapy and if he qualified physical therapy. We got a letter about what we thought was another meeting to discuss what we were looking for. Showed up for that to find out it was his evaluation. Eric took him in while I waited with the other kids. He said they put Landon between 2 strangers who alternated trying to get him to do 50 things in about 20 minutes time. It was a joke!! Example-they asked him to count. He doesn't know the word count but if you start or ask him how many, he can count to 12. Since he didn't know what they were asking they said he couldn't do it. Every thing they tried to get him to do they asked directly using terminology he doesn't know yet. The result - they basically said he was only age equivalent of 1 yr 3 months and has ADD. HORRIBLE EVALUATION!!! For comparison, we just had his exit evaluation for Early Steps and the lady that conducted it kept saying how advanced he was for his age. She couldn't believe how off their evaluation was. I'll save our IEP meeting for my next post - that was an even bigger waste of time!!

Update on Landon - he knows the entire alphabet, can identify any letter and knows what comes next, and has started writing the letters now. Now we are working on learning colors and being able to differentiate between on/in/under.

Update on Bella - crawling all over the place!! Nothing is safe now :)

Update on Garrett - loves Kindergarten. He asks for more work every day after he finishes his lessons.

Update on Connor - we went ahead and put him in catechism classes this year. Because our homeschool curriculum is Catholic based, we can do his religion classes at home, which we've done the last two years. This year he'll be making his First Communion so I figured it would be easier for him to do his first confession if he did it with other kids. He loves going to the classes so I asked him if he wanted to start regular school instead of homeschool and he said no, that he loves religion classes because they just do activities and crafts. He doesn't want to have to sit in a class all day doing "boring" work as he calls it. The thinking of a seven year old :)

I'm going to make a slide show of all our projects this summer. Which leads to our next announcement - we are moving:) We are busting out of this house with 4 kids so we've decided to sell the house; get into an apt for a year or so to give us time to decide where we want to build/move, if we are building to plan the house, and save up a good downpayment. We've been talking about it since before Landon was born but kept putting it off. We've finally decided we need to do it now while they are little and it won't be so hard to be crammed into an apartment. Plus after all the problems with Landon's IEP, we are looking at moving to another parish/school system that will hopefully be better (yes, that is how bad it's going with his IEP). So it's even crazier around here with trying to pack stuff up and get ready to put the house up for sale. We had a garage sale Saturday and could probably have another by the time we go through everything.

I'll do a post about our IEP plan later.

Happy 4th of July

2009-07-06T20:11:00.001-05:00

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Disney World May 2009

2009-06-24T17:05:00.002-05:00

Make an on-line slideshow at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Wow - time flies!!

2009-06-02T17:01:00.007-05:00

Where did May go?? We've got so much going on the time just flies by. Here's a quick recap of what May held for us. I took Bella to the doctor this past Friday for her 2 month checkup and shots. She's up to 11 lbs 8 oz and 22 in. long. She had dropped to 7 lbs 8 oz when she was in the hospital for her surgery in April so she's put on 4 lbs in 2 months.

We took a spur of the moment trip to Disney World the week before last. We didn't tell the boys we were going. Eric's parents let the boys spend the night at their house the night before Eric's graduation, so we could pack and load the car without them seeing. When we left the graduation, I put their Disney guides on the back seat of the van so when they got in they would see them. Needless to say they were excited!! Of course we ended up being at Disney the week they got all the rain but we still had a ball. I'm working on a video from it so I'll post more about the trip later.

Eric graduated with his Masters of Education in Technology Leadership with a 4.0. Next will be his doctorate. Way to go - we are all proud of you!!
We had a crawfish boil for Mother's Day - they were GOOD!!! The boys liked playing with them before they were cooked. Of course after being played with by a 2 yr old, this poor little guy was pretty much dead before he hit the pot.

2009-04-29T12:21:00.002-05:00

We just started the process of transitioning Landon out of Early Steps - totally confusing process. We had our first meeting - just signing a bunch of paperwork so they could start the process - the day Bella started with her stomach issues so I haven't even had a chance to go through the brochures she gave me. There is not a whole lot we can do right now. We go in June for his evaluation to find out if/what he qualifies for so I have until then to start researching and finding out about it.

Bella is doing much better now. We went for her check-up with the surgeon Monday and she said everything looks good. She is definitely starting to put weight back on - she's made it out of the newborn size and into the 0-3 months. She has started smiling and cooing. We are still trying to get used to being quiet (as quiet as it can be with 3 boys) when she's sleeping. Puts a slight crimp in my housecleaning - I can't vacuum when she's napping like I could with Landon.

Landon is in another growth spurt with his language. He'll make a lot of progress then have a plateau for a while then start back again. We've been working on getting him to repeat 2 sounds because there are a few words he says that he's leaving off the front or back syllable so this works on him listening for two things which will get him to catch all the syllables in a word. The other day in therapy he didn't want to do it but in protesting was actually giving us what we wanted. His therapist would say "Ah Oo" and instead of just repeating it, he said "No Ah Oo, read book." She said "Oo Ee" and he said "No Oo Ee, read book." He thought he was getting out of doing something since he didn't have to drop the block in the bucket but he was still saying what she wanted. This week we started working on directions - like identifying if something is in front of, behind, on top, etc.

The boys had a pizza/movie night the other night - watching Bolt.

Back to normal - not!

2009-04-13T11:44:00.007-05:00

Just when we were starting to get back to normal and settle into a routine things had to get turned upside down. Last week Bella started having trouble keeping her bottles down. She'd take one and be fine, then the next one would all come back up when I would burp her. I took her to the doctor Wednesday afternoon and left with a diagnosis of reflux and a new formula to try. He said it would take 72 hours for her adjust to the new formula to see if she could take that or needed a different one. He had also mentioned something called pyloric stenosis but since she was keeping some feedings down she wasn't fitting the typical symptoms of it. As soon as I got home I started doing research on both and got some tips for feeding a baby with reflux. After trying them along with the new formula she kept down the next few bottles so we thought we were on the right track. Wrong. By the next afternoon it started again and we were starting to worry about her getting dehydrated. Eric called and they said to try and get her to their office for 4:00 so he could check her again before they closed for the day. By 6:00 we had gone from seeing the pediatrician, to the hospital for an emergency ultrasound, given the diagnosis of pyloric stenosis, told she'd be having surgery either that night or the next day depending on the surgeons schedule, and were in the process of being checked in to the NICU. They found out she was very dehydrated so they couldn't put her to sleep for the surgery until they got her electrolytes back up. Finally at noon on Good Friday the numbers were in the acceptable range so they brought her to surgery at 3:00. She was back in her cubicle around 4:00.

The pylorus is the ring of muscle that controls the passage of food from the stomach to the small intestine. In pyloric stenosis the muscle starts to thicken (no one knows why) shortly after birth until it completely closes. Once it closes, nothing is able to leave the stomach so the baby is constantly vomitting. It is quite common in newborns, typically between 4 and 6 weeks, but is 4 times more common in boys and typically the firstborn. The surgery is fairly simple - they just cut the muscle so it reopens the passage. The toughest part for her was not being able to eat. She had a bottle at the doctor's at 4:00 on Thursday (which she kept down until late that night) and couldn't eat again until 11:00 Friday night when they gave her a little pedialyte. They start the feedings off very slowly because you have to retrain the stomach muscles to bring the food down instead of up so it wasn't until 5:00 Sunday morning when she was up to 2 oz of formula they could take out the IV and start looking at discharging her. We got home yesterday after lunch - definitely an Easter blessing to be able to bring home a once-again healthy baby girl.

Thanks to all our family for all their help the last few days. From taking care of the boys to bringing clothes/food to the hospital for us - we were able to focus completely on taking care of Bella and didn't have to worry about anything else. The boys were excited the Easter Bunny found out they were going to be at Nanny's and brought their baskets over there for them.

Our little boxer just after surgery. They wrapped her hands in gauze so she couldn't pull the nasogastric tube out.

As Pooh Bear says - think, think, think.

Coming home from the hospital. Daddy went to get a bite in the cafeteria and ended up making a detour by the gift shop.

Had to post this picture

2009-04-13T11:40:00.004-05:00

Landon and Bella

And we were worried how he was going to handle her arrival. He has to watch and help me whenever I change her.

Happy Birthday Connor

2009-04-13T10:29:00.005-05:00

Last Saturday we had Connor's 7th birthday party at Chuck E. Cheese's. The kids had a ball! I can't believe he's that old - it seems like he was just born! He's become my big helper bringing me things for the baby. We've started letting him do more stuff around the house and he thinks he's big stuff now. His favorite thing is being able to fix his own sandwich or making toast for his brothers. Happy Birthday Monkey Boy!!

Isabella Grace

2009-03-12T17:47:00.002-05:00

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

I realized after several people asked, I forgot to mention in the previous post that she passed her hearing test with flying colors.

Bella is here!

2009-03-09T16:14:00.006-05:00

Isabella Grace
6 lbs 13.2 oz.
19 1/4 in.

End in sight!!

2009-03-02T13:21:00.002-06:00

Looks like someone is going to be just as stubborn as her brothers. Unless she decides to come on her own this week, I'm scheduled to be induced Saturday morning. It's going to be interesting to see how Landon reacts since it's hard to explain to him what is going on. He's still a little young to get it. I don't know if the older ones are more excited about the baby coming or that they get to go on a sleepover. Of course the idea of getting a present is also at the top of the list. Each time we had another baby I would make a little gift bag for the others of things to do while they wait at the hospital, from their new sibling. Connor was old enough to remember getting this when we went to have Landon so one of the first things he told me after I told him we were going to have another baby was what he wanted her to get him. Hopefully she'll decide to come on her own this week but at least there is a deadline now.

The other evening I was cutting the boys hair outside on the patio, and the way our house is situated on the corner, you can't see our neighbor's driveway but you can see the street from there. While I was doing Landon's, our neighbor left. All of the sudden Landon kept saying "Car" but I wasn't sure why. Then, when they drove by, he said "there it is". He had heard them starting the car, backing up, and driving away and was able to identify what the noise was. We start taking his hearing for granted since we are so used to it now, until he does something like this and we are reminded of what great technology CI's are.

