Life is Bliss - Lily's Cochlear Implant Journey

Holiday Listening and Language Activities

We have done loads of holiday activities with Lily's teachers to learn about Christmas and all its parts. Here are a few that Lily loved:

1)  Two sets of foam stocking ornaments and all the parts.  Lily had to tell her teacher what she wanted on her stocking, like a cuff, buttons and a wreath, and then her teacher told Lily what she wanted on her stocking.  A language and listening activity.

2)  Clifford's First Christmas Book - A new favorite!

3)  Building a candy cane out of beads and a pipe cleaner, which became an ornament.

4)  A listening activity where we had foam tags and wrote activities on them.  Then Lily would either pull them off or put them on the tree and do the corresponding activity.  Of course the string that was supposed to hook the ornaments on the tree suddenly became a jump rope.   Lily loved jumping over (at 2-3 inches) and crawling under the rope.

5)  A small tree with hundreds of mini ornaments, garland, stars, etc. which we sorted through and discussed.  

6)  Fisher Price Christmas scene with Santa and his sleigh, a hot chocolate stand and an ice skating rink.

7)  Matching cards of kids doing things with the objects they wanted for Christmas and putting them in the mailbox for Santa Claus.  

MacArthur Bates Word Inventory - 28.5 Months

For Lily’s latest scores on the MacArthur Bates Communicative Development Inventory (MBCDI), she was credited with 603 words. 

For girls at 28 months, this word score places her between the 75th and 80th percentile. These are normally hearing kids/girls - Whooo Hoo!!!   The MBCDI ends at 30 months of age – and they see ceiling effects (kids are learning lots of words that are not represented on the scale). 

While this is not a test of overall language proficiency, speech or listening, it is a very interesting measure in language/vocabulary growth. 

Very Thankful

We are so thankful this year for all the blessings we've been given.  Lily is thriving. She is talking, listening and is a very happy kid.  She says funny things, is sensitive and passionate.  She is a typical two year old, except we think she is brilliant, beautiful and hilarious.  So we are biased. 

We are thankful for all the support our family and friends (who are like our family too) have given us and all the love they give to Lily.  We are also thankful for all the professional support we've received this year.  Lily's team members have become our life long friends and we are glad to be on this journey with you.    

Happy Thanksgiving. 

Upcoming Moog Center Workshops

As you may remember we had a fantastic experience this summer attending the "Helping Your Children Learn to Talk" workshop in St. Louis. It was without a doubt one of the best couple days you can spend and well worth the investment. Well, the Moog Center is taking applications for this summer's training and offering a variety of other programs for parents and educators alike. Here's a listing. Check it out and don't forget to tell your educational professionals as well.

January 21-22, 2010 - $300 

Pediatric Cochlear Implant Programming 

A workshop for cochlear implant audiologists who work with infants and children. This workshop will focus on cochlear implant programming techniques for optimizing access to sound for infants and young children.  Protocols for monitoring progress in children at various developmental levels will be discussed.  Instruction will include live demonstrations, videos, and presentation of relevant case studies.  Seating for this interactive workshop is limited. CEU’s available.  Contact:  Connie Ciavirella at 314-692-7172 or cciavirella@moogcenter.org 

 

February 18-20, 2010 - $350 

The Earlier They Get Started, The Faster They Learn To Talk. 

For teachers and SLPs providing early intervention services to children with hearing loss. This workshop will focus on techniques for helping parents work with their own children and strategies for professionals working with very young children to develop spoken language skills.  Instruction will include live demonstrations, videos and hands-on opportunities.  Seating is limited. CEU’s available.  Contact:  Betsy Moog Brooks at 314-692-7172 or bbrooks@moogcenter.org 

 

July 7-11, 2010 - $150 

Helping Your Child Learn To Talk 

A Workshop for Parents of Children who are Deaf or Hard of Hearing, ages 2 to 5 

This four-day workshop will provide parents with opportunities to learn strategies to help their children learn to talk while their children receive daily individualized instruction by a staff member of the Moog Center.  Each day is packed full of activities for the children and information for the parents.  Children over age 3 may receive speech and language evaluations, for an additional fee.  Contact:  Betsy Moog Brooks at 314-692-7172 or bbrooks@moogcenter.org 

 

