Sophie started her summer pre-school class (more like camp) yesterday - looks like fun! It’s only two days a week for 3 hours each time.

Adelina is making some nice progress in gymnastics.

Sophie is making some amazing progress with her CI’s. She has about 5 sounds now and is beginning to put them together in some form of babble. I love to listen to her pretend to talk!

I’m still working on navigating the busy-ness that comes with parenting two kids, especially now that I’m also trying to home school Adelina. We’ll start more “officially” in August, but we’re warming up and doing what we can to address her reading and math skills that were sorely neglected this past school year.

We’re also enjoying our new pool - such fun! We’re also trying to emphasize family time and really bonding as a family. This is both fun and positive.

That’s the update for now. Sorry for the dearth of posts. Here are a couple of pictures to keep you coming back…

This one is from a camping trip we took in March. Sophie had fun with the boots and hats they had for dress-up at the horse riding place we went to.

Adelina performed in the “Olympics” and here she is with her medal and flowers and her gorgeous smile! (taken at home after the event)

I guess we’ll start with Sophie… Sophie is just doing wonderfully with her new implants.  She can already imitate two speech sounds (ah and mm) and makes a very early attempt at the word “open” (mostly she just bobs her head up and down indicating two syllables, but it is a genuine attempt at the word!)  She is spending a lot of her time these days just vocalizing and “listening” to her own voice among many other sounds.  She currently goes about with an almost constant hum.

Adelina is doing quite well.  She just lost both front teeth (on the top) within 3 days of each other, so she has a big hole in her mouth right now.  What a great look!  She is doing well in gymnastics and is thoroughly enjoying our pool (as we all are).  On a slight negative, she was not doing so well at her new school, and upon investigation it became clear that it had to do with the quality of instruction.  I’m not going say more than that, but the result is we made an adjustment to her schedule so she would come home earlier and I am teaching her math, reading, and some language at home.  So far, so good, and the additional time has fostered deeper bonding between us as well.  I am really starting to get into it and will probably be posting more about it as we get going.  Things are slow right now as I am figuring out what she can and can’t do and many things she previously knew will have to re-taught because of neglect or poor instruction.

No idea what we’ll be doing next year.  We’re crossing each bridge as it comes up.

More to tell, but that’s all for today!

Later in the day we started exposing her to more sounds and she would giggle.  We were just amazed with how well she was doing with this new input.  Most children are implanted around age 1 and cannot understand what is happening so they are very quick to pull off the headpiece or processors in order to not have the input or just to remove the “thing” on their head or ear.  With Sophie, she had been exposed to the processor through Adelina and we had used what language she has to explain that she, too, would have processors, and they would help her to listen and hear things.  She couldn’t know what that meant but now that she is experiencing it, she has some signs to associate with it and I think it will help her “get it” way faster than is typical.  We have also prayed a lot for God to open her ears and her brain to make it all work.  God is a God of miracles, and for the deaf to hear is nothing short of a miracle! Of course, I could just be overly optimistic and she isn’t really “getting” anything yet, but she sure seems to.  Steve stood behind her at one point and called her name “Sophie!” and Sophie giggled and turned around to him.  So then she wanted to switch places and she went behind Steve and made vocalizations.  This behavior leads me to believe that she does “get it”.  Though it will still take a long time for it to all make sense and for her to actually distinguish what someone is saying.  But the die is cast and the game is on!

It is an exciting time in our house!

Sophie gets her CI’s activated on Friday and I am just so excited.  I feel like I’m waiting for Christmas.  My child will finally have access to sound, so it is a remarkable day for sure.  Sophie continues to be such a joy to our family.  She is full of zest for life, and she just smiles and laughs all the time.  She and Addy are getting along more smoothly too.

As if all of that wasn’t enough, we’re also getting a sweet tax refund this year thanks to the adoption tax credit.  Woohoo!

I’ll write more after Sophie’s activation.  Also, pictures are moving up fast on the priority list, so hang in there, they are coming soon!

Please keep Addy in your prayers.  She is typically very healthy with a strong immune system, so it is hard to see her so sick.

Her activation is scheduled for March 21, so she will not have any access to sounds until that time.  Hopefully it will arrive quickly, as we are excited for her to begin taking advantage of her implants.

We were really pleased and impressed with the care she (and we) received at the hospital by the doctors, nurses, and all the support staff.  Our only glitch in the whole thing was that we had to wait in post-op for nearly 7 hours for a room to open up.  This was a tad inconvenient for Steve and I but not really so bad for Sophie.  Actually, we had a nurse at our disposal the entire time, so that was certainly a benefit.

Thanks to everyone for your prayers and thoughts during this major event in little Sophie’s life.  We are all very grateful to God for her safe and successful surgery.

Then, it hit 5:25 and I was starting to get rather perturbed.  That is way too much time for a kid to be in traffic.  Kids are supposed to be playing and having fun.  I called the van company again, but this time it went to voice mail.  No doubt because the dispatchers and coordinators were done with their workday and had gone home!  I left a message with my usual contact explaining that this was NOT acceptable and that she was still not home.  I wasn’t super mad yet, though, because I still naively thought she might arrive home at any moment.  After all, it only takes so long to get from point A to point B even in bad traffic.  Boy, how wrong I was.  Evidently, when CrazyDriver is driving, you can drive around in circles for almost 3 hours and still not find your way.

So, here is how it played out.  It hits 5:50 and I’m starting to get panicky.  Someone has my child in a van and I don’t know where they are and all I know is they aren’t here, so where are they!?  I call again and this time push a different extension and get a general dispatcher.  This time I get abundant apologies and am told that the driver got lost.  Okay, so where is she now?  I’m told she is at an intersection about 8 miles from our house, but in the neighboring town and nowhere along the route from school to home.  At this point, I tell them to please have her stop driving.  We will come pick up our daughter.  I’m so ready for these people to not have her any more in their care.  They are so incompetent!!  In order to get that to happen, I had to insist that they find me a supervisor.  I was told the supervisors were in an important meeting.  Who has important meetings at 6 pm on Friday evening!?  In any case, I wait a good while, but somebody does eventually come to the phone, and once he understands the situation, he is appalled at what has happened and determined to rectify it.  He instructed the driver to STOP (which I had been trying to have them do for quite some time).  She had now driven an additional 6 miles the opposite direction from our house and into the next town and even crossed a major highway in the process - (how on earth do people with such poor directional skills become a driver for a transportation company!?).  Steve, thankfully, was en route and in another 15 minutes arrived at her location to claim Adelina.  She was hungry and a bit shaken, but otherwise okay.  I spent some more time on the phone with the van company, but they are not through dealing with us regarding this nightmare.

It is just around 7:00 pm and I expect them to arrive home in the next 5-10 minutes.  So let’s see, that’s 4 hours from door to door.  Can you imagine!?  I think there might be steam coming out of my ears.

Ok, thanks for listening to my rant.  I had to get that out.  You may return to the more pleasant things in life now.

It is still possible she could develop RP or that she does have Ushers’ but the retinal specialist said the abnormalities did not appear to be a clear case of RP at this time.  He said we’ll need to monitor her for any changes, but for now, he felt we should not assume she has it.  Fine by me! Thank you God for “no news” at the doctor’s office today.

Adelina greeted Sophie and I after our swim class in a super hero costume complete with the words “Power Girl” across her chest. Steve took pictures with the iSight camera and hopefully will blog about it since it was his fun time with her.

Sophie is loving her new world of communication and now has about 30-40 signs she uses and another 35-40 on top of those that she understands. She is learning new things every day and continues to enjoy life with a big smile most days. The exception would be when she hurts herself, which seems to be way more often than is typical. We need to work on this. Some of it is poor balance and some is just stubbornness on her part as she insists on engaging in activities we have clearly forbidden or cautioned her against (like smothering the cat until he scratches or bites or climbing on the tricycle to reach some object that was placed out of her reach). She is resourceful, I’ll grant her that. I try to keep a close eye on her, but she is fast as well as sneaky! She now has enough language to warrant the occasional time out and even a rare smack on the hand. I’m assuming this is a stage of toddlerhood she will grow out of. She also learned how to shake her head for “no” and so we are in something that approximates the “terrible twos” on that front.