Countdown to #4

2009-02-15T15:41:00.002-06:00

We're in the countdown for the arrival of #4. When I went Friday I was 1 1/2 cm dilated so hopefully the end won't be too far away. Landon went to the doctor Friday for his 2 year checkup. He's been off the normal schedule ever since his surgery - he had to have a couple of the shots before they would do the surgery but there was some he couldn't have until he had passed 12 mths so we got off schedule. He got 3 shots - he had an extra one because with the implants he has to have the pneumovax after he turned 2 for meningitis. He's now caught up and doesn't need anymore shots until he'e 5. He's been pretty lousy feeling since - running fever, laying around, and not eating much. Today he seems to be bouncing back some. He hasn't had any fever since during the night and is actually playing in his room right now.

We've got a couple of videos we've found that are actually helping him with his language. I'll usually put one on while I'm doing Connor's school to keep him occupied and when we are riding in the car it keeps him entertained but is also reinforcing words we are working on with him. He's been watching the ABC video from the Brainy Baby series and Baby Wordsworth from the Baby Einstein series. They both have a lot of vocabulary words and pictures. At first he would just repeat the words after they would say them, but now he is starting to say the words before they do - just by seeing the picture.

Putting words together

2009-02-02T16:17:00.002-06:00

We've noticed in the last 2 weeks or so Landon is starting to put more words together. For example, instead of just pointing at my bottle of water and saying either drink or water, he said "drink mama's water". We went to Chuck E. Cheese's for a birthday party Saturday night and when we switched him over to his P4 program (the one that takes out more background noise for him), Eric asked if that was better and he said "Yes, better". He always says thank you when you give him something, but today he was helping me put the water bottles in the refrigerator and I told him thank you, he said "your welcome". He'll pretty much repeat anything you tell him to so it's the things like this - where it is something he speaks on his own - that really catches our attention.

New words

2009-01-27T12:24:00.002-06:00

Landon's new word last week - chocolate. He likes to add Nestle chocolate to his milk. He also does shake-shake-shake after you put the lid on. We went to Target Sunday morning and I got a reminder just how much of a "therapy baby" he is. When we were going down the aisle with the kids bedding, he kept going "who's that?" and then would answer himself with Mickey Mouse, Cars, etc. It was hilarious. He's also started when we are leaving a store will say "where's the car" and then when he sees the van says "there it is". Connor got a Nerf dart tag game for Christmas and I'm not sure which one likes it more - Connor or Landon. He's already figured out how to slide the top back to make it shoot. The boys don't like it because he's still learning not to point it at people. It doesn't hurt them - just annoys them when they are trying to watch tv or play on the computer.

Just for fun, I got on our Wii fit the other day ( I haven't done it since I found out I was pregnant) just to see what it would tell me. There is no where on there to put in things like that so it just thinks I gained XX pounds in 8 months. Amazingly I was still in the normal range for the BMI but it did tell me I hadn't reached my goal and needed to try to work out more to help me lower it. I told Eric I was going to get on it right before we go to the hospital then do it when I get home and see what it says about losing 20+ pounds in 2 days. It should be pretty funny. Only a few more weeks to go.

Happy New Year!

2009-01-02T15:08:00.004-06:00

Where did 2008 go? This past year just flew by. I can only imagine how fast time is going to fly with a new baby in the house. Landon's personality has just blossomed this past year as his language has grown (as has his temper.) It's so much easier now that he can tell you what he wants - or tell us yes or no to what we ask if it's something he doesn't know the words for. The boys have been bouncing off the walls with all the Christmas activities so there has been a lot of correcting going on around here. Landon picked up on it - and now if Connor doesn't answer him fast enough he will call "Connor Matthew" instead. He's also picked up on one of the boys bad habits. He was in his room the other night and Eric called him - he used to come as soon as you would call his name. Instead all we heard from his room was "What?". I looked at Eric and we both busted out laughing. We did manage to stop long enough to tell him he needs to say Sir instead but at the same time it was neat to hear him do something so normal for kids. I'm not sure the other boys are happy about his expanding language. He's now able to come tell us if something happens (like they take a toy away) and which brother did it.

It seems he's finally growing into his "ears" too which is making life a lot easier. He now wears the full BTE setup (processor and controller) all on his ears. It's a lot easier not having all the wires and controllers on his back like we used to. We have also switched to using the snugfit that came with his start up kit. Initially it made the ear piece too big to stay on so we had switched to the mic lock tubing and toupee tape. Now we don't even have to use the toupee tape. They stay on pretty much all day by themselves with the snugfit.

Now that Christmas is over we are trying to get the baby's room finished and get everything we need for her arrival. We are assuming she'll probably make an early appearance - Connor was at 39 weeks and Garrett and Landon were both during my 38th week. Which would mean there is only 8 more weeks to go - scary thought. The older two boys are excited - they love feeling her kick. Landon still doesn't have a clue what's going on - but neither did the other two when they were his age. The other night he was laying with me and must have pushed too hard on the side of my belly and she gave him a big kick. He sat up, put his hand on my stomach and said "Uh-oh" 2 or 3 times. When he layed back down he made sure he wasn't laying up against my stomach - guess he didn't want to get kicked again :)

This is the picture that Eric wanted me to use for our Christmas card. It pretty much sums up the three boys. Of course the picture right before this explains it all.

(Connor picking on Landon just before Landon got him back.)

Are we still in Louisiana?

2008-12-11T08:12:00.002-06:00

We woke up to quite a shock this morning. It's not uncommon to happen in north Louisiana but I can only remember once or twice in my lifetime that it happened here. The boys are having a ball playing in it. They can't stay out too long - we aren't exactly prepared with the right kind of jackets and gloves. Snow is not a main factor when picking out winter wear down here.

Our house

Connor

Garrett

The boys having a snowball fight (did I really just say that?)

We are used to extended news coverage for hurricanes but today they are staying on with "Snow Coverage 2008". Now we just have to keep our fingers crossed we don't lose power. The lights keep blinking on and off but so far they are staying. Apparently there are a bunch of loose limbs still left over from Hurricane Gustav that are starting to fall under the weight of the ice/snow. What's really strange is on Tuesday we were wearing short sleeve shirts and this weekend they are forecasting temperatures back in the 70's. What a change a day can make.

Buzz's new learning enviroment

2008-12-07T09:22:00.004-06:00

What a long but fun journey to get to this point. Landon has progress significantly since his activation and one year ago I decided to design and build a Website for parents with students on a AV curricula path. This task has been one of joy and humbling work. I thank God on a daily bases for allowing me to help my son's development and it is my personal goal to help others in the same situation.

I have built a new Website called UseMyEars.com. The site is designed to be an eLearning environment for students on an AV track. It has been constructed to align instruction with the Auditory Leaning Guide’s learning outcomes. This guide is a four-year curricula path with a specified set of learning outcomes. The results of these outcomes should be the mainstreaming an aided or implanted student into a normal classroom setting. It is also intended to be a social network for people dealing with issues of deafness.

One of the frustrating things about helping Landon in the early days was the lack of information on the outcomes of unilateral vs. bilateral implanted children. I returned to graduate school with this problem in mind and the result is UseMyEars.com. This site will be researching if there are any significant differences in the educational progress of students based on the technology used to aid hearing. (Hearing aids vs. Unilateral CI vs. Bilateral CI children) In the future, Jennifer and I would like for other parents to have all the information available to present research to insurance companies and make decisions about their children’s future.

Landon's Dad

Landon update.

2008-11-28T17:13:00.002-06:00

It's been a while since I've updated on words Landon is saying so I thought I'd take a quick second and post a list of a couple I can remember. One of his favorite words - which he says very clearly - is cookie (surprise); yeah; no; yes mam/sir (when you remind him of manners)' thank you; drink; bread; open; sock; shoe; eye; nose; there you go; pancake; apple; shake; all gone; diaper; cooking. He can also count to 6 - this one was a surprise to me. We were playing with some blocks before his therapist came and while I was stacking them he just started counting them. And then he actually did it for her - he doesn't always like to perform on command. I need to set up a running list somewhere on here where I can just add the new ones as he does them. I know there is a lot more he says, just can't think of them right now.

Landon's 2nd birthday party

2008-11-21T13:47:00.002-06:00

Here's a little slideshow of Landon's party last month.

Make video montages at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Crazy!!

2008-11-11T16:55:00.002-06:00

Okay Val - I got the message:) I know I've been slacking in the update department. I have no clue what I'm going to do with four of them - it is already crazy enough with just three! I don't know how I'm going to add caring for a newborn and sleep deprivation to the mix. October has gone by in a blur. The only thing that saved me is I had gotten Connor 3-4 weeks ahead of schedule in his homeschooling before we left for Disney so we were able to take off while in Florida and last week when we got back. Eric is in grad school so for 3 nights a week he is either at school or working on school at home. He is also teaching 2 classes on top of his regular job so he has 2 nights a week that he is online teaching classes. Add to that me working on weekends, Connor's homeschool, and Landon's therapy - life just never stops.

We are also in the process right now of redoing the bedrooms. We had Landon in one room, Connor and Garrett sharing a room, and the fourth bedroom was Eric's office. With number 4 on the way, Eric decided to give up his office so we've had to combine my work/personal computers to one desk so he could move his computer into our room. We are going to turn his office back into a bedroom for Connor, put Landon and Garrett in the boys room, and then turn Landon's room into the baby's room. Eric's not crazy about all the painting I want to do but after 6 years of blue rooms, I'm excited to get to paint one of them pink finally. On top of all the laundry from being gone for a week and a half, we got back home to find the cool weather is making it's way here so I've been getting bins out of the attic to go through the boys winter clothes to see what will fit for this year.