September 2010 – Date to be determined. $150 

Strategies for Professionals of Mainstreamed Students with Hearing Loss 

For SLPs and teachers who have a student with hearing loss in their classroom. Learn effective strategies that work with students with hearing loss who are mainstreamed into your school setting.  Topics to be 

discussed include:  hearing loss and effects on language, academic difficulties, assistive listening devices, and support services. Contact:  Connie Ciavirella at 314-692-7172 or cciavirella@moogcenter.org 

 

October 2010 – Date to be determined. $300 

From Assessment to Practice:  Developing Spoken Language Skills in Children with Hearing Loss For SLPs and Teachers of the Deaf 

This workshop will focus on accurately assessing language levels, identifying areas for language instruction, selecting appropriate goals and objectives, and planning lessons for children with hearing loss.  Topics include:  Using norm-referenced language evaluation tools to diagnose strengths and weaknesses, using criterion-referenced language rating forms to select goals and mark progress, and implementing targets into a variety of language lessons. CEUs available. Contact:  Connie Ciavirella at 314-692-7172 or cciavirella@moogcenter.org 

 

November 2010 – Date to be determined. $300 

Conversational Language Activities for Deaf Children For SLPs and Teachers of the Deaf 

This workshop will focus on implementing language goals into a variety of conversational language activities for children with hearing loss.  Topics include:  Modeling and imitation techniques for correction and expansion of language, selecting appropriate language goals, planning conversational language activities to meet language goals and a variety of ideas for many different kinds of conversational activities.  This workshop will also include classroom observations and some hands-on practice. CEUs available.  Contact:  Connie Ciavirella at 314-692-7172 or cciavirella@moogcenter.org 

 

For your convenience, the Moog Center offers onsite workshops for larger groups.  If your staff or district is interested in scheduling one of the above workshops onsite, please contact Connie Ciavirella at 314-692-7172 or cciavirella@moogcenter.org 

 

Visit the website at www.moogcenter.org for complete workshop listings and information about the Moog Center’s publications.

Pre-Halloween Experiences - Costumes, Books and Song

Lily has been getting lots of pre-Halloween experiences.  She's read a dozen books about haunted houses, pumpkin patches and bony skeleton fingers.  And the big news is that she decided to be a "puppy dog" for Halloween.  Very cute pictures to come soon. 

Here Lily and Barb, from the Omaha Hearing School, are trying to decide what Lily should be for Halloween.  Maybe a ghost?   Then they read/sang a book.  Each page was a Halloween picture. This one was the Ugly Witch - The witch goes "Hee Hee Hee" and of course they made an ugly face.    

The final picture demonstrates that it is getting colder here and Lily is dressed so stylishly in her leapord print and hot pink accessories.  Pretty fancy!

Are You Fancy? No, I'm Just Lily.

Fancy Nancy by Jane O'Connor is a big hit in our house this week.  Faye, Lily's hearing resource teacher, brought us the book.  She reasoned that if Lily loved fairy wings, she'd love Fancy Nancy.  She was right. 

Fancy Nancy loves to make everything fancy including her family members and she loves to eat parfaits.  Both are things Lily loves too.     

If we ask Lily if she is fancy, she says "No, I'm just Lily Bliss." 

Online Music Therapy Courses and other CI Experts

Last week, I watched a free online session with Chris Barton, board certified music therapist, hosted by Advanced Bionics. Chris  is an award-winning composer, performer and music therapy guru.  I think I've raved about her before, but this online session reminded me of how well she understands kids with CIs and how music therapy/music training is a must for kids who are learning to listen and talk.

The session I attended was primarily a Q and A, but there are at least seven other free online courses with Chris Barton in Advanced Bionics's Listening Room. 

There are also lots of other sessions in their eLearning Library by some of my favorite CI experts like Dave Sindrey, Mary Koch and Amy Robbins. Specially look at Amy Robbin's intervention Activities for ITSIs (Infants and Toddlers with Cochlear Implants).  Check it out!

ABC's And Beyond

Lily is getting a lot of practice learning her ABC's. She loves the song and sings it often. We have a magnet board with all the letters and Grandpa practices almost daily on the computer with a variety of videos and YouTube resources (what a wonderful resource the Internet is). Anyway, Lily started singing by herself last night and got through the whole song correctly (assuming LMNOP is a word/letter). 

