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.
It was over 100 degrees everyday in Phoenix, but that didn't deter us from seeing the (air conditioned) sites. From the Diamond Backs to the Science Museum, there was lots to see, do and talk about.
We swam everyday to stay cool and even saw a guy with an AB CI at the In-N-Out Burger. Lily's Dad loves this place. Good eats.
The biggest take away for Lily was the saying "Don't hug a cactus, unless you have practice." With so many cactuses, we heard this phrase a lot. Lily also enjoyed talking about the lady's voice on the GPS and asking endless questions about how the GPS knew where we were.
I've found the swimming whisper. Lily's new swimming teacher Jodi is marvelous.
Even without the aid of her implants, Lily is doing the back float, front crawl, back stroke, bobbing, rolling over and gaining tons of water confidence. Her teacher Jodi gives Lily lots of smiles and high fives and is able to move Lily around the water very gracefully. I've never seen it done better.
During each lesson, LIly has made remarkable progress, with no frustration by Lily (or me) from not hearing. We practice at home on the carpet and her teacher has created a few signals that we talk about before class starts.
Lily even ranks swimming lessons above her dance class. Amazing. However, we are still waiting anxiously for AB's waterproof Neptune, hopefully out at Christmas. Never been so excited for winter.
Lily has successfully mastered one week of swimming lessons. Although I had great apprehensions of Lily being in the pool without her ears, she has tackled it like a pro. In fact I think it has been easier on her, than on the other little child in her class.
With Lily, the swimming teachers are smiling and giving High Fives. They don't have an option to use other "hearing tactics" like shouting out instructions such as "Put your chin back and kick your legs" or if you don't get in the pool your "Dad will leave."
Lily blissfully floats, back crawls, kicks on the boards and jumps in the pool eagerly. Quite fun to watch her young teachers work smarter to communicate. Quite successfully I might add. Both days they've said she has done awesome. Lily will be swimming on her own in no time.
From one tearful moment to the next :)
It was so hot in Orlando that we swam nearly every day. Lily loves the pool and we are soon venturing into swimming lessons. We take her CIs off in the water, because we just haven't figured out a secure method for waterproofing her BWPs and we don't have a back up. However, we're working on it.
It is very disheartening not to be able to communicate with her freely. We now take it for granted. Once her CIs are off, she does all the talking, never stops really, and we are certainly communicating, but I never realized how much language goes on while we are in the pool.
For a kid from Nebraska, Lily has learned a lot of beach vocabulary: waves, ocean, salt water, sticky sand, shells, seagulls, on and on and on.
We loved our Christmas trip to Florida to enjoy family and the warm weather. The pictures below are of our first beach adventure. When Lily sees the ocean, she now insists on taking her shoes off and dipping her feet into the water. Advanced Bionics we need those waterproof processors now!!!
In the last picture, Lily is writing her name with a seed pod over and over again. She knows how to spell- L-I-L-Y. Can you make it out?
Lily's been taking a Float 4 Life class. I'd call it boot-camp swimming lessons (15 mins each day with a one-on-one teacher) where the goal is to teach babies and toddlers to float. See this YouTube Video of the program.
Lily is in the toddler or "little girl" program, as she prefers to be called. Last week she learned to come up from under the water, turn over and float on her back. This week she will learn how to turn back over on her tummy from the back float and then swim to the edge and climb out.
It will be a truly amazing and life saving accomplishment if this works. It's a little intense, with a few tears, but by the end of the week, she'll be able to save herself from drowning.
During the session, I am supposed to hide. So the picture is just to give you a flavor of swimming. Lily is behind the basketball hoop with her teacher.
As for her CIs, we've been taking them off right before she goes in the water and putting them on immediately after getting out of the water. The teacher says most of the learning is non-verbal anyway. The teacher does lots of smiling and clapping and said Lily responds with a "Yeah!"