The boys had a blast at Disney. As soon as I finish downloading all the pictures from the camera I'll make a slide show to post. Landon got to see his favorite - Mickey Mouse. He must have said "Mouse" 5,000 times. On the Mexico ride, when it starts they have a scene with Donald Duck so I pointed to him and just said "Look Landon, Donald Duck." Neither of us said anything for a couple of scenes then when they showed Donald again, Landon said "Momma, duck, quack, quack."

We also had a couple of reasons to celebrate while we were there. The week before, Eric's sister Tammy (who met us there) successfully defended her dissertation and earned her doctorate. CONGRATULATIONS DR. NANNY :) The 29th was Landon's one year hearing birthday. His hearing has become such a normal part of our everyday life the date just seemed to sneak by us. We are having fits with his ears right now - the rechargeable batteries are driving us nuts. Now he tries to put the magnet back on when it falls off or he'll come to us holding his ear for us to fix it. He has also gotten where he doesn't want us to take them off at night. We used to be able to say "Night Night" and he'd say it back and then take them off. Now he fusses when we try to take them off. I'm not sure if it is that he doesn't want to lose hearing or if he doesn't want to go to bed and knows if they come off that's where he is going.

Are you sure?

2008-10-10T20:03:00.004-05:00

We got quite a shock today when the ultrasound tech told us Thing 4 is going to be a girl. We figured it was going to be another boy so all I was waiting to hear was everything looked good. After she said everything measured right she asked if we wanted to find out what it was. I had already picked out a couple of names for a boy since I thought that was what it was going to be. Now it's back to square one. I asked if she was sure and she said she had flashed her a couple of times so she had gotten a good look. I still don't think it's sunk in yet. It's going to be weird to look at pink stuff after 6 years of blue.

Update.

2008-10-01T15:53:00.002-05:00

Wow, I didn't realize it had been so long since I last posted. Things have been crazy around here. I was scheduled to work more hours the last few weeks because the census at the hospital has been up. I only work on the weekends - when Eric can watch the kids. I usually work from home (for those who don't know I do medical transcription for the hospital). I had quit working when Connor was born but we needed a way to bring in a little extra money with all the medical bills from Landon so I started doing this. It was working out pretty good since I do it from home. The only problem has been that my cable modem went down with Hurricane Gustav and so I've been having to go up to the hospital to work. It's not bad when it's the first shift but second shift doesn't end until 9:00 p.m. It's pretty spooky up there on a Sunday night - especially since we are located just one set of double doors from the morgue. We stay so busy during the week with the boys homeschooling, Landon's therapy, Eric's graduate classes on top of his job, and then to have to go up there on the weekends - the days are just flying by.

We are having Landon's second birthday party this weekend. It's a combination of Mickey Mouse Clubhouse (he loves the show) and Halloween. I've been busy trying to get everything ready for it. We had a wedding this past Saturday that Eric was standing in so trying to get everything ready for both of those plus our trip has also kept us pretty busy. We are leaving for Disney World in 3 weeks. Yes - we are going again. Eric has to go to Orlando for a conference for work so we just added some days to the beginning to stretch it into a family vacation (especially since his work will be paying for a good part of it). His sister Tammy graciously offered to fly in during the middle of the week so she could help me take the boys to the parks. I was going to try and take them myself but I am definitely thankful she's going to come and help. Just the thought of doing it alone was making me tired but I knew the boys wouldn't want to stay cooped up in the hotel room all day. Nanny to the rescue!!!I'm especially glad since yesterday I just found out I'm anemic. Never had it with any of the other pregnancies but we couldn't figure out why I was so exhausted this go around. The boys outlast me at night. I went for my last checkup and found out the lab screwed up the first time around and they had to run the bloodwork again (did I mention I HATE needles?) Anyway, they called yesterday and said it showed I was anemic so the doctor put me on an iron supplement. Hopefully it will start kicking in before we leave for the trip. We pretty much go from sun up to sun down when we are at Disney so maybe I need to take double doses :)

Aftermath

2008-09-04T18:32:00.007-05:00

Here's a few pictures we took on the way to my parents. These aren't from the worst part of town either.

These are the pilings for a new bridge they are building over the Amite River. It will be high like a normal bridge and you can usually see down to the bottom where they go into the dirt. This is the new threat from Gustav - flooding.

Why there is no power.

This sign is in better shape then most.

This is a common site - the bottom of a tree that was pulled up roots and all.

A church that lost it's steeple.

There's 3 trees in a row that were pulled up at the roots. The front one landed across a truck.

Go away Gustav!!

2008-09-04T11:14:00.002-05:00

WE HAVE POWER!!! We are one of a very small few who have power in Louisiana. It came back up last night around 9:00 p.m. 2 1/2 days in Louisiana heat and humidity with no power was miserable and unfourtunately it looks like a lot of people will be in it for a lot longer. My parents and in-laws are both about 40 minutes away from us in opposite directions and they don't have any. There is a chance my in-laws could get it this evening. Their water/sewer is all run on power so they have no water/bathrooms. They were staying at Eric's sister's even though she didn't have power she had water. They came here last night after we got power. My parents could be weeks without it. There are tons of lines down over by them. Luckily they have a generator so they can run a fan and keep the refrigerator cool. We told them they could come here but they don't want to leave the house since they can't set the alarm system.

I have to say this one was 10Xs worse than Katrina. The only one I remember that comes close was Hurricane Andrew in 1992 and the destruction from this one is just so much worse. And it wasn't just that a bunch of trees fell over. Massive trees - 50 to 75 years old at least - that looked like they could withstand anything were just ripped out the ground like they were just twigs. They would be laying on their sides with the whole root system pulled up and we saw plenty where the bottom of the tree you see (the dirt and root system) was taller than the house it was laying next to. I'm going to take some pictures to put on here because you can't believe it unless you see it.

Luckily our subdivision is relatively new - when we built here 8 years ago there was only a handful of houses here. There's huge trees around the outer part of the subdivision but no one has really huge trees in their yards so no one had trees falling through their houses here. We lost all the siding facial trim around the back of the house and the roof has a lot of damage but other than that we were very lucky. The wind was amazing - it sounded like it could rip the whole roof off. We're going to brave the store today and replenish what we lost in the refrigerator. We tried to stop yesterday but the only thing open around here is Walmart and the line wrapped around the outside of the building to get in.

We had another bout of bad rain this morning and were worrying about power going off again. Come to find out, it was another band of rain from Gustav. Is he ever going to go away??? On one hand the rain is good because it keeps the temperature down a little but now there is a threat of flooding because of all the rain. It looks like it is going to be a while before things are back to normal around here.

Luckily this time around we had a great governor in office. The media loves to try and blame Katrina on the federal govt and Bush. What they don't publicize is that Bush tried to get our then governor Blanco to evacuate New Orleans days before Katrina hit and she refused. She waited until the day before to do anything. She didn't declare the state of emergency or sign the paperwork that would allow the federal government to come in and help until after Katrina and the levee breaks. We keep hearing how different it was this time, preparation was so much better, communication is better, just totally different. Then comes the unappreciative people. We started hearing this morning some people from New Orleans fussing because they were forced to evacuate and it was for nothing so next time they aren't leaving. Doesn't matter they got lucky this time and it didn't hit as bad there. Doesn't matter that the whole time the storm was going on they were watching the levees thinking they were going to breach again. Just because they got lucky this time and didn't have the devastation like Katrina they think it was a waste to leave. Some people never learn.

Gustav is coming!

2008-08-31T16:51:00.002-05:00

Well, it looks like we won't get away from this one. Gustav is breathing down our necks and getting closer every hour. It's kind of spooky that it's happening so close after the third anniversary of Katrina. Let's keep our fingers crossed it doesn't hit us too hard - and we get power back soon after because it is just too hot right now to be without air for long.

Thing 4?!

2008-08-23T19:36:00.002-05:00

Well, just when we thought we were on the downward track of sleep interrupted nights and diapers God decided to give us a reminder of who was in control. Of course He waited until I sold all of our baby stuff and maternity clothes at a garage sale and I had finally made it back to my pre-kid size and actually bought some new shorts for the summer. We've taken a while to announce it this time because I'm still trying to get used to the idea but it looks like we'll have a new little blessing around the beginning of March. We've got conflicting opinions around here - Garrett wants a sister and Connor wants another brother. I have a feeling Connor may get his wish. When we get together for the kids birthdays, there's 15 kids between both sides and only one is a girl. Now comes the hard part of thinking up names. We were still deciding on Landon's middle name while I was in labor at the hospital. Any suggestions?

Terrible 2's already??

2008-08-13T12:47:00.002-05:00

The last couple of weeks Landon is starting to show a big stubborn streak. Lately he has wanted nothing to do with his therapy - especially at home. When I try to work with him with some of his toys he'll pick the toy up, put it away where it goes, then grins at me. He gives you this look like "yeah - I know what you want me to do but I'm not in the mood so forget it!" His other thing when I try to do stuff is he'll just leave the room and go into his brothers room. When we see our AVT, he will do a couple of the sounds and then just stops until she moves on to a new activity. He seemed to loose interest very fast. Today he actually had one of his better sessions in a while. He went through three whole activities making all the sounds/words she asked him. After the first activity he did try telling her "bye-bye" and waving - guess he figured he had done enough :) We had talked at his last session (she had taken off last week with school starting for her kiddos) that maybe he was getting bored since we had been doing a lot of the same things over so she came today with new sounds/words and new activities and it seemed to work. Guess I'm going to have to come up with new things to do with his toys here and see if he's just bored with what we've been doing.

He's also started taking his implants apart - especially in the car. We'll look back at him and he'll smile with the battery falling out of his mouth. He knows what he's doing too because if I catch him just starting to take them apart, he says "uh oh" and tries to put it back on his head. Guess we'll have to break out his hats again for in the car. At home if he's playing in the boys room with them they know to watch him. They call out "Ear alert - Ear alert" when he takes them off. He loves wearing the CI's so I think it's just him being bored and it's something to play with. When I show them to him in the morning he climbs in my lap for me to put them on.

