Abby's Birthday

OK, So I haven't posted in 3 months...I don't know where the time has gone.


We've had a busy few months. Abby's birthday was April 25 and she turned 3. She is SO big.

She had all of her cousins and friends over for her Cinderella birthday party. She had lots of fun and was very excited about her presents.


Abby also LOVED her cupcakes as you will see from the pictures below.







Yes, that IS blue icing on her hands, not fingerpaint!

Abby got lots of great presents, but her favorite present was her Spiderman helmet and kneepads that her brother got for her. Seriously, the girl LOVES Spiderman. Here she is riding her princess bike, with her Spiderman gear on.


Seth also had a birthday and he turned 5 years old. I will post pictures from his party later. He is still waiting on his present from Mom and Dad. It is a HUGE surprise and we are looking for the right one. Sorry to leave you hanging, but I'll post once he gets it.

Sigh of Relief

I haven't posted about this because I was trying very hard not to worry too much until we found out what was going on.

For the past couple months we have been noticing that Seth hasn't been hearing as well as normal. It was kind of strange because it didn't seem to be consistent. One day he would hear me call him from the next room, and the next day he wouldn't hear me talking to him from 3 feet away. We really started to get concerned when other people started mentioning that they were noticing it as well.

So, Abby had a 6 month post-surgery appointment about a month ago, and I took Seth along hoping that Dr Clary would look at his ears even though he hadn't had a hearing test at that point. Dr Clary, being the wonderful, caring Doctor that he is, did look in Seth's ears while we were there for Abby's appointment. He said that Seth had quite a bit of earwax plugged up deep in his ear canal (sorry to be gross). He wanted us to put drops in his ears for several weeks before attempting to remove it.

Even knowing that this was most likely the cause of his hearing loss, and that it would be temporary, I was still worried. Having one hearing impaired child, I kept thinking what if Abby's hearing loss is genetic, and just now showing up in Seth at the age of 4 1/2. During the month that we were putting the drops in his ears, we also got a note from his teacher that he didn't seem to be hearing well....and just as luck would have it, his school had a vision and hearing screening in which he failed the hearing portion of the test. Talk about stressful!!

Well, today was finally the big day that we had our follow-up with Dr Clary. I told him about the failed hearing test and that the results were that Seth was hearing at about a 35 decibel loss. Thankfully Dr Clary was able to remove all of the wax from his ears and commented that the amount there was could certainly cause a hearing loss at that level.

We left the Dr's office with a HUGE weight lifted off of my shoulders for sure. As we were walking out I whispered Seth's name from behind him a couple of times, and each time he turned around quickly....he also asked me why the elevator bells were so loud as we got on the elevator. I have no idea how long his ears have been 'plugged' but I'm so thankful that this was all the problem was.

We still plan to schedule him a follow up hearing test, but I have no doubts he will pass it!

I think I have the "Flea"

We were leaving church today, when Seth Robert started sneezing several times in a row. After about 5 sneezes he says "Mom, I think I have the flea."

Knowing he meant the flu, we played it up with him for a couple of minutes...telling him he couldn't play with his dog or he might give him fleas...he couldn't go to school and spread fleas.

Finally we told him he doesn't have the FLU...something in the air was just making him sneeze.

What Next!!??

The last couple weeks have been full of stress and not much fun for our family. We certainly need to schedule something fun to make up for all of this.

1. All of us had a stomach bug (each about a week apart).

2. Boeing laid off 10% of their IT department last Friday. The days leading up to that were very stressful, but thankfully I'm not affected by the layoffs. This is the first time I've been through the possibility of layoffs in my 11+ years at Boeing. It is very sad to see peers and friends who will be leaving in about 2 months.

3. Abby got sick yesterday. A few weeks ago when we all had the stomach bug, Abby didn't have a very big 'case' of it. I guess she made up for that yesterday when she couldn't keep anything down for about 10 hours.

Now for some fun!

This week is going to be beautiful and I plan to get outside and enjoy it! I think a trip to the Park would do us all some good : ) Tomorrow is my grandma's 92nd birthday. Can you imagine living 92 years! We will go to Waterloo tomorrow to celebrate with her. It will be fun for the kids to see all of their cousins from my side of the family.

I realize I haven't posted any pictures here in a while. Maybe I can work on that this weekend too!!

Vacation For Mom!

Well, Kind Of. I'm in Seattle all week this week on business. I have joked with my friends that it's like being on vacation even though I have to work. It's kind of a nice break to have no one but myself to take care of for a whole week : ) It helps a TON to have such a great husband who is able to take care of everything with the kids so I don't have to worry while I'm gone.

I haven't gotten to do much while in Seattle, except for the nightly eating out. I'm traveling with my boss, and he has the car : ) I am perfectly fine it though as I've had lots time to read, watch TV, and other things I don't normally get to do.

Last week was quite the crazy week. Both of the kids had a stomach bug and Seth and I each had to miss a day of work to stay home with them. Friday night, I woke up around midnight with the same stomach bug. It's amazing how quick the kids bounce back from being sick, and how long we as adults are down. I think I stayed in bed a total of about 20 hours between Friday night and Saturday night. I was beginning to wonder if I was going to be able to make my flight on Sunday, but luckily woke up Sunday morning feeling great!

I'm looking forward to a nice relaxing weekend with the family when I get home.

6 Months Post Implant!

This post is long overdue!

The kids and I were off the last two weeks of December and just returned to work and school on Jan 5. However, I somehow could not find the time to get a post in during that time : )

When I started this blog, the purpose was to keep everyone updated on Abby's surgery and follow up speech and language progress. I've been really bad about keeping updates about Abby's progress. I think sometimes I just take the things she is doing for granted because despite her hearing limitations, she is a very normal child. However, when I really think about what she is able to hear, understand, and speak compared to many other people in her situation, her progress just blows my mind!

So, let me see how much I can get everyone up to date on Abby. She has had her Cochlear Implant for 6 months now, and it has been turned on for 5 months (almost 6). Words cannot describe the progress she has made in the last 6 months. Her vocabulary contains (I'm guessing here) at least a couple hundred words, and most of those words are understandable not only to Seth and I, but to others as well. She is becoming much more clear in some of the words that she knew before the implant as those 'gaps' in the words that she was not hearing before her implant are now being filled in with her ability to hear so much more through the implant. For Example she has always called Seth "Brother" because in the word Seth all she could hear was 'e'. Brother started out as some 2 syllable word starting with a 'b' sound; something like 'bu-u'. Brother now sounds like 'bu-der'...much more like you would expect a 2 year old to say it. She also tries to say Seth now...it is more than just 'e' but I cannot really describe how she's saying it. What is so cool at it is that now she knows she is hearing something before and after the 'e' and she is trying to repeat that. We are still working on the 'th' sound because that one is also new to her, but she does have in in some words like 'toothbrush'.

Another sound that we are really working on is 'S'. She does not seem to be responding consistently to the S sound, however it's kind of strange because on occasion she will say the 'S' sound. Her speech therapist thinks she is hearing it, but just hasn't connected yet that it's a sound because it is such a soft sound ( I know that probably sounds crazy and all of this did to me when we started this journey, but I do understand what she means by that now : )

Over Christmas we were doing something and out of the blue Abby counted to 10! I had no idea she could count to 3 much less to 10 so of course ever since then I've been setting different objects out for her to count and she consistently counts to 10.

I will try to be more consistent in tracking Abby's progress on this blog. I also want to take some time to write Abby's Story from start to present. I think it would be helpful for other mom's ( and dad's) of newly identified hearing impaired babies to see the possibilities and normalcy their children can have with this disability!