She's also mostly mastered counting to 10 (and sometimes 11). Last week she was occasionally missing 2 and 7. This week she seems to have added the 2 consistently and is working on remembering 7. Good stuff all around!

Daddy, I Want Play Baby Lab

Last night Lily rushed into the house saying "Daddy, I want play Baby Lab." She asked me to put on her "vest" and get her babies. At the baby lab in Boys Town Lily wears a vest that has microphones built into it so that Mary Pat and gang can hear and record her utterances during the lab. We found a vest and went to our play room. She then told me I was "pretend Mary Pat" and we had a grand time playing games and practicing saying words. Who knew speech therapy could be so fun ;-) 

Let Our Children Hear — And Learn To Speak - South Africa Editorial

A very interesting editorial in South Africa's The Time's called Let our children hear — and learn to speak

426 Words +++

We've just finished filling out the MacArthur-Bates word inventory and identified 426 words that Lily knows and says.  Then of course there are hundreds of words she says that aren't on this list.  It was only a few months ago that this new word inventory seemed overwhelming.  Now it is easy to see the words she doesn't know on this list, because they are getting fewer and fewer. 

Of course learning language is never ending.  Found a word in a WSJ caption last week that I couldn't even pronounce, let alone understand.  Not sure where a kid with normal hearing would be on the word inventory list, but we're pretty excited for Lily on soaking up all this vocabulary. 

It's hard to know the words Lily knows and doesn't know.  We played "what is this" for hours today because it was so rainy.  Lily kept asking for "More."  We'd run from room to room to outside to the basement to the garden and everywhere in between asking "what is this" and "what am I doing" or some version of that.   I am sure the neighbors thought we were nuts.     

Research on the Importance of Adult-Child Conversations to Language Development

In the latest LENA Newsletter, the featured expert was Dr. Frederick Zimmerman, chair of the Department of Health Services in the School of Public Health at the University of California, Los Angeles.  As the lead researcher, he discussed "Teaching by Listening: The Importance of Adult-Child Conversations to Language Development," which was published in the July issue of Pediatrics.  The following summarizes the findings of the study.

The results supported our hypothesis that parent-child interaction is best when it's a two-way street. We found that each additional 1,000 adult words a child was exposed to led to a .44 increase in the child's PLS-normed score, whereas for every additional 100 conversational turns there was a 1.92 increase in the PLS-normed score. For both stimuli, these changes were approximately one standard deviation from the norm. Therefore, in that standardized sense, adult-child conversations were approximately six times as powerful at aiding language development as adult speech input independent of conversational exchanges.

AB Cochlear Implant Article in the LA Times

There was an excellent article in the LA Times today called "Cochlear implants open deaf kids' ears to the world."  It chronicles a little boy named Tyler from CI surgery and activation, to speech at the John Tracy Clinic.   Hope we see more mainstream media covering this new generation of kids with Cochlear Implants.  Talk about a changing industry. It's certainly not business as usual. 

Lily's IFSP Goals - 2.1 years old

We just finished our IFSP goals for Lily.  She is now 2.1 years old and and has 14.3 months of hearing.  At our next IFSP we will be thinking about preschool and the process of moving to an IEP.  However, this IFSP lays it all out and really provides us with a great guide and benchmarks for the next six months. Thanks to everyone who worked on it. 

