'Tis the Season

This is my favorite time of year.

I LOVE feeling like a kid again and the excitement of

seeing the magic in my children's eyes as the house

gets all dressed up for the season and the Merry moves in.

This year is even more amazing as we watch and HEAR

Aiden learn and speak and truly begin to understand the season.

We're hearing, "TISMIS TEE" and "SANNA AUS" and "REINDEER"

and "TANY TANE" and "EL" (elf), and "SOMAN".

He gets it. I think it's inbred in every kid's heart and mind,

because he's NEVER picked up on SO many words

in so little time.

I LOVE how all my kids get excited about decorating the house and

the Christmas tree while jamming out to Christmas tunes,

even if the experience is short lived and they're just fine with leaving

mom to finish the job by herself.

I LOVE how Aiden walks around with all

the musical ornaments, LISTENING to the

Christmas music, HUMMING along with it.

I LOVE how my husband is all Clark Griswaldish

and has to have the biggest Christmas tree our ceilings will allow AND

the best lighted house on the block.

Not super crazy like, but he's smiling ear to ear knowing

we're the only house with lights outlining our roof.

(side note: according to him, the neighbor across the street

who has someone decorate for him does not count.)

I LOVE how Aiden sits and admires his own

"Tismis Tee" we put up in his playroom,

and decorated together. He's so proud of it and

I kid you not, he'll sit in his chair for long periods of time,

staring and smiling.

I LOVE baking cookies with my kids,

Christmas music blaring in the background, flour

everywhere, and half the dough eaten before

it ever makes it to the pan.

I LOVE how everyone is just that much more generous

and thoughtful to each other.

Such as this surprise I woke up to

the other morning from my sweet teenage son.

I LOVE how Aiden is addicted to "tany tanes".

He can't get enough.

Seriously, who can eat a WHOLE candy cane

like that in less then 10 minutes?

I LOVE how we get to spend Christmas this year with BOTH of our families.

It is our first year ever we've lived this close,

and I LOVE my kids get to celebrate the season with their

cousins, their aunts and uncles, and BOTH of their grandmas!

What do you LOVE about this time of year?

HaPpY HoLiDaYs

Ready or Not?

Aiden's ready. I'm not.

Last year at this time, we drove a good hour plus two times a week for Aiden to attend the program at The River School in Washington D.C. It was well worth the drive, as the program there is PHENOMENAL, but I truly don't think Aiden was completely ready for it all. He was the youngest in the class (by a few months), he still wasn't walking, he wanted nothing to do with circle time, he'd cry almost every time I dropped him off, and would cling to me the rest of the afternoon after I picked him up. Yet, even with all this, he grew a lot, and I learned a lot, in the short three months he was there.

When we moved to Ohio, I decided to not enroll him in any type of preschool program, but to enjoy my every moment with him (most likely being my last child) and prepare him better for his preschool days. Plus, we moved into a county with an amazing early intervention program and were able to take advantage of many extras such as music therapy, Little Gym, multiple focus play groups, and a weekly toddler play group all funded by the program and still get in structured playtime with other kids his age.

I'm glad we made this decision. I LOVE my days with him and he's really come a LONG way. Today, he doesn't shed a tear when I drop him off for play group, he's talking SO much more, and receptively he understands so much more. He's done a complete 360 when it comes to keeping his attention to the task at hand and to structure all around. He's growing up. He's ready.

and not only is he ready socially, but very much cognitively as well.

WARNING - Mommy Brag Moment: he counts to 15, recognizes and names the numerals 0 to 10, knows all his shapes and identifies what shape an object is (i.e. his Lego table is a "sware"), knows all his colors, says the abcs, and can recognize and say around 7-10 letters, is completing simple patterns, etc.

My little explorer is ready to go, no matter how much his mommy is not ready to let him go.

I am so proud of him.

(note: turn off music to the right. and I apologize, but I am having trouble captioning right now, but will try again soon.)

this video was taken over a month ago.

and although I think I'm not ready to send him off, that I'll miss him terribly, that he's still too young, that he's my last child and I need to hold on to every.single.minute with him ... I'm sure it won't be TOO terribly hard to find the fun and joy of some mommy alone time.

hmmmmm.

When can he start?

The Simple Things

There's not a day that goes by that we don't appreciate the miracle of Cochlear Implants.

Nearly everyday I have a a story for daddy or grandma about something Aiden heard or said.

Then there are some days, like today, where I'm completely nonstop,

running from appt. to appt., that I realize, it's truly about the simplest things.

