Enjoying Each Small Step

I'm not a very patient person when it comes to some things. I hate admitting it, but when I want something, I want it or want it to happen NOW.

This journey is not one with instantaneous, you water it and it grows type of results; it's one that takes a lot of nurturing, a lot of repetition, and therefore, a lot of patience waiting to see results. People believe, as we did in the beginning, that the implants are on, surgery is done, and BAM, the child can hear, amen, everything's great. Not true. There is a lot of work involved with teaching a deaf child to hear. Very small steps, with milestones popping up here and there; sometimes you see something new everyday, sometimes not. I constantly remind myself of what some of the CI mom gurus have said on CiCircle, "This journey is not a sprint, it's a marathon." And that it is.

Aiden is six weeks post activation of his right ear, and just today, I turned him up to his last program, P3 (program 3), on his left ear. I have to say, that I wanted to see results day 1 with the first activation, and we did, but by day 7 post activation, they were still the same results, and I wanted more.

Baby steps and lots of repetition. It's what it takes.

Practice the lings.
Point out every little sound.
"I heard that!"
Talk.
Sing.
Talk a lot more.
Sing a lot more.
Lings.
Silence.

Let him take it all in.
Then wait. and wait. and wait.

Patience.

I've prayed many years for patience. I finally quit praying for it, because God kept giving me situations to test my patience. I guess this is the biggest one. I think I'm getting it.

I'm learning a lot of ways to work with Aiden and teach him to listen; I'm learning what signs to look for that he's hearing something, and constantly looking for those "aha moments" from him. But what I'm learning more than anything, in these short six weeks, is to sit back and cherish every little baby step that Aiden is making; cherish the moment that we're in - cherish the NOW. Because before I know it, I'm going to wish he was this small again. Before I know it, I'll be complaining about how all Aiden says is, "No!"; before I know it, I'll be writing about how my deaf child will not QUIT talking; before I know it, I won't have to continuously say, "I heard that!" and point to my ear, because he'll just get it. And I'll miss it all.

Take it all in.
One baby step at a time.
It's a lovely journey.

And here's where we're at in Our Journey, six weeks post activation.

Just SIMPLY AMAZED.

(Make sure to turn off the music on the right before playing video).
Please note that I have tried and tried to caption this through overstream ... and it's just keeps shutting down my computer (Vista issue maybe?). Any suggestions, you can contact me offline!


Note: The airplane is used to represent the /ah/ sound (which is one of the Ling Six sounds used to test Aiden's CIs everyday). You can see how airplane is signed here. Aiden just uses his pointer finger to sign it. By him signing it, shows us he is hearing the /ah/ sound and associating it to the airplane!