Enough Already ... Really

I am about to pull every. last. hair. out of my head. In my last post, I talked about Aiden dissecting his cochlear implants on car rides. Well, it has gone from dissecting them on car rides, to dissecting them at home, to just plain pulling them off ALL THE TIME!

I try VERY hard not to react, and to simply put them back on his head/ears and keep on going ... only to turn around and have them BOTH off his head and usually in his mouth (I so thought we were over the mouthing everything stage). So then, I take them both off for about 10 to 15 minutes, and try again ... only to have them pulled off once again by Mr. Destructo (our new nickname for our "precious" little man) within minutes. When they are on ...

He still responds to the lings (on and off anyway)

He localizes noise better and better (yesterday as the mowers were outside, he pointed to his ear then pointed to the window AND later that day found me as I hid in a dark bathroom calling for him!)

He consistently turns to his name,

He has started to vocalize more in the last week ... like da-da and bye-bye (buh-buh) and a bunch of babble combinations (nabada type stuff)

He has started inflecting his voice like no get out ... from very high squealed screeches to low "da-da" whispers (I think this is hilarious) ... maybe it's the sounds from his screams he's become so accustomed to are scaring him enough to pull off the CIs ... although they truly are music to my ears!

So why, if he seems that he likes to listen and that he is responding, does he constantly pull off his CIs and dissect every.little.part?

Saturday night we all went out to dinner, then Aiden's sister and I went to a late movie to see G-Force 3D (which we both enjoyed). I came home to this on the counter.

Aiden's dad told me the next day that these were the pieces he collected from the car once they got home. What I didn't notice until the next day, as I put the pieces back together, is that a mic cover was still missing. Like I said ... every.little.part. No more CIs in the car ... just too dangerous.

Later the same day, as I was cleaning up the living room, Mr. Destructo was in the kitchen playing in "his" drawers. After a couple minutes of just seeing him playing so nicely with the Tupperware, I went in to check on him again, and low and behold, no CI. At all. So I looked around and found all of it BUT the coil. Thank goodness for back up parts because for the life of me I could not find that coil.

I finally found it later that day here ...

Oh for the love. All I can continue to hope and pray for is that this is a short phase and that it doesn't give me gray hair because the boy's about to wear me out. I feel like I did about a year ago, when Aiden learned to take his hearing aids out. Only difference being he didn't know what he was doing then, but he sure does now. Little stinker. As Nolan's mommy would say, "Don't make me bust out the pilot caps again!"

Oh... and even though we're not set for an audiology appointment for another two months, I have a call into The Listening Center to schedule the next possible appointment. Maybe a mapping adjustment will cure all.