The simple things, in the moments of craziness, that make me stop and cherish;

yes, completely STOP and CHERISH;

the teary eyed moments;

the moments I SMILE and WHISPER, "Thank you God."

Such as today,

when my phone rang (old style ring tone) and he pointed to his ear, HUGE SMILE on his face,

and belted out, "I erd at! Hewo!"

when I asked him in the car, without turning around, "Aiden are you hungry?"

to which he replied, "NO!".

"You don't want to eat?", I asked again. "No, no, no, no, no!"

when, moments later, I spelled out S-T-O-P (without saying the word), to which he yelled back, "STOP!"

and just seconds later as we pulled into the drive, "Yay, house!"

(again, this was after being gone all afternoon at appts)

when I sang to him as we drove to therapy and he told me, "No",

which I ignored and continued to sing, since "NO" has become the word flavor of the week

(and let's hope it loses its flavor and doesn't last much longer).

Then when I didn't stop, he tore off his CIs and gave me his first true shit eating grin.

Ya. Tell me I wasn't trying to hide my laughter.

when I called his name from the kitchen as he sat playing Wii in the family room with his big sister

(great language opportunity btw).

He turned to look at me and I said,"Daddy has your bath all ready."

To which he jumped up, ran down the hall to head upstairs,

and I said, "Aiden wait. Mommy needs a hug."

To which he turned around and ran to give both his sister and me a big huge hug.

Yep, it's the things that can seem that simple,

that really aren't

that simple.

Halloween Madness

Where did October go?? My life seems so nonstop right now, which honestly, it has been since the day I delivered my second child ten years ago, then add in a third, and I'm constantly in search for a stop sign. I'd even take a yield at this point. As much as I wanted to post about each little fun thing we did the past month, ya, didn't happen.

Our October was full of fun all around. I remember last year at this time trying to get Aiden to repeat the Lings "oo" and "ee" and what a better way than with all the wonderful sounds of Halloween! He gave me pumpkin-"uhin", and bat-"a", and even a long o sound for ghost ... but no "oo" and no "ee". Well, this Halloween he pronounces them both beautifully and from all our work last year, I could tell he found that vocabulary file in that cute little head of his and just took off.

This year we heard pumpkin (still without that /p/), witch (its and ee-ee-ee), ghost (now with a good /s/ and final /t/ and the lovely "ooooo" to go with it!), bat, trick-or-treat (ih-o-eet), owl (he says the best owl), moon, broom (which he really has trouble saying words that have the /u/ sound, but says it perfectly in isolation) and so much more.

What are the fun things we did to immerse Aiden in the world of Halloween and fall vocabulary?

I made pumpkins from construction paper, cut out different shaped face parts, then let Aiden glue them on as we talked all about it - he even announced he was giving it ears all on his own. (Vocab - eyes, nose, mouth, ears, pumpkin, triangle, circle, glue, sticky, orange, yellow, black). Even though he knows all this vocabulary, we worked on two and three word phrases such as circle eyes, black mouth, glue it down, glue is sticky etc.

getting his pumpkin off the fridge to show daddy

I made a picture chart which labeled different Halloween terms, then copied it again to cut out each card to play matching games, to which candy corn was the treat ... Aiden DOES NOT like candy corn ... so we switched to m&m's and played Halloween bingo with them.

Showing a picture with a word is also an excellent pre-literacy/phonological awareness skill to teach that letters, make words, and have meaning. After Aiden matched each separate card to the correct picture, we would "read" each word from left to right, top to bottom.

We went on a fieldtrip to learn all about COSTUMES and found the perfect one for my little monkey (which was LAST YEAR's costume).

Halloween 2009

This year he chose Mickey Mouse - his new all time favorite character.

Halloween 2010

He was so excited to try it on when we got home and was in awe looking at himself. I had to fight the little stinker though to put it on for trick-or-treating. He sure knew what to do to get that candy though and would run up to each door, knock (even if they were sitting outside, but had to knock because that's how we practiced all month), open his bag, and say, "Ih-oh-eet" and a quick "Tan tu" as he ran off to the next house.

We visited a pumpkin patch and ate fresh Kettle Corn and pet the (very few) animals they had, and went on a hayride.

I printed out a Halloween activity from the Listening Room, which was a book about how a witch found a piece of paper and made it into a house for her and her cat. We followed all the steps she took to make the house and in the end, the house was also a PUMPKIN! Very cute! Love this site.

We made good ol' Betty Crocker CUPCAKES with orange frosting and topped them off with owls and pumpkins. (SO much vocabulary when cooking/baking and honestly, TONS of fun too!)

Turn off the music on the right to hear him counting the yumminess before he gobