A swing for Norah.

Norahs birthday swing. Lori had been saving in her Christmas account at work for Norah to get a swing and one went on sale for just the right amount she had so we went and got it early because it was on sale, if we waited until her birthday it would have been $75.00 dollars more.

The day before when Lori, Norah and I went to Kmart to pick it up, Norah and I stayed in the truck parked in front of the store. I signed to Norah that Mama was going into the store to get her a swing for the house. She got unbuckled from her seat and was trying to look out the back window. She grew tired of this and turned around and half asking half telling me about the swing she was getting for the house. I confirmed to her that yes she was getting a swing for the house and mama was in the store getting it. Oh she was getting excited. Then Lori exited the store with an employ pushing the cart up to the back of the truck and quickly popping the swing up inside.

Lori gets in and we start pulling away. Norah starts crying the most pitiful lip quivering cry. Lori asks her what’s wrong she can’t even speak or sign she is crushed. I quickly figure out what the matter is. I had told her she was getting a swing and Mama was going to bring it out of the store and if Daddy says something, it happens he never says something to Norah that is not true, even with the swing we had a rain check and Kmart had called Lori to tell her it was in, otherwise I would have not said anything to her on the chance it might not be there. Oh my she was devastated so I pulled the truck over in the parking lot and parked we all got out and showed Norah the box in the back of the truck with the photo of the swing inside. She is not materialistic she does not have to have something every time we go to the store so I don’t think it was total about getting or not getting a swing. I think she was mostly upset because she thought her Daddy who she has grown to love and trust had lied to her about something that is important to her at this time in her life. Lori tells me Norah’s future husband is going to have to be pretty special because she will hold men up to the same standard of treatment and respect her Dad has shown her and that sounds fine with me. Ha ha good luck boys!

Brandon helped put the swing together as we reminisced about how Lori and I spent one late night with a flashlight putting a swing together for him when he was her age so he would be surprised the next morning. We were glad he was here to help this time. After the big day Norah had she disappeared into the bedroom. When I went to check on her the last photo is how I found her, makes my hips hurt just looking at it. I repositioned her and she slept through the night.

Preschool is out for the summer.

Norahs time in preschool was short but she really liked it. She does not understand it is out for the summer, we will miss it. Norah will be turning five soon but next year we are going to send her back to this school because it is the closest thing to an oral- signing deaf school in Arkansas. What I mean by that is at the school they will sign with Norah in SEE2 the same way we do at home and talk to her at the same time, like her hearing peers. With Norah their hands and voices are always on so she is getting visual cues to go with the words she is hearing. She is the only one in the class that uses sign, the rest of the kids are working on becoming oral only but they were Implanted at age two or younger so they not only get the benefit of early intervention but they have been hearing for over two years now. The next year will be a very important one for Norah because Lori and I decided when we first got Norah and did research on late implanted CI kids that we would try to do our best to not get discouraged with Norah’s progress until she has been fully bilaterally implanted for one year. If at that time we see Norah making progress towards understanding speech we would keep moving towards a more hearing form of communication setting. If she looks like she is still stuck not understanding speech at all after one year of being bilaterally implanted then we will reassess how far she has come and the speed of her progress at that time. She has just started labeling things with speech to her best ability. My hope right now is that Norah is soaking up every thing right now like a sponge and sorting it out in her head, and when her mouth catches up with her brain we will see she was understanding a lot more then she let on. She is already showing signs that that is happening. I just won’t know the extent of it for awhile. It will take about a month to get her into a good map with her new ear, she will then have the hearing capability to become oral. We just need to see if her brain can store, process and spit back out the information it is finally receiving.

Photo size comparison Cochlear freedom and the Nucleus 5, or N5

Norah got her New Nucleus 5 CI activated yesterday and is already hearing some sound out of the newly implanted ear. We will keep her other CI off of her ear that has been activated for six months now, until we can get this ear into a good map with discrimination. Then we will program her other N5 to replace her freedom for that ear.

I took some photos for other parents that are wondering about the size comparisons. She has bright pink covers that she picked out for her but you don’t have to have them on it is just to dress them up to her liking.....

Brandon takes ACT.

Well Brandon took his ACT yesterday and it looks like he is going to make it out of high school. Not only make it out but with a A-B average, not sure until final grades get out. There were times during his early high school days that we weren’t sure he would make it but he pulled it off with flying colors in the end. Man, he looks so much like Lori. Now that he is out of high school, he will have big changes coming up in his life that he is very excited about. I see a spark in him that I have not seen in years, more on that later.
Love you son and we are proud of you.

Easter day photos

Fun at Easter egg hunt.

There was face painting, balloon animals then it was time for the big event. One of the funny things that I didn’t see happening but after uploading my photos I was a little put off by.

Look at Lori flashing gang signs at the Easter egg hunt. Ok, that wasn’t what bugged me it is further down, but you have to admit the sign for "have" looks like a gang sign.




I love this photo; it really captures Norah’s spirit.



Norah was cracking us up at the egg hunt because at speech therapy the week before we did an Easter egg hunt and when she would find an egg we would stop and open it so we could see the surprise inside and say the ling sound that was in it. So she picked up her first egg and just sat there admiring it and asked for help opening it, meanwhile the kids were making their way across the field like a clean sweeper vacuum. So that Norah would have a chance to get more than one egg Lori picked her up and carried her up to where there was still a few eggs left. The pink ribbon was the cut off for the 0-4 age groups.




Ha-ha she definitely admires her eggs.

Now I am lucky enough to have a camera that will shoot very rapid photos. 4.5 per second to where you can catch the things that you would otherwise miss with a point shoot. Keep your eye on the black bag approaching from the left.




Now just so you know this is not about Norah. She got four eggs at the hunt and was happy as a lark.

Now am I wrong for being a little let down by this Dad and son duo?

There had to be a premeditated plan in place for Dad to bring his empty bag for the son to dump his Easter eggs into so he could get more then a bucket full. I understand that the point of the Easter egg hunts is for the kids to find the eggs as fast as they can,

but as a parentand a resonable adult I would have told my son or daughter to get as many as you can, try to fill your bucket full if you can, and as my son or daughter got there bucket filled to the top I would have said wow, good job look you got a bucket full, and we would have started to walk away with a satisfied child. As a matter of fact I did do that with Brandon.

This was the 0-4 age group, there were kids that didn’t get any eggs at all. I’m not saying he should have given some of his eggs to the others, but maybe Dad could have been a better role model and praised his son for a good egg hunt and walked away with just one bucket full. Maybe I have it wrong and you are just suppose to get all you can with total disregard for others, no matter how small they may be. (There were todlers there).

Happy Easter every one.