• Lily will identify and discriminate between at least 10 word pairs that differ by voicing and by place of production in both final consonants and initial consonants of words.
• Lily will identify and discriminate at least 10 phrases with two key words in context/three key words in context, shown by following associated directions correctly.
• Lily will increase her auditory awareness and discrimination of sounds/words presented at greater distances (6 feet, 9 feet, directions coming from another room) and produced in environments with more background noise.
• Lily will be able to do the actions and recite or sing some words of 6-10 songs or finger plays.
• Lily will self-advocate when her C.I. is off or not functioning and will let adults know verbally when she does not hear or does not understand a spoken message.
• Lily will learn to use a louder and stronger voice when calling to others from distances farther away.
• Lily will take 2-3 conversational turns in an adult social-communication interaction.
• Lily will demonstrate an increase in auditory processing and language comprehension skills, shown by: Identifying 10 pictures or objects by function or action and by naming objects or pictures upon request. 
• Respond appropriately or verbally answering 10 each of simple /who/, /where/, /what doing/, and /yes-no/ questions.
• Follow 10 two/three step directions 
• Show understanding of personal pronouns: me, mine, you, he, she 
• Lily will add to her verbal vocabulary: 10 words from the concepts of Quality (descriptors such as color, size, taste), Position/Space(under, in back of, in front, etc.) 5 words from the concepts of Quantity (some, all, a few, numbers), Time (now, later, tonight, tomorrow) 10-15 present progressive verbs (is+verb+ing), e.g. playing, running, eating, sleeping, At least 5 pronouns: me, my, mine, you, your 
• Lily will increase her communication skills by using this vocabulary in 3-5 word phrases for various purposes: naming("that big dog"), notice or greeting("Hi Mommy), recurrence ("more yummy cookie, Daddy") non-existence or negation ("no go bye-bye," "water all gone," "Monkey not happy"), action ("Lily go down slide." "Me (or I) running fast."), location ("apple juice in cup"), possession ("my red ball"), questioning to gain information("What's that?" "Where___?" "What, Mommy?" ), and attributes ("big blue ball"). 
• Lily will use age appropriate speech sounds in all positions of words and will produce speech that is 80% intelligible to familiar listeners.

Moog Center's Parents Workshop - Changing Expectations

After going through our Moog Center Parents workshop notes this morning, there were three points made by Betsy Moog Brooks that I found especially interesting. 

1.  Moog now has 20 alumni who have reached age 18 or older and all have graduated from high school.  Over 90% of these alumni are attending college.  The first alumnus is now in Graduate School. 

2.  Parents are never wrong when they "know" something about their child.  For example, if the parent thinks that the child would learn better in a different way, the teacher will change what they are doing and try what the parent thinks will work.

3.  If the child is not succeeding, the teacher is not teaching correctly. 

My Favorite Panel at the Moog Center Workshop

One of my favorite panels at the Moog Center Parents Workshop was the Kids and their Moms panel.  We've seen a number of panels before, but this one really resonated for me because the experiences of these kids at seven, eight and nine were going to be most like Lily's experiences.   These kids were all implanted with CIs relatively young, they were all bilateral and were all educated with an Oral approach at the Moog Center. 

Each kid mainstreamed in the first grade and continued to do very well.   They all described their "best friends" when asked about a social life.   It was really moving.  Certainly the kids continued to have certain challenges like hearing in very noisy places such as the lunchroom and of course swimming.  (This topic always comes up so please Advanced Bionics, Cochlear and Med-El hurry up with the water proof CIs.)  These parents also had to figure out how to advocate for their kid in this new environment, after leaving the safety and security of the Moog Center. 

It really made me weapy to hear how these kids talked with ease and could answer questions from other parents that were posed from across the room.  It just reaffirmed for me that even though there will be lots of challenges, Lily is going to do very well.

Moog Center's Parent Workshop - We're in Love! Part 1

We spent the last few days at the Moog Center's Parent Workshop.   We are in love with this place.  The workshop had about 15 families with children from one to five years old who had hearing loss.  Some kids wore hearing aids, many wore Cochlear Implants and a few wore both.   

The families were from all over the country and seriously committed to helping their kids learn to talk and listen.  The last question of the seminar from the parents was when can we come back?

The workshop lasted four days and covered topics such as Modeling and Imitation, Simulated Language Learning, Audiology, Benchmarks, Capitalizing on Routine Activities, Mapping, IEPs, Teaching Family and Friends about Communicating with your Child, Parents Share and a Kids Panel made up of first and second graders and their Moms.  Betsy Moog Brooks delivered most of the sessions and seemed to have an answer for every question that the parents asked.   She meant business and was clearly there to make an impact on kids with hearing impairments.   

Bestsy’s mother, Jean Sachar Moog was also there and presented research on Early Educational Placement and Later Language Outcomes.  She highlighted the significant impact two-year-old classes for D/HOH kids can make in later language outcomes.  These two women are leading the way in helping children learn to talk and listen.  What a thrill to be a little a part of their lives.

The research they gave us about the Moog Center says that at three years old 81% of their kids were at or above their age level in receptive vocabulary and 86% were at or above their age level in expressive vocabulary.  At age five, 94% were at or above their age level in receptive vocabulary, 97% in expressive vocabulary, 91% in receptive language and 77% in expressive language.

