Our daughter Lily Bliss was born in June 2007 with profound hearing loss. At 10 months old, she became one of the youngest in Nebraska to receive bilateral cochlear implants. This blog is the story of our hearing journey and the proof that Life really is Bliss.
Feeling like champions, Lily's soccer team wrapped up the season last week.
It was a great experience, but also a challenge for Lily. She enjoyed the running and kicking, but probably preferred cheering with her teammates just as much. It's amazing how at this age some kids have incredible speed and ball agility already.
We had the coach wear the FM during the practice and the game. Most of the time he was across the field shouting or his back was turned when trying to communicate. The FM made a huge difference in helping Lily to get an idea of what he wanted them to do. Overall great experience.
Fishing is fabulous when you catch a ton of fish and when there are helpers to "assist" with any fishing needs. This was our experience at the Rotary Family Fishing Fun day. Lily even learned to fly fish. Such a great experience full of memories and language like rod and reel, monofilament, Bass, Bluegill, flies, bobber, catch and release, etc.
Lily and her preschool class took a "field" trip to the Spring Creek Prairie. It was a beautiful day to listen to the frogs and birds, the wind and even the trains.
The prairie guide provided a lot of instruction and guidance to the children during the tour, so we used the FM. We were surprised when the guide told us that she frequently uses an FM with kids out there. It was incredible to observe how much teaching involved whispering. Thank goodness for the FM.
The two pictures below are of a "Velcro" plant that sticks to the kids' shirts and a snail. Of course how can you hold and examine a snail without talking about its similarities to a cochlea.
We have had a lot of discussions lately, driven by Lily, about her CIs and cochlea. Various questions like why she has a CI and we don't, when can she stop wearing it, why she says "what" all the time, if her ears still work a "little," what advantages she has that kids with ordinary hearing don't have, etc. Even questions comparing herself and her buddies.
I found myself explaining genetics to a four year old when another parent's explanation of "that is just how God made us" didn't satisfy Lily anymore. Sometimes these discussions break my heart and sometime I think it makes her stronger and more confident.
When she moves to a new environment with new kids, they always have lots of questions. One little girl came up to me last week and said Lily had "plugs" in her hair. Lily just says, "They help me hear" and moves on. It's impressive to watch her make friends and build relationships in an instant. At any park she'll find a kid and say "Do you want to be my friend" or "Do you want to play with me?" She never fails to leave somewhere without a new "friend."
What was I so worried about?
While Bodie is probably not getting a blog or drawers full of photo albums, here's a little snapshot of the kid.
Bodie:
- Has an infectious non-stop smile
- Is very very relaxed unless he's hungry
- Grunts and closes his eyes before he nurses. Smiles when he's done.
- Loves to be tickled and held
- Giggles when you put him above your head
- Has deep dark brown eyes that sparkle
- Spits up a lot (The doctor says "nothing a towel and gravity can't cure." Uggh)
- Is moving quickly up the growth curve with a double chin and big squeezable cheeks.
- Is starting to make a high-pitched baby velociraptor sound. Even said Mama once.
Life is much easier this time around.
At Zan's birthday party last week, the girls piled in the back of the zoo train. Auntie Heather squeezed in too. This was also Bodie's first train ride. I think he prefers to fly.
The girls also got unlimited horseback rides. Lily managed to wrangle four trips in honor of Zan's four years. At least that is how Auntie Heather convinced her to stop at four. Life is pretty great when you are four. What a party!
This week we tested ClearVoice in the car, on a busy street, to understand how it works best.
With the window open, the wind was blowing in Lily's face, and she could still hear me talking, actually quite well. This was quite novel for Lily because normally we would always drive with the windows up.
Thank goodness for ClearVoice and for beautiful spring days in Nebraska.
Lily just celebrated her four year hearing birthday with a Spider-man coloring book. Hard to believe. We couldn't be happier with her progress. She's more than ready for Kindergarten.
She's also loving having a little brother and he's pretty pleased with her too.
For the first time in her life, LIly ran through the sprinklers on a hot Nebraska Spring day. At first she thought the water was freezing, but once she got the hang of it, she was unstoppable.
Lily loved the experience thanks to her new Neptune waterproof CIs. I loved the experience because I could still communicate with her, even in her wild and crazy state of mind.
Lily talked her way into her first cockpit. Now she needs to visit every cockpit on every plane. The pilots and flight attendants are all so kind and gracious to her. Makes Lily's decision of being a "Pilot or a Flight Attendant when she grows" up even harder.
This weekend Lily started pre-K micro soccer. It is structured so the girls have a 25 minute practice, then a 25 minute game. Soccer is pretty new to Lily so the explanation of corner kicks seemed to go over her head. However when she got home, she explained to us why and how to do a corner kick. Amazing.
There were also some little girls who likely had older brothers because they were very aggressive and masters of ball handling already. Lily enjoyed the experience which was the most important part. The only challenge came when hearing the soft-spoken coaches who had no idea what Lily's cochlear implants were until after the game.
Next time, we plan to bring the FM to help Lily hear the voice of the coach a little better. You can see in the picture that Lily is likely missing what the male coach in the middle was talking about. I think the female coach was doing a little "translating" for the blue team.
And now with Lily's Neptunes, if it happens to rain during a game....NO problem!
Another benefit of the Neptunes are the streamlined headpieces. Today we were finally able to get a helmet on Lily's head that didn't instantly knock off her headpieces. We still have a few adjustment to make, but overall it is a huge improvement. Lily hasn't even ridden her bike because of the helmet issue.
Since spring/summer has come early, I have a feeling she'll be putting a lot of miles on her bike thanks to her new Neptunes.
Lily has excellent audiologists who make mapping her Cochlear Implants a breeze.
The only big change we made in the conversion from BWP to Neptunes was turning off the audible alarm. Lily is a very good reporter when her CIs are off or not working. So when she mentioned that she was irritated with one of her little friends always telling her that her CIs were beeping, we felt comfortable turning off the sound.
The beeping has been a major part of our CI experience and we recommend it highly for little ones. In the early days, I thought the beeping would drive us crazy, but it turned out that the beeping was a huge help in keeping the CIs on at all times