The baby gate we had between the living room and kitchen broke 4-5 months ago and we didn't get a new one because he really never went in there unless we were in there. I had to go last week and buy a new one. He discovered he could climb the chairs and get on top of the table. We can't keep the ladder down on the boys bunk beds because he'll climb up to the top bunk. He's definitely keeping us on our toes.

Testing

2008-07-21T16:46:00.003-05:00

Our AVT did a preschool language scale test on Landon so we could get an idea of where he is at in his progress. The test is just a universal preschool language test that could be given to any child - it does not factor in his hearing loss or anything like that. Here is an idea of where he is at:

**Keep in mind he had a hearing age of 8 mths at the time.

Age at time of test - 1 yr 9 mths
Auditory comprehension - 1 yr 3 mths age equivalent
Expressive communication - 1 yr 10 mths age equivalent
Total language score - 1 yr 6 mths.

He is definitely making up for lost time. Our AVT said she didn't know whether to smile or cry. She was happy he scored so well but sad because she said we wouldn't be with her for a whole lot longer. She said towards the end of the year we would redo it and depending on how he does we may cut back to every other week for therapy. She thinks his comprehension is better than what he tested just from what he does weekly in therapy but he was in one of his stubborn moods that day and wouldn't do stuff that we know he can.

Way to go Buzz!!!

4th of July

2008-07-07T16:31:00.002-05:00

Hope every one had a good 4th of July. It's become a tradition to spend the day at Eric's sisters house. She lives right next to the levee so we can see all the festivities across the river in downtown Baton Rouge without actually having to go fight the crowds. We usually go swimming but the weather didn't cooperate this year. They do a mock battle reenactment with the USS Kidd and luckily the rain decided to stop then so we headed outside to watch. When the first bomber plane flew over head, Connor took off running for the house with his fingers in his ears yelling "They're gonna bomb us!!!" Every time one would pass over Landon would point at it and make the "AAAHHH" sound we do for the airplane. The boys had a blast - spending most of the day playing a new Wii game Nanny had bought. They liked the fireworks show - except for Connor who watched with his fingers in his ears. Landon didn't blink the whole time and then at the end clapped. Last year he didn't hear them - even with his hearing aids. What a difference a year makes.

Landon tries to say most of what you tell him now. He'll say something and if we say the right thing back he gets this big smile on his face and either laughs or gives us a kiss. I keep his listening toys in separate plastic containers - all the fish in one, all the snakes, etc.. He now will pick up one of the containers, look at what is in it, and says the sound for the what is in it. He does the snake, fish, hop (for the bunnies that jump), round and round and round for the tops, cut (for the velcro food and knife), and ducks. The others aren't in see-through containers so I'm going to have to go to the store and get some more clear ones and see if he'll start doing it for more. His favorite thing right now is the Little People house. He loves to put the mom and dad in the chairs, shakes his finger and says "sit down". It's worked out good for us because when he stands up in the tub now we just shake our finger and he sits down.

Don't mess with Texas!

2008-06-10T20:26:00.002-05:00

We took a quick trip to Houston, Texas this weekend. Garrett is really into "batter, batter, baseball" and Connor loves anything to do with Space so we decided to take a mini vacation. We went to an Astros game, NASA's Johnson Space Center, the Downtown Aquarium, the Kemah Boardwalk, and the Houston Zoo. We did a lot in just 2 days!!

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Landon's language is starting to take off now. It seems like in the last 2-3 weeks he's made a change. He used to just scream when he wanted something but is now trying to say the word for it and is trying to imitate words we tell him. Some of the new words he can now say are thank you, more, bread, and drink. He does more but these are the ones he says on his own and at the right time - and that I can think of off hand. He also says roll 'em up when we do pat-a-cake. I need to sit down and make a list of everything he says and can understand because we've definitely seen an increase in the last few weeks.

Garrett's 4th Birthday Party

2008-06-04T14:06:00.001-05:00

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Wearing his CI's

2008-06-04T13:42:00.005-05:00

I've gotten asked quite a few times about how Landon is wearing his CI's and the setup we use so I figured I'd post the pictures here for everyone. We use the babyworn setup so the part on his ear is smaller and slide the controllers into pockets on the back of some onesies my sister made for him. I'm no seamstress so lucky for us she is.

Once we put his shirt on, it helps hold the cables on and keeps them hidden so they don't catch on stuff and pull his ears off.

We had trouble with the clips that came with the babyworn catching on things or brushing against stuff and they kept popping off. This has worked out great for us.

Disney World Trip

2008-05-27T09:18:00.004-05:00

I went to go make a video for Garrett for his birthday and realized I never posted the one I did of our Disney vacation. Better late than never! The picture with the glare on the glass is the cochlear implant display at EPCOT.

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

I'm back.

2008-05-16T21:03:00.002-05:00

I didn't realize how much I'm on my computer until I lost it. I woke up one morning to find it dead and when I tried to turn the power on all I could smell was something burning - not a good sign. I finally got my new one in last week and got everything hooked back up and working. Now I have to go back and catch up on all the blogs I keep up with. Eric's been in California for a training seminar for work this week so there hasn't been much free time to update the blog. Who am I kidding, there hasn't been ANY free time this week. He calls the kids at night to talk to them, and one of the times Eric was talking to Landon, he said a really good daddy. He has been saying DaDa for a couple of weeks but when I handed him the phone, I said "Say Hi Daddy" and he squealed "DaaDeeee" and then started some ramblings - I'm not sure what he told Eric but he gave him an earful about something. At therapy this week his AVT, Shelley, and I both heard him say what sounded like bubbles when we were blowing them and he also said more when she stopped. I think it caught us both of guard when he said them.
Time to go put the kids to bed - they are pretty wound up knowing that Daddy is coming home tomorrow. They made pictures to bring to the airport for him.

Landon's progress

2008-05-01T15:28:00.003-05:00

I realized I hadn't posted an update on the new things Landon has been doing lately so I thought I'd take a second and get everyone up to date with where he is at.

He has started saying "ta-ta" when we have something he wants.
He did "buh-buh-buh-buh" for the bus.
We've been working on learning his body parts. He's pretty much done each part - he just won't do them all at one sitting. Example: one day he'll point to his eyes when we are working on it, the next day he'll hold up his hands when we do it.
He is trying to say brother - it sounds like "bra-ra" He'll hear the boys in the other room playing and I'll say "call your brothers" and he points at the door and says it.
He understands when I say more milk or bites.
He's started saying "Bye-Bye" instead of just waving.
He loves playing with the bubbles. We've been working on 1-2-3-Blooowwww and we wait after counting to try and get him to do the blow part. He started doing it this past week and even did it at therapy this week. He also started saying pop-pop-pop-pop when we pop the bubbles.
We have play food with velcro that we try to get him to say cut (really just expecting him to make a short sound) and then push the knife through to break them apart. He started doing it last week.
After I change him and get him ready for bed at night, the last thing I tell him before I take his ears off is "Night, night". Now when I tell him that, he reaches up and yanks his ears off and hands them to me.

Slip-N-Slide

2008-04-21T19:10:00.004-05:00

The boys having fun on the slip-n-slide this afternoon. All I kept hearing from Garrett was "I've got water on my face". It only slowed him long enough to go wipe it off then he was back running through it.
Landon loves the bike. Of course I have to walk beside him and steer it so we don't do it for too long - mom's back is too old :)

Trip to the zoo

2008-04-21T14:49:00.007-05:00

Nanny brought the boys back some shirts from her trip to Orlando. We have Thing 1, Thing 2 and Thing 3. Now I have to find the Dr. Seuss book with them in it to read to the boys.

The boys had a ball at the zoo yesterday. Here they are checking out the elephants. Gavin, Connor and Garrett

Landon liked the fish. He even said "Sh sh" once (we do swish swish in his therapy for the fish).
He didn't make it to the end. He crashed about 3/4 of the way through. He still had his french fries in his hand from our snack.

I've been tagged.

2008-04-15T15:22:00.003-05:00

I got tagged by Leah, Nolan and Matthew's mommy. Here's the rules:

1. The rules of the game get posted at the beginning.
2. Each player answers the questions about themselves.
3. At the end of the post, the player tags 5 people and posts their name, then goes to their blogs and leaves them a comment, letting them know they've been tagged and asking them to read your blog.

What was I doing 10 years ago?
Working as an accountant.

Five snacks I enjoy:
1. Plain M&M's
2. TCBY Chocolate and Vanilla swirl
3. Blue Bell Homemade Vanilla Ice Cream
4. Double Stuff Oreo's
5. Crushed Ice from Sonic

Things I would do if I were a billionaire:
1. Build a dream house - with a huge playroom so I can stop stepping on toys in every room of our house :)
2. Buy a vacation home next to Disney World.
3. Start a foundation so that everyone who wanted CI's for themselves or their child would be able to get them.

Five jobs that I have had:
1. Stay-at-home mom/teacher (we are homeschooling)
2. Accountant
3. Castmember at The Disney Store.
4. & 5. What can I say, I'm a creature of habit. If I like something, then why change?

Three of my habits:
1. Crushed ice - which drives my husband crazy but he does stop and get it for me - must be love.
2. Shopping for bargains.
3. Reading in the tub - with 3 boys under 6 when else would I find the time?

Five place I have lived:
1. Born/raised Baton Rouge, LA
2. Apartment with my husband in Baton Rouge.
3. Townhouse with my husband in Baton Rouge.
4. House with husband in Denham Springs (10 minutes from Baton Rouge)
5. What can I say - I'm a homebody - something my husband is trying to change.

Add one new part (I am copying the question from Leah who copied it from Tina who copied it from Abbie):What do you want others to get from your blog?:
We set up the blog to let our family and friends know where we were at with all of Landon's testing and getting ready for surgery. We also use it to let other families who are just starting out on the same journey to get an idea of what they can expect and share our experiences with them.