It seemed nothing at the Center happened by accident.  Everything was recorded, strategic and intentional.  We would move to St Louis in a minute if Lily was not thriving from the services in our area.   Lily had an hour of speech therapy everyday with Laurie, a Moog SLP, and spent the rest of the time talking with Moog teachers in the toddler room.  At the end of the workshop, we knew everything Lily worked on and where they believed we should put our “language and speech” energy.  

They said we should focus on requiring Lily to use two and three word sentences every time she talks.   Lily has a huge receptive and expressive vocabulary, but just needs to move towards more complex sentences.   If Lily doesn’t attempt a two or three word sentence after we model it, they said we shouldn’t give her what she wants.  

This is their model of modeling and imitation.   It seems to already be working.  Lily is talking non-stop and we don’t know where she is coming up with some of the words and sentences she is putting together.  Some of that started before we got to St Louis, but the "strategy" seems to definitely be accelerating her language.  

The facility itself was beautiful, incredibly quiet for the best learning environment and run with an eye for detail.   We are re-energized!!!

Here are some photos of the Moog Center.

(Note the metal slide and static-free play structure)

Baby Lab Update - 24 Months

The update of the Baby Lab came this time as an extensive report.  It confirmed what we knew, that Lily’s expressive vocabulary is rapidly growing and that she is "very tuned in to word learning."  We are so grateful to be involved in this study.   It is also interesting that this language sample was a few weeks ago and Lily's language has already changed so much since then. 

Here is a Communication Sample Description from the report:

Lilly communicated frequently during the play session with her mother.  A language sample transcript was prepared based on 15 minutes of their interaction.  This provided 271 maternal utterances and 105 child utterances. 

1. The majority of Lily’s conversational turns consistent of words and word attempts.
2. Although most of her utterances were single words, she produced ten 2-word combinations, and one 3-word combination.  Near the end of the session, Lily produced additional 2-word combinations, such as cracker down (to report that the cracker fell down), want it (to answer do you want it?), more mommy, and Mickey Donald (to request toys).  During our last session (6 weeks ago), Lily was not yet combining words, so this is a fairly recent development.  There were several instances of chaining of words, as well.  This suggests that Lily is moving toward the two-word stage.
3. It was notable that Lily is appropriately answering a variety of questions.  Today these included:   “Who/What is that? What color is that?  Do you want…? Where does this fit? How many do you want?”  Lily’s mother remarked that her daughter is increasingly conversational, able to take turns and answer questions across several exchanges.  Lily has learned to count and name colors.  She has begun to use spatial terms (off, on, back, front). 
4. Lily uses /hmm/ for a variety of purposes.  She sometimes seems to be taking a turn, commenting or asking for information.  Today’s sample contained 24 examples of these.  She is using these less often than we observed in the session 6 weeks ago.
5. Lily produces a wide array of consonant and vowel sounds in her word approximations.  She often simplifies two syllable words to cvcv forms (like papa for popcorn or dEdo for there go).  She marks some words with final consonants (nope, out, wash).  Usually words with final consonants ended with /p, t, n or sh/.  She is producing some appropriate diphthongs in familiar words. 
6. Lily spontaneously imitates some words and simple phrases.  It was interesting to observe her imitating both the prosody and the phonetic content of some models.
7. Lily attempted blend production in flower (fwawa); she produced a fricative on the end of blocks (bash). 
8. Lily has begun to refer to herself by name, using an n/l substitution.
9. Lily demonstrates strong play skills; she engaged in sequences of feeding baby dolls and she cooperated with her mother in going on an imaginary car ride. 

Lily’s mother provides a language rich environment for her daughter.  It is a pleasure to watch the number of strategies she uses to expand Lily’s utterances, promote thinking, and encourage conversation.  Lily is clearly benefiting from the language input provided by her family.  Lily responded readily to comments and questions, showing that she is able to comprehend auditory messages with ease. 

On the communicative temptations of the CSBS, nearly all of Lily’s communicative messages were words.  She commented (that, mommy Lily, yellow, Donald, wet), requested (more, bubble, blow), answered (Do you want bubbles?…no, Mickey), and used social phrases (thank you).  It is encouraging to see the increasing concepts and ideas that Lily is able to convey as her language skills advance.  Lily is making excellent progress in response to her family and her intervention programs.

