Finally! an update.

Norah turned 5 years old this month and had a wonderful birthday party at Nana and Papa‘s house. There were more toys, cake and ice cream than any one of us needed. Lori got Norah an “It’s My Birthday shirt” to wear that was big enough to wear next year too. Lori had also bought Norah a Princess and the Frog doll for her birthday gift. The swingset was Norahs big birthday present but we wanted her to have something small to open up at her birthday dinner.

We have had to start bribing Norah to get her to do her listening practice. She now has to listen three times. After each lesson she gets to put a sticker on a page we printed out and then after three stickers she gets a suprise. The suprises are just stuff that we picked up at the dollar store and wrapped up. It really seems to be working. When we were doing listening practice the other day Norah's prize was a frog house. She asked me to get her a frog for her house, so I went outside and in two minuets was back with a frog for her. Oh my, she was so excited, she helps me put the frog into the house and runs to her room, returning with princess Tiana so she could talk to the actual frog. Norah played with the frog and doll as if they could understand one another. It was to funny watching how her mind works and seeing her having fun using her imagination. After about 20 minuets I liberated the frog back outside so that he could get some rest from what was fun for Norah but I’m sure traumatizing to the frog.
Norah has only been wearing her new CI on her left ear and is doing extremely well with it. She tested at 25 DB in the booth but we all know she can hear at a lower level than that. The problem is that Norah wants to recognize the sound and then work on figuring out how to say the sound back before she will respond. She can now hear so low that you can’t get your voice to make a eeeee, ooooo, ahhh, or mmmmm sound that's too low for her to hear she can hear them all. So the only sounds we can get make that low are the sssss or shhhhh sound and that is just putting your lips togather and blowing very softly. The 25 DB she got in the booth is what they call a "super score" she can actually hear alot lower than that but will often freeze up until it is loud enough to where she can recognize if she is hearing ssss or shhhh and say it back. So the good news is Norah can now hear a nat fart. We know she is in a good map and we will give her back her other ear after she develops very good discrimination in her new ear. Then we will start working on discrimination by picking the right photo when she hears words like rat, bat, and cat. Then hopefully advance to things like movie, moving. The next few weeks we will be working on her using her voice to respond to signed questions. If we ask Norah a question in sign language that is a yes or no to have her answer with her voice yes or no. She can say the word no but yes is very hard for her still, maybe it will come around.

In other news Miss Annie went back home to China this week. I drove her and her friend to the airport last Tuesday. I am so proud of her and we look forward to her coming back in August for next school year. I'm sure that Annies family is VERY excited to have her home for awhile. They are wonderful people and love her dearly.

Brandon is still working away at school. He missed the May 14th graduation because he has another class to complete. His new finish date is June 7th. Other than that he is hanging out with his girlfriend and being a typical teenager.