Five People I Want to Get to Know Better: (a nice way of saying TAG!) But don't feel obligated! Just do it if you want to. If you've already been tagged, sorry. I tried not to do someone who had already been tagged.
1. Erin's mom
2. Tayten's mom
3. Thomas' mom
4. Brook and Gage's mom
5. Kevin's mom

Movie coming soon

2008-04-01T19:34:00.002-05:00

There is a movie coming on CBS later this month called "Sweet Nothings in My Ear". The story line is basically the mom is deaf, the husband hearing, and their son ends up losing his hearing. The dad(Jeff Bridges) is in favor of getting a CI while the mom (Marlee Matlin) is against it. This link is for a brief summary about it and then there is a place to post comments. There are a lot from people against CI's. From their posts, you can tell they obviously don't know much about them - just their prejudices. There is even one that said they cause brain damage. WHAT? So everyone who knows how great CI's are, please go and add your comments. Maybe if they hear from people who actually have experience with CI's or kids with CI's then they may realize the ignorance in some of their comments.

2008-03-31T16:42:00.006-05:00

Happy Belated Easter!! The boys had a ball doing easter egg hunts. Landon even got into it. He got a lot of good listening toys from the Easter Bunny. This past weekend we had Connor's 6th birthday party. He has grown up too fast!! He had it at the movie theater - we saw "Horton Hears A Who". It went great with his Transformer themed party :) The kids all seemed to have a ball. Of course we had to open all his "loot" as soon as we got home. Whoever invented those plastic twist ties could not have been a parent!

We went Wednesday for another mapping and booth test. She didn't change his programs too much, since the others had seemed to bother him. She did give us a new map to try in noisy places, to help take out some of the background noise. He is testing between the 15-25 db. She thinks he is better than what he is showing for some but it's hard to test him. After about a minute he's had enough and is ready to get out. I may see if we can bring some toys in or something next time to try and keep him participating longer.

He did great in therapy today and is picking up some new things in the last week or two.

Made the SSsss for the snake - he was just doing a very high pitched Aahh every time for it but he actually did the S for the first time today.
Did a much closer Moo sound for the cow - usually we just get him copying the duration.
We have bunnies (therapist has frogs) that jump when you push down on the back. We try to get him to cue the sound Hop (or his version of it) first then we make it jump. He started doing it this week - and actually did it for therapy. Usually I tell her what he is doing but he won't "perform" for her.
He had 2 listening toys on his tray and she asked him for one sound and he started to do the wrong one then switched to the correct toy (without any prompting from us) and put it in the bucket. That's one of our goals right now - getting him to pick out the correct toy for the sound.
He did the hands when she started singing "Itsy Bitsy Spider". He also does Pat-a-cake now - but he skips the clapping part. When you start to sing he starts rolling his arms around for the "roll 'em up" part.
Started saying DaDa - he won't do it for Eric but he does it for me and he did it for Eric's sister on Easter.
When I was opening Connor's presents, one was a Hot Wheels car. I handed it to Landon and he immediately starting doing the raspberry we do for the car. Hasn't done the Beep Beep part but it's something.
When I was cooking the other night, I asked him "Where's Connor and Garrett? You want to play with your brothers?" He got down ( he was standing against the fridge playing with magnets) and crawled on out of the kitchen to the boys room. That was the second time I've told him something to that effect and he's stopped what he was doing and goes and finds them.

I know there was more - she had a good list today of stuff - but I can't remember it right now. Too many kids trying to get Mom's attention :)

Easter Bunny

2008-03-18T17:20:00.004-05:00

Here's Landon's picture with the Easter Bunny. I couldn't get the other boys to take one - I guess they think they are too big for that. The only reason I got one of Connor with Santa Claus is because I told him he had to take a picture so he could tell Santa what he wanted for Christmas.

Landon has started doing his sounds more often when I'm working with him. It used to be a one shot deal - he would make it once and that was all I would get. He also did his whee for the first time during therapy Monday. We do the kids with the slide and go up-up-up whee. He's been doing the up-up-up part but he's never done the wheee and he did it Monday. Me and Shelley (his AVT) were both excited. He did it a couple of times, too. Today when I started singing the "Itsy Bitsy Spider" without the hand motions, he started doing his hands together and up in the air for the first time. I haven' t been able to get him to say DaDa yet. He has MaMa - and knows I'm a sucker for it. If I walk by him and don't pick him up he'll start hollering MaMaMaMa and crawl after me - who can resist that :)

We got his processors back from Cochlear today. We just mailed them the Saturday before last so they are definitely fast on their repairs and shipping. Now we are ready for our mapping next Wednesday. Hopefully he'll cooperate in the booth more this time. He is usually too busy looking at all the lights to give real clear-cut responses. He's only done it twice so I'm sure he'll get better as he gets older.

He has a voice - and knows how to use it!!

2008-03-11T14:34:00.004-05:00

In the last week or two, Landon has developed an extremely LOUD screech that he has been doing all the time. He does it when he's happy and when he is mad. I also don't think it has anything to do with him being deaf. Garrett did the same thing at this age. Luckily he seems to have grown out of it, although it does reappear every once in a while when he doesn't get his way. It was one of the things that clued us in to Landon's hearing loss. He would be sound asleep in the bassinet and Garrett would let one loose right next to him and Landon wouldn't flinch. The only problem is we are so excited for Landon to be using his voice and trying to imitate sounds we hate to have to tell him Shhh. It makes it easy to find him though :

We had a couple of new things in therapy this week. For the most part, we are just listening for him to repeat duration, pitch, that type of thing - we aren't listening for him to repeat what we say exactly. When we did quack, quack, quack with the ducks, he repeated it a couple of times. When we did the whispered PtPtPtPt for the boat at first he would do BuBuBuBu and get the duration then he did it once where he just moved his mouth but didn't make any sound with it - his attempt at a whisper I guess.

We are starting to pick up on words that Landon understands. If you say "Yeah!" he starts clapping. If you say "No No" he'll shake his finger at you - of course he goes right back to what he was doing but most kids do that :) If you say "Shh" he'll put his finger on his mouth. When you say "Bye Bye" he starts waving his hand. He is also saying MaMa and knows it's me. At first I thought he was just getting a new consonant sound but Eric was holding him and I walked through the room and he started calling it and then came after me. We've also heard him put a couple of consonants together when he is babbling instead of just saying one over and over. He just started this week blowing. He's always been good at raspberries but now he'll just blow air. Pretty soon he is going to want to start having a turn with the bubbles too.

On an equipment note, we had to send our first set of processors back. The connection where we hook in either the babyworn cable or the battery pack has gotten loose so if it moved at all when he was wearing them they would cut off. We also had to move his next mapping up. After I bumped him up to his P3 map, I noticed he was starting to do a lot of eye blinking when we would put his ears on and was starting to pull them off a lot more. I asked his audiologist about it and she thinks his maps may be too strong for him. We are going back at the end of this month - to give his processors time to come back in. We had to switch to his backup processors when we sent the others in and these have his old maps on it so he's using those for now. He seems to be back to his old self with these.

It's working!!

2008-03-02T08:59:00.002-06:00

Therapy this week went great - Landon was doing so much his therapist joked she was running out of room to write it on his chart. The day before, I was working with him with the tops - doing "round and around and around" and he imitated the pitch change and duration perfectly. When he does something correct, I'll say "That's right!". Now when I say it he starts clapping yeah. He's also started going "Mmm, Mmm,Mmm" when he is eating. Usually he just sits through therapy playing with all the stuff but doesn't talk very much. I'll tell her all the stuff he has done at home but he won't "perform" any of his tricks for her. Hopefully I can remember everything he did in therapy:

1. He performed his Aaahhh for her with the airplane.
2. When we did the boat he imitated the duration - he didn't whisper it but he got the short bursts right and it was the first time he's tried to copy us on it.
3. When we worked with the animals he did MMmm when we did Moo for the cow and also tried the Baa when we did the sheep. He also started saying it with the hand cue. We put the animal in our hand then put our hand to our mouth and say it and Landon would wait until I put my hand with the animal by his mouth and would then try and say the sound. He did it a couple of times with both animals too.
4. When we did the Ssssss for the snake, he made a much higher pitched sound with it. She said he was definitely trying to do it - he just doesn't know how to make the S yet. She tested him a couple of times doing other sounds in between and every time she would do the Sss he would go to this higher pitch and do it.
5. We did the bunny hopping over two fences saying "hop, hop, hop" and he would tap the bunny over the fence and make three short burst sounds.

He did everything a couple of times so it wasn't a one time fluke - even though Shelley keeps saying we need to give him credit even if he only does it one time. It was definitely his most talkative therapy yet. He did great for about 45 minutes then when we started with the Mr. Potato Head he just wanted to eat the parts and lay his head on my lap. Guess all that hard work wore him out.

Long time no blog.

2008-02-21T14:18:00.003-06:00

Okay, it's been a while since we've posted - time has just gotten away from us since we've been dealing with sick kiddos and trying to recover from the trip. We took Landon in the day before we left for Disney. He had been having a runny nose/sneezing and was pulling on his ears a lot so we just wanted to make sure he was fine before we left. He ended up having a lot of wax that they cleaned out and put him on some medicine for the other stuff. By the middle of the trip, he added a nasty sounding cough and would cough up some congestion. In the midst of this Garrett started with the same thing. We got home on a Saturday, I worked Sunday, went to New Orleans for new maps on Monday, and had both boys at the doctors on Tuesday. They both had to start with breathing treatments and Landon got an antibiotic plus had fluid in his ears. As soon as they started feeling better, this weekend Connor started with it and Sunday night was up crying with his ears. After another trip to the doctors, he has double ear infections. We came home from the doctors and all the kids got scrubbed from head to toe. Apparently there is a nasty flu bug going around - there were 3 kids that got sick in the waiting room while we were there. Hopefully that's the last we'll see of the doctor - at least for the next 3 weeks until we have to go back for the recheck on their ears.

The mapping went well. We did a booth test and upped his high frequency maps. We go back at the end of April for his next maps.