A Trip to the Zoo - There Is So Much to Talk About

This week we went to the zoo with some of our CI pals that also work with the Omaha Hearing School.  The other kids are about two years older than Lily and are talking beautifully. 

Karen, the director of OHS, commented that all the Moms were seamlessly reinforcing, expanding and correcting everything each other's kids were saying.  We've all had such great training from Karen, I think it is now just second nature.  We are so lucky that the Omaha Hearing School is able to continue serving our community and providing top-notch oral education to this area of the country.

Highlights at the zoo included Lily's first horse ride, catching butterflies, and the worm Karen helped the kids pick up and put back in the dirt.  Oh what she'll do for a language experience. 

Hearing Journey Posters, A New Book and Listening Tests

Faye, our Hearing Resource Teacher, has brought a couple of great posters from AB's Hearing Journey website including the Sleepy Time Poster and the "I Heard That" Farm Poster that Lily has loved to explore and talk about. 

She also brought a book from Eric Carle called Papa, Please Get the Moon for Me.  It involved a father climbing up a ladder, on top of a mountain, to get the Moon for his daughter -- something Lily's Dad would definitely do.  Lily soaked the book up as we read it, but didn't react too much.   Then later that same day, as her Dad was holding her, she tried to reach and grab the moon herself.   She's already an independent woman and definitely understood and could apply what she had read.

Lily's languauge continues to grow everyday.  She repeats everything and many of her words and sounds are getting clearer.  Today our SLP Staci was doing a listening test where she would ask Lily to point to the box with the Baby, Ball and Star or Book, Blocks and Heart, etc.  After the exercise was completed, our SLP said Lily had done fabulously and that she usually waits until kids are three to do these exercises, but that Lily was definitely ready for them.  Too fun!

Helping Your Child Learn To Talk - Moog Center Workshop in July

The Moog Center for Deaf Education in St. Louis is holding a Parent Education Workshop from July 15-19, 2009.    This workshop is for parents and their children with hearing loss ages two to five.  

The adults will have classes while the children have their own classes, divided by age and language ability.  There is a 1:1 ratio of adult to child and each child will receive daily individual instruction by a staff member of the Moog Center.  

This is the eleventh year of this workshop.  Every family that attends the workshop also has the opportunity to have an individual meeting with a staff member about a topic or concern of their choice.  Each day is packed full of activities for the children and information for the parents. 

Vivosonic - ABRs Without Sedation Or Anesthesia

One of the Google ads running on our site attracted my attention. It was an ad for the company Vivosonic that has developed a new ABR procedure that "enables recording clear responses without the risk or additional cost of sedation." It also allows the test to be administered in a variety of settings like schools, rather than a doctor's office. Here's a link to the product and a pretty good video outlining how it works.

When we took Lily in to the audiologist after her newborn hearing screening, we were told that she would need to be totally quiet and still to get accurate results. Because she was so young, we were able to test her by timing the doctor's appointment with her nursing and sleeping schedule so she slept through both ABRs without needing sedation. However, if she was any older or any more active that would not have been an option. Looks like now, parents may now have a better option. I'm not sure how prevalent this new technology is, but it's nice to see it becoming available. It's hard enough as a parent having to go through MRIs, CAT scans and CI surgery itself without having one more medical sedation.

Is anybody familiar with this product?

Speaking Gigs

In celebration of Lily's one-year hearing birthday on Wednesday, we've decided to undertake a new venture. We are currently developing a presentation revolving around our journey from initial days of diagnosis through our daily adventures in learning to listen and talk. If you have a need for speakers from the parents' perspective, contact us for availability. 

The Bliss of Blogging

We attended a S.E.E.D.S (Social, Emotional, and Educational Session) workshop held at Boys Town last week. About once a quarter a workshop covering a variety of topics facing parents of children with hearing loss is held. One of the topics this time around was "The Parent Factor: Taking Care of Mom & Dad." The session was an opportunity to talk with parents and professionals about the tips and techniques we've used in getting through the tough times. 

One of the things that seems to have worked for us is this blog. There's something comforting in sharing what you're going through with others and keeping our friends and family close to this amazing little girl. We started as a way to document Lily's life to give her something when she got older as a testament to how far we've all come. We love hearing our friends reference or comment about what they've read on the blog. It makes us feel good to know that what we're writing about is interesting to others as well. Along the way we've also met people from all over the world who've read Lily's story, some seeking advice, others offering words of encouragement. All in all it's been well worth the time and effort. So keep the comments, suggestions, and feedback coming and we'll keep spreading the Bliss. 