I mentioned swim class, and Sophie is making excellent progress. Unfortunately, we will be taking a break while she gets started in pre-school and then for her surgery, but she has made friends with the water and that was a big part of the purpose for the class.

Our pool is making progress and they estimate it could be done the end of this week, but I think it more likely it will be completed some time next week. It doesn’t matter since we won’t swim until the weather gets warmer, but we are so excited to enjoy our new “yard” and the grill we’ll soon be getting. They put the acrylic lace on the deck today, so it is all coming together. We are quite excited!

Adelina seems to be settling in well at her new school now, and I have to give her huge credit for the great job she now does getting herself ready every day. I help out with several aspects, but she now wakes up by her alarm clock (a sonic boom alarm clock that she has set on vibrate mode - which basically means it shakes the bed until you turn it off). She loves her clock and the independence it affords her. She actually gets up earlier than she has to so that she can have some computer time while the house is quiet. She plays on the starfall site or at Webkinz World, where she is the proud parent of Brownie, the horse.

Sophie starts pre-school next week and I’m very excited for her.  Her teacher seems excellent and the class is TC, which stands for Total Communication, which means that all means of communicating are accepted, used, and encouraged.  In short, signing is used freely and abundantly, but so is speech, and any attempts at communication made by a child are received, expanded on , and taken to the next level.  It is the same type of pre-school environment Adelina first started in, and it is really good for a child with very little language because whatever they do have will be used to its fullest.  She is a very happy kid and is bonding well, so I think the timing is good and expect she will thoroughly enjoy her first schooling experiences.

Sophie has also begun Physical Therapy (PT) and Speech/Language Therapy (well, it starts tomorrow), but the latter will definitely have a focus on the Language portion for now (through her limited sign).  We went to the audiologist today and once again placed her in the sound booth and she didn’t respond or react to any of the sounds presented, despite them being presented as loud as 90, 95, and 100 decibels.  Needless to say, the assisting audiologist and I had earplugs in so we didn’t damage our own hearing in the process!

That’s all I have time for today.  We really are working on getting more pictures uploaded.  Steve actually uploaded a few albums last week, so you can go take a look by following the link at the top of the homepage to the photo gallery.  We will try to get more uploaded soon, including the fabulous pictures of our very own POWER GIRL!

Happy New Year to all our family and friends! (Hey, I’m only 2 days late to the program.)

All looks good for CI candidacy. Bilateral surgery scheduled for Feb. 21.

Sleep deprivation stinks! (e.g. Sophie was up from 1:30 until 5 am two nights ago)

Merry Christmas to all our family and friends! (Ok, pathetically late on that one.)

It was a wonderful first Christmas for Sophie and a magical Christmas for Adelina.

Welcome to Lucy Avalene Ivy born December 19, 2007 to Steve’s brother Bob, and his wife, Suzy.

Sophie is settling in. Addy is occasionally okay with having a new sister.

Sophie had an MRI under anesthesia. Went smoothly. We then wheeled her to her CT scan.

CT Scan was a no-go because Sophie woke up too stinkin’ fast. Ugh. Must reschedule.

Signed Sophie up for swim classes (Mom & Tot type). Should be fun.

Had to cancel swim class last month. Turns out poor Sophie had giardia. Ew!

Addy is loving her gymnastics class, and like all athletics, she seems to be a “natural”.

Just today she seems to have mastered her bike without the training wheels. Go Adelina!

I’m self-imposing Twitter’s 140 character limit to see if it will help me post more often. Do you want my usual lengthy rambling posts infrequently, or shorter, less dramatic, but more frequent updates? In the case of the latter, posts might be short, one-sentence statements like those above. Tell me what you think! and Thanks!