Disney World was a blast. I have some pictures to post but I'm waiting for Eric to put the music on the video so hopefully soon we'll have those to share. Garrett asks every morning if he's going to get to ride Buzz Lightyear that day. Connor has decided we need to move to Mickey Mouse's house. When I told him he wouldn't be able to see his grandparents or cousins if we did that - he said that they could all move too so that way everyone could go to Mickey Mouse's house. Gotta love how a 5 year old's mind works. The boys had a ball. We would hit the parks early and stay late and they all did good. We stayed at the Wilderness Lodge and ended up with a great view - we could sit on our balcony and watch the fireworks over the Castle at night.

Landon is showing a lot more responses to sounds these last few weeks. He loved It's a Small World - he would dance and tap his foot on it. He also started pointing to his ear when he would hear something but wasn't sure where it was. He started making the B sound - will say bah bah bah - the M sound - mah mah mah and the W sound wuh wuh wuh. The other day I was laying in bed trying to get him to fall asleep when the phone rang. He immediately sat up and looked over to my desk where the phone is. He has also got the airplane down. I can put some boats, cars and planes in front of him and without any prompting from me, he picks out all the airplanes and says AAAAhhhhhh with the change in pitch like we do. His progress seems to go in spurts. We'll have a week or two where it seems like he doesn't do anything new than we'll have a couple of weeks where he seems to do a lot of things.

Garrett's first "official" haircut

2008-01-29T15:44:00.000-06:00

We took Garrett for his first real haircut by the barber. Up until now I've just been cutting it because we have been dreading bringing him. When I would cut it I was having to hit a moving target . He is never still. We've been trying for a year to get him to agree to let Mr. Barry do it and it's always been NO! For those who don't know him, he is at that age where if he didn't want to have it done, it would have taken all of us to hold his head still to get it done. That's why we've been putting it off. We told him he needed a good haircut before we go see Mickey Mouse and that seemed to work - he said Mr. Barry could do it. Surprisingly, he was a perfect angel. He sat there, didn't move, and smiled the whole time. We were amazed. I guess he really wants to see Mickey Mouse!

ONLY 3 MORE DAYS!! After the roller coaster we've been on the last year and a half, we can definitely use a vacation.We are going with Eric's parents, his sisters, brother-in-law, and nephew. We are celebrating Landon's being able to hear and my in-laws 40th wedding anniversary. Connor's been bugging me for the last 2 weeks to start packing. I have a feeling the van is going to be loaded down - there is a lot of stuff for 3 kids.

We got together this weekend and made shirts for the boys to wear. They came out so cute! They have one for Mardi Gras - it says "Throw me something Mickey!" and one with four boys with mickey ears with their names. Landon has one that has a little boy with CI's and mickey ears with Mickey Mouse on it that says "Look Mickey, I have ears too!" His Nanny Tammy is the computer whiz who designed them all. We'll have to take pictures of them wearing them.

UH-OH!!

2008-01-28T17:51:00.001-06:00

Okay, I just had to share this with someone and Eric is in class right now so I can't tell him. I was checking my email with Landon sitting on my lap (his usual place these days). I gave him the boys box with their new vitamins in it to shake to keep him busy. He dropped it on the ground so I said Uh-Oh a couple of times to him then handed it back. He dropped it again - obviously starting a game - and I said it again. The next time he dropped it I said Uh-Oh once then handed it back - Landon smiled at me and said UH-OH!!! He dropped it again and said Uh-Oh! again so I know it wasn't a fluke the first time.

Update on therapy

2008-01-16T19:59:00.000-06:00

We had speech today and his therapist thinks he is doing great for only being 11 weeks hearing age. Some of his newest tricks are:

1. When I whisper p-p-p-p-p-p (the sound for the boat) he will point to the boys doorway where we have the boat mobile hanging.

2. When I pick him up, I say "you want up? up?up?up?" and he's started copying it sometimes and says Uh-uh-uh.

3. He will imitate the AAaahhhhh with the change in pitch that we do for the airplane. He still does the monotone AAaahhhh that was his first repeat sound but now he will do the pitch change when we do.

4. With a slide we let figures go up and down and say "Up, up, up, wheeeee." He has started saying uh-uh-uh and then lets them slide.

5. He's mimicked the woof-woof for the dog with oo-oo and the sheep's baa with aahh.

6. The other night he was playing in his brother's room while I was in our room and he started fussing and I heard him crawl into the living room looking for me so I just called out once "Landon". He stopped going that way, turned around, and I heard him laughing as he came crawling down the hall into our room.

He's done others but that's the main ones that are coming to mind right now. I really need to get in the habit of updating here when he does stuff but between his therapy, homeschooling Connor, working, and keeping up the house it seems to fall to the back burner. I find that on a daily basis we sometimes start thinking he should be doing more than what he is but then when we stop and think he is only at the hearing age of an 11 week old we realize how far he has really come. We did the whole hearing aid thing from 3mths until his surgery but he really couldn't hear with them. I can remember only two times where he actually showed a reaction to sound. He still tested in the 75-80 db loss range with the aids on so he really had no hearing experience prior to his activation. To think that 2 months ago he couldn't hear a plane take off and now he can mimic sounds we make and hears us whisper sounds - it really is amazing.

Our Little Champion

2008-01-11T07:43:00.001-06:00

GEAUX TIGERS!!!!

2008-01-06T18:42:00.000-06:00

In honor of the LSU Tigers National Championship Game tomorrow, here are some pictures of the boys over the years in their Tiger gear.

Make video montages at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Happy New Year!!

2008-01-02T08:35:00.000-06:00

Is it 2008 already? What happened to 2007? This past year has flown by. This time last year, we had a road full of hurdles ahead of us. Landon had his hearing aids but that was it. We still had the CT scan plus other hearing tests to run to make sure he was a candidate for CI's. We didn't even know what surgeon we were using.

It seems like the first part of the year drug on because we were just waiting to hear from the surgeon that he could get the CI's Then came gathering information to get insurance to approve bilaterals - which surprisingly they did very quickly. Then the year started flying. It seemed like in no time surgery was upon us. It was definitely harder on us and our family than it was on Landon. By the night of the surgery he was back to his old self. I think it took the adults a little longer to get over it. I know the biggest hurdle is ahead of us - teaching him to understand sound and to talk - but it feels like the worst part is behind us. Hopefully 2008 won't be as stressful as 2007 was.

It's amazing to think how much can change with just a little time. If Eric or I would have been born deaf, we would have been raised in a world of silence with limited communication - only being able to talk with those who know sign language. Fastforward to now and we are living in a time where children born deaf are able to learn to hear and speak and have no limitations on who they communicate with. If you check out Rachel and Jessica's blog in the blog list, Rachel is a gifted college student who is also fluent in French. Did I mention she was born deaf? She was in the trial group that received the first CI's and she recently went bilateral. She spends her vacations from school traveling in France. I took 4 years of French in high school and could probably count on both hands the words I can say. It is amazing to see how far these kids can go.

In just the past year the CI world has changed. When Landon was first diagnosed, we met with a CI audiologist (not the one we are using) who showed us the implant and how it worked. When we asked if they would do one or two ears, we were told surgeons only did one ear, that no one did both ears. You had to save an ear for future technology. By the time we learned Landon was for sure a candidate, it was pretty much a given he would be getting bilaterals. The only question was one surgery or two. Now it is getting to be the norm to have simultaneous bilaterals. What a difference a year can make. I'm sure in a few more years the CI technology will probably get to the point where the whole device is fully implantable. It will be interesting to see in 20 years what the norm will be for babies born deaf.

Hope everyone has a great 2008!

Happy Holidays

2007-12-29T19:01:00.000-06:00

Hope everyone had a Merry Christmas. Christmas is actually a multi-day event for us. We had a party at the beginning of the month with one side of Eric's extended family. We spent the 23rd with Eric's immediate family, 24th with my immediate family, and the 25th with Eric's other side of the family. And if that wasn't enough stuff for the boys, Santa stopped by. As you can tell by the picture, it looks like Toys 'R' Us exploded in our living room. The boys didn't know what to play with first.Landon was right in the middle of it all. He has actually been wearing his CI's as full BTE's. He had a bad diaper while we were out the other day and I didn't have a spare bodysuit with me - he was wearing the battery part in pockets on his undershirts instead of with the babyworn clips. The only way I could keep his ears on that day was to make them the regular BTE's. We thought it would be a few years before he could wear them like this but they are actually staying on better like this than when we separate it and use the babyworn setup.
Landon is getting tooth #5. His top 2 teeth just broke through last week but he was still gnawing on everything so I looked in there tonight and one of his back molars on the right has broken through. He is cruising along all the furniture and thinks he's big stuff when he lets go with both hands- even if it is only for a second. The boys have started a countdown for Disney World. They can't wait until we go. We are definitely ready for a vacation.

Quiet anyone?

2007-12-18T14:30:00.002-06:00

I had to share this picture. I put Landon in his bouncy seat watching Baby Mozart so I could mop the kitchen floor - without his help:) This is what I found one of the times I checked on him.
I guess he decided he wanted some quiet for his nap - I usually leave his ears on from the time he gets up until he goes to bed at night.

National Championship Game

2007-12-10T16:28:00.001-06:00

For those of you who requested it, here's a picture of Landon in his LSU uniform and our internet friend Drew in his OSU uniform (thanks Jenny for letting us post him here). We met Drew and his family through the CICircle yahoo group. Drew was born 3 days before Landon and was blessed to receive his bilateral implants at eight months old. His mom has been a wonderful source for help on our journey since she is going through everything before me. I got the idea for the undershirts for Landon after seeing the setup they were using for Drew's bodyworn processors. My sister Cindy has been the sewing queen for me making a bunch of them and they are working out great. It's a lot easier than the babyworn clip that we initially started with.

We've "met" quite a few families on the CICircle that have young kids with implants and they have all been so helpful - any time we have a question or problem we just stick it out there and I always get tons of responses. You can check out some of the kids stories on their blogs - down on the right under CI blogs. I check them constantly to see how the kids are doing. I've been going back to some of the older posts on Drew's so that I can have an idea of when he was responding to certain things and it gives us an idea of what to expect from Landon. I know this is all off topic from what the picture is for but just wanted to send a Thank You to all those moms out there that have been down the CI path for keeping up their blogs and helping all of us newbies out.