Repeating the Ling Sounds

Lily has finally mastered the Ling Sounds (Ah, Ooo, Eee, Mmm, Ssss, Shhhh).  We don't practice these as a separate skill too often, but primarily work them into everyday language.  The Ooo seemed the most evasive, but the repetition of the Choo Choo at Disney helped her achieve this sound. 

Last week our SLP Carole used a hoop (like you would use for needle point) to cover her own mouth and then began to say each Ling sound to Lily.   To encourage Lily to repeat the sounds, Carole has had Lily drop blocks in a box before, but this time she just handed Lily the hoop.  It worked.  Lily repeated all the Ling sounds. 

This is one way to demonstrate that Lily is hearing across the entire sound spectrum and is a good test when Lily first puts her CIs on to make sure everything is working.  Now we will focus on repeating the Ling sounds from a distance and in noise. 

This is a picture of Carole and Lily working/playing.  Toys are always more exciting when they come in a box.

A Little Bit of Normal Goes A Long Way

While it's sometimes hard to forget that Lily can't hear without her CIs, it's getting easier to feel that we're living a "normal" life. Sure, most parents don't have a bedtime routine that requires charging batteries, testing equipment, and taking your kid "off the air," but since we've been living this life from the beginning, we really don't know any different. 

Yesterday was one of those days where it was just me and my daughter, not my hearing impaired daughter. Lily and I went to the mall for some Christmas shopping while Mommy taught her evening class at the university. We walked around window shopping and came upon the carousel at the center of the mall. Lily's eyes widened when she saw the horses going round and around. She literally started jogging to get a closer look. After a few minutes of watching other kids with excitement how could I resist her pleas of "mor, mor." We settled on a horse that I thought was anchored, but turned out to go up and down as well. With Daddy by her side, she hung on tight and road like a champion. It was a great feeling. 

These experiences are coming daily now and give us perspective as to just how far we've come. More importantly, they give us a glimpse of the future and provide strength for any potential obstacles we'll face on the journey.

Lily’s Birth and the Start of Our Hearing Journey

This year on Thanksgiving we are looking back over the past year and thinking about all that we have to be thankful for.   We found this post that I began last year, and finished this year, and thought it was appropriate for a little reflection on Lily’s birth story and the start to our hearing journey.

Thanksgiving has truly taken on a new meaning for Lily’s Dad and I.  There is nothing that has ever meant more to us than our baby Lily Bliss.

After a good pregnancy, I went to the hospital in the evening with contractions about four minutes apart.  We called our Doula immediately and asked her to meet us there.   Without too much detail, the contractions continued until 5am at which point natural childbirth sounded less and less appealing.  Our Doula tried all her pain relief techniques - birth ball, bathtub, walking, rubbing, music, etc. but nothing seemed to soothe the pain until the epidural. 

This was the right decision and made the next 12 hours go much smoother.  Each hour, I was flipped and checked for any dilation.  At about 6pm and another new set of nurses, they decided it was time to start pushing.  After pushing for 30 min or so (it is all a little blurry) our doctor used forceps and said I had to push her out or we’re going to the back for a c-section.  I was so determined to push hard and was trying to recall all those birth books I had read – visualize I remember thinking – I don’t want a c-section.  At that moment our doctor said the baby had come down eight miles from the last push.  It worked.  I touched the head and it looked like we were home free. Our doctor called off all the people who were standing by including the extra nurses from the shift change.  However as suddenly as she sent them away she called them back, said the shoulders weren’t moving and we needed to go to the back for an emergency C-section.  It was like the show ER except that we were the patients. 

Glad We Got A Stokke

Unlike our current stock market investments, the investment in our Stokke stroller is looking better and better. Today's CNN points to a new study published by the Dundee University's School of Psychology, which states that babies in strollers should face their parents or risk long-term development problems in their children. The study found that "children not facing the person pushing them were significantly less likely to talk, laugh and interact with their parents." By turning the buggy around, parents' rates of talking doubled. While I'd take the findings with a big grain of salt, it does validate our experiences with our "parent-facing" contraption.