As far as the picture - looks like Drew and Landon will be on opposite sides for this one. All I can say on that is Tiger Bait, Tiger Bait :-) The boys will probably sleep through the game anyway. Good Luck Buckeyes - but Go Tigers!

GEAUX!!!!!!

GEAUX Tigers!!

2007-12-08T15:46:00.001-06:00

Nanny Tammy got Landon his Christmas outfit. Only in Louisiana does purple and gold work for Christmas. Hopefully he'll be wearing it as we celebrate a National Championship for LSU.

Littlest Tiger Fan

Santa visit

2007-12-01T17:01:00.001-06:00

We took the boys for their picture with Santa. This year the mall went all out with something called Santastic. First, they have the kids write a quick letter to Santa with what they want. Next, they drop it into a mail box that is linked directly with the North Pole - when you open it cold air and snow fly up in the air. The kids then have to hit the Naughty or Nice button to find out if they've been good - Connor refused to do this. There was a big sign next to the picture setup that was a warning for those with pacemakers. When I asked the photographer about it he said there was a really strong magnet on the left arm of the chair. Needless to say we sat Landon on the right. I didn't know we would encounter problems with his implants and Santa Clause.
Landon didn't know what to make of him. It was a change from last year - when he was just staring off into space. This year he looked when the photographer shook the bells.
Garrett is our fearless one. He ran up first for his picture. Definitely not a shy one!
I think the only reason Connor took a picture was because I told him Santa wouldn't bring him any presents if he didn't. He wouldn't talk to him though - he said he wrote what he wanted on the letter so he didn't need to tell Santa.

Landon reacting to sound

2007-11-20T06:32:00.000-06:00

This is a clip we had made of Landon reacting to sound. His brother Connor is the helper. It also shows Landon mimicking the AAhhh sound. Now he can mimic the Aahhh and Mmmm sounds in both long and short - Aaaahhhh and Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah. We've also noticed he has gotten a lot louder just in general these days. Whether he is making sounds playing or even his crying, he is definitely showing a difference with the implants on. In the morning before we put them on and in the evening after we take them off he becomes very quiet again.

We went for another mapping Thursday. We are going slower through these programs than the first time. With his first map we could go through all 5 steps on a program in a day and it wouldn't phase him. With this one, if we bump him too soon you can tell he gets a little agitated and fussy like it is bothering him. We have gone through program 1 and are almost done with program 2. We go back on Dec. 10 for his next mapping. She told us when we get those that it would be closer to his NRT (the testing they did in surgery). She will also do a booth test to see what levels he is hearing at.

Amazing!

2007-11-11T19:02:00.000-06:00

Two weeks ago we could have taken Landon to the airport, sat him on the runway next to a plane taking off, and he wouldn't have blinked an eye. Fastforward to today - he can be playing with a toy and if you hit the drum or shake a rattle behind him he will turn around to find the sound. He is also trying to imitate some sounds. If you say Aaahhh - he will say it back to you; this is a new game for him. We can go back and forth for ten minutes and he'll keep doing it. He has also said Mmmmm a couple of times when we are feeding him. He did it with Eric first, and then a couple of days later repeated it when I said it. He had his first speech therapy since activation last Wednesday. Our ST was impressed with his motor skills - the last time she had seen him we were debating doing PT. He also turned to different sounds for her. We go Thursday morning for his next mapping session. I wish they would do another booth test so we could see where he is hearing at.

Trick or Treat

2007-11-02T16:27:00.001-05:00

The boys had a blast trick or treating. Landon was only interested in his glow stick. Afterwards they helped MaMa and Aunt Tammy give out candy to the other kids. If their costume was too scary, Connor wouldn't give them any - he made Garrett or his cousin Gavin do it.

Landon's new trick. The day after activation he started pulling up on things to stand. Before he would stand there if you put him but now he pulls himself up.

Landon's Activation!

2007-10-29T17:45:00.000-05:00

We went for Landon's activation today. He smiled when they turned him on. They did the left first and then the right. Now comes the fun part of trying to keep them on him. He hasn't tried to pull them off too much, but his ear is so small it is falling off just with him moving his head around. I had to ride back next to him in the van because every time he turned his head it would pop off.

Landon's Left Ear

Landon's Right Ear

One year ago today

2007-10-26T17:14:00.000-05:00

One year ago today our lives took a detour to a new journey. Landon had failed the newborn screening in the hospital and of course we got the typical speech from the nurse in the hospital - it's probably just fluid, give it a few weeks, it will clear out and go for a retest. This was the day I took him for the repeat OAE - that was supposed to come back fine. By the time we went for this test, we pretty much knew he had a problem. Being that he was #3, we knew he wasn't responding like he should. I remember being in the hospital after having Connor and seeing him turn his head in the direction of my voice at only a day old. Garrett could run through the living room screeching and Landon wouldn't flinch an eye. Nobody can be that sound of a sleeper - Garrett can wake the dead with his high pitches.

The audiologist ran the test, told me he didn't pass again; but she wanted to run a test to see if he had any fluid in his ears. After that, all she could tell me was that he had some type of a loss, but that we wouldn't know the degree or type until we ran an ABR test. At the time, we didn't know there were degrees or different types of hearing loss. We just thought you could either hear, or if you were deaf, you couldn't. Has our world - and vocabulary - changed over the last year.

I came home and was glued to the computer for the next few weeks - trying to find out everything I could on hearing loss - even though we didn't get the official diagnosis until Nov.6 when they did the ABR. Surprisingly, his hearing loss hasn't been that hard to accept. I've never had this overwhelming grief that a lot of parents go through. I don't know if maybe it's because for the first five weeks we knew there was something wrong so I was prepared when she said he failed it again. Maybe it's because I haven't stopped long enough since the diagnosis to really focus on it. Maybe it is just naive on my part - because we haven't really gotten very far in this journey so maybe I'm not aware of everything that it entails.The main thing I've kept thinking since we found out is how lucky we are. There are so many birth defects and health problems that can effect children and we were blessed enough to have three healthy boys. Yes, one of them couldn't hear - but he could live like that. At that time we still knew nothing about cochlear implants or what they could do for someone - we just figured we would all be learning sign language. But it wasn't a life threatening birth defect. It wasn't a disease that was incurable. He would simply have to learn a new way to communicate. Imagine our surprise when we found out about cochlear implants and learned that not only would he be able to hear, but he would be able to speak and go to school just like his brothers.

It has definitely been a learning year. It has had it's rough spots - like getting through the surgery. I'm sure the next few years will have their share of challenges - teaching him to listen and talk. We can't wait for Monday to get here and get him activated. Maybe by this time next year we will have forgotten this date and instead focus on Oct.29 - his hearing birthday.

Boo at the Zoo

2007-10-22T18:38:00.001-05:00

Landon - Little LSU Tiger

Garrett - Yoda when the ears are on; Qui Gon Jinn when he takes the ears offConnor the Power Ranger

Boo at the Zoo - with their cousin Gavin

Bath time is so much easier now that he can sit.

Countdown

2007-10-21T07:27:00.000-05:00

Only one week to go until activation! Landon has become a crawling machine - nothing is safe. His favorite thing is to go play in his brothers' room. We are getting ready to take the boys to the Boo at the Zoo. Connor is going to be a Power Ranger, Garrett is Yoda (with his favorite color green lightsaber), and Landon is an LSU football player. We'll post some pictures later in their costumes.

One of his new things is to pat his chest. He also pats his mouth - we'll have to work on him making noise with it once he gets activated.

His incisions are healing really well.

Post-op

2007-10-08T17:48:00.000-05:00

We just got back from New Orleans. The rain and the traffic made for a long trip. As his dad said, everything looks great. Dr. Molony took the nasty tape strips off and now we are just waiting for activation day. This time last week he couldn't sit by himself at all. Now he crawls everywhere he wants to go (and some places you don't want him to.) He can also go from crawling to sitting and back by himself. You can no longer put him on the floor with some toys and think he is going to stay there and play. He takes off following you wherever you go. It's amazing how far his gross motor skills have come in just a weeks time. The doctor asked if he was having any balance problems after the surgery and was surprised when I told him it was actually the opposite - all his balance problems cleared up after the surgery.

Everything Looks Great

2007-10-08T14:36:00.000-05:00

Landon has just completed is latest checkup and has received a clean bill of health from the Dr. Moloney. He still has a small bit of swelling in the neck area, but it seems to be decreasing on a daily basis.

On another note, Landon began to belly crawl and sit up 2 days after surgery. I am astounded at his progress over the past 4 to 5 days. Last night while I watched LSU beat Flordia again, he was able to sit up own his own from a prone position. It is really exciting to see his progress...

Bouncing Back

2007-10-04T15:00:00.000-05:00

It's amazing how fast these babies bounce back from surgery. Landon is pretty much back to his old self again. He does have a lot more separation anxiety - he won't go to anyone else but me right now. He is back to playing on the floor with all his toys - as long as I'm sitting right there with him. Of course the last time he was taken from me they cut his head open so I'm sure it's just a side effect of that. Every day it gets better so he'll be back to his friendly self before long. We gave him the tylenol with codeine the first two days for the pain and then just went to regular tylenol. So far today he hasn't needed anything for the pain - he's been happy and playing all day.
We have noticed a few things that have changed with him since the surgery. He no longer does the scooting on his head with his back arched. He crawls on his tummy with his head up. He also doesn't throw his head back like he did when you hold him. He is doing a lot better with his head control and sitting by himself. The surgery has definitely made a difference in his balance issues.

This is the day after surgery - one of his ears sticks out a little but the other one doesn't.

The first side they did.

The second side. You think they could have at least shaved the same amount. Oh well, it is already starting to grow back so it won't be long.

We're Home!

2007-10-02T13:12:00.000-05:00

We just got back in from our stay in New Orleans. Landon was able to have his surgery yesterday - he still had a little fluid in the right ear but the doctor said it wasn't enough to need to cancel. It actually went a lot faster then we thought it would - he was only away from us for 4 hours. We got to pre-op at 6:15 and they took him to the OR at 7:30. At 8:30 we got the message that surgery had just started and at 10:30 Dr. Molony came out and said everything was done and the audiologist had just gone in to do the NRT testing. By 11:30 we were back in recovery with him. It took him most of the day to sleep off the anesthesia (and the small dose of morphine they gave him right after to help until the tylenol had kicked in) He would wake up, take a bottle, and then go right back to sleep. Around 10:00 last night he woke up wanting to play. He kept trying to roll over but couldn't because of the large bandage on his head. We went for his post-op this morning and the doctor took off the big bandage so he just has the tape strips over the incisions. We talked with the audiologist for a minute and she said they got full insertion of the electrodes on both sides and that everything tested perfectly. He was playing peek-a-boo and pat-a-cake in the office so he is pretty much back to his normal, happy self.

Back in the hotel following surgery - he ended up spending the day in a diaper and towel because he kept soaking through everything after all the IV fluids they gave him.

Leaving the hospital to come home

On the way to his post-op in front of the Cochlear Implant Awareness Month display. Louisiana finally does something to be proud of. They are the first state in the nation to declare October as Cochlear Implant Awareness Month. Landon was the first surgery done during this awareness month and the first simultaneous bilateral CI surgery done.

Keep your fingers crossed!!

2007-09-28T15:42:00.000-05:00

We took Landon to the pediatrician for his pre-op today - his surgeon is on vacation this week. We had a little surprise - he has a slight ear infection. He started yesterday with a clear runny nose but seemed to be feeling fine so we were hoping it would go away on its own. They took his temp when we got to the doctors and it was 101 - while he is laughing and playing peek-a-boo with the nurse. His right ear was red with a little fluid so they put him on an antibiotic. They checked his white blood count and said it was normal. As of right now we are still on for surgery. I spoke with the nurse at the doctor's office and she said to go ahead as scheduled (as long as his fever doesn't go any higher). On Monday Dr. Molony would look at it and make a decision one way or the other if he can have the surgery. He hasn't had fever since we left the office this morning so hopefully it will clear up and we can go ahead with the surgery. I thought for sure when I told her there was fluid in his ear she would say we needed to reschedule but she just said we'll see on Monday morning what his ear looks like and as long as he isn't running fever he would probably have the surgery. Like we weren't stressed enough over the surgery now we have to worry if he is even going to have it or not or if we will have to go through all the worry again a few weeks from now.

Happy Birthday Landon!

2007-09-27T07:25:00.000-05:00

One year ago today, I was on the way to the hospital to be induced for high blood pressure. By the time we got there, I was already in labor (contractions every 3 min) and had to have it stopped so they could get the blood pressure under control. When Landon arrived 5 hours later, we thought all the surprises were over. Boy were we wrong! Leaving the hospital with our third son, we never would have imagined his first year would have flown by so fast because of the numerous doctor visits, tests, and therapy visits. I'm sure the next few years will fly by with teaching him how to listen and speak. We only have a few more days of buzzing - although I have a feeling his brothers are not going to let us change his nickname. I thought today would be a good time to take a look back at his first year before looking forward to his new journey - to hearing and beyond.

Make video montages at www.OneTrueMedia.com

One year check-up

2007-09-18T14:47:00.000-05:00

This first year has flown by. We went today for Landon's one-year-old check-up and shots. He couldn't get one of them - the one for chicken pox - because he isn't exactly one year. We had to go early because he had to have the next dose of the HIB and Prevnar before his surgery. He weighed in at 19 lbs 3 oz and is 29" long. We are having his birthday party this weekend at Nanny Tammy's house. It's going to be a "learning to listen" party. We figured it would be a good time with all his cousins around to explain to them about the implant and some of the things we'll be doing in therapy. It's the Baby Sesame Street party set so one of the games we are going to play instead of stick the nose on Elmo is stick the implant on Elmo's ear. Nanny came up with the idea to make shirts for all the kids to wear that have their name and then their name spelled out in sign language. They came out so cute. We'll have to take a picture of all the kids wearing them.

Therapy this week

2007-09-02T10:07:00.000-05:00

We went for Landon's monthly speech therapy session Friday. He's doing well with most of his skills. We still need to work on the sitting, but he is doing much better than he was. He is able to ride in a cart at the store and sit in a high chair as long as they have buckles to help keep his balance. We are giving him until after the surgery to see if this is related to his hearing loss. I've talked to quite a few who have said their kids had trouble sitting until they received their implants so we are holding off until he gets his. If it doesn't improve after that then we'll be setting up some physical therapy for him. He actually performed a couple of his new tricks - clapped his hands and waved bye-bye. He didn't do the lizard tongue - we forgot about that one. We have a few things to work on - getting him to stack blocks instead of just knocking them down, and getting him to put the rings back on the stacker instead of just taking them off.
We got the official orders from the doctor for the surgery so it's set for Oct. 1 with a post-op Oct. 2. It didn't have a pre-op scheduled so I'm going to have to contact them about that. With Dr. Molony being out-of-town the week before I'm not sure if they will want to do it a week before surgery or just check him the morning of. Luckily he's only had one ear infection so far so hopefully it won't be a problem.
Landon cut his first tooth this week. He's been miserable getting it. He's been running fever and only wants to be held by mom. Normally he's just a very happy baby so he's definitely not been acting like himself. It looks like the fever broke the night before last so hopefully he'll be getting back to himself soon. Connor's doing well in kindergarten. We are 2 weeks ahead of schedule in math and phonics. He'd probably be farther if I would let him.

Change in plans

2007-08-29T19:17:00.001-05:00

We just found out today Dr. Molony will be out of town the week Landon's surgery was scheduled so now it looks like we'll be having surgery Oct. 1. Hopefully it won't get changed again.

Update for surgery

2007-08-23T14:08:00.000-05:00

We have gotten a little more information on the surgery schedule. We have a pre-op appt on Sept. 26, surgery on Sept. 27 and a post-op appt on Sept. 28. We'll probably be sick of the car after that much time in it driving to New Orleans. It could be worse - I've seen where some families have traveled over 10hrs to get to a surgeon. Hopefully there won't be a lot of traffic everyday (who am I trying to kid - it's New Orleans - it's always a parking lot :) We also have a post-op Oct. 5. Landon will be a first for the surgeon - he hasn't done simultaneous bilaterals before. He said it only takes him an hour for one ear so it shouldn't be that long of a surgery doing both.

Landon's activation is set for Oct. 29 at 9:00. We are hoping to take video of it so we can post it on the website so everyone can see his first reaction to sound. We've been warned that most start crying but we have also seen some where the kids either show no response or are happy to hear. He smiles every day when he sees his hearing aids coming at him so hopefully he'll like the sound he'll get with the CI's.

New Rooms

2007-08-14T15:22:00.000-05:00

Connor wanted me to put pictures of their new rooms so everyone could see. He picked the paint and wall decorations. It's a combination of Star Wars and outer space. Luckily Garrett is still at an age we can appease him pretty easily. He wanted a lime green room while Connor had to have blue so the compromise was green sheets for Garrett. The ceiling also has planets and glow in the dark stars - it's pretty cool looking at night.We made Landon's into a listening room for his therapy. We put pictures of the learning to listen sounds all around. We are still trying to find a couple of them but it's a pretty good start.

What a present!

2007-08-13T12:19:00.000-05:00

We have a date. Landon will receive bilateral cochlear implants on his first birthday - Sept. 27. What a first birthday present! Let the countdown begin.

Connor had his first day of Kindergarten today. He was really excited to get started. We have decided to homeschool the boys. We are starting Garrett on pre-K activities and Landon will be having his therapy so all the boys will be having "school" every day. We can already see the benefits of having older siblings in Garrett - his vocabulary is great for someone his age (now we just need to get him potty trained!) He is like a sponge - soaking up everything that we are working on with Connor. I'm sure we will see definite benefits for Landon with his therapy by having older brothers to play with and learn from. He'll be getting extra learning time just by sitting at the table while I'm helping his brothers on their school work. I think the only trouble I'm going to have with Connor is keeping him on a schedule. As soon as he was done with the assigned pages of work he wanted to keep on going in the books. He probably would have done all of this weeks assignments today if I would have let him. I'm going to try and find some worksheets on-line that correspond with what he is learning so that he'll have enough work to keep him happy but will keep him building the skills and concepts at the appropriate rate. If I let him go at his own pace he'll be done with Kindergarten by Christmas.

We have approval!

2007-08-02T21:07:00.001-05:00

We received an email from our case mgmt at the insurance and Landon has been approved for bilateral CI's! Now we just need a surgery date from the doctor and the countdown can begin.

Typical day - putting ears back on, and on, and on...!

Still waiting

2007-07-28T08:07:00.000-05:00

We're still waiting for insurance to approve the surgery. I received an email from our case management worker at the insurance yesterday and they have reviewed the material (we gave them an expandable folder full of info on bilaterals) but the request from the doctors office for the surgery did not include a letter of medical necessity which they need. Of course when I contacted the doctors office he was on vacation this week and won't be able to get it to them until next week.
We had a speech therapy session this week. Landon is doing great on everything and meeting all of his developmental milestones - except for sitting. He's doing better then he was - has a lot better head control and is sitting in the tripod position. One of the physical therapist stopped by the room to get something and started playing with him so we asked her about the sitting. When she checked him she said it looks to be all a part of his balance and vestibular system being off because of the hearing loss. The back arching seems to be what is hindering him so hopefully he'll outgrow that soon. She said to just keep watching and make sure he keeps improving and if we decide we want to that she would work with him. His brothers didn't sit until 9 months and that was still with the boppy pillow to help balance and catch them. For right now the consensus is that it is a combination of just late sitters in the family and balance problems from not hearing. We'll see how he is doing in the next couple of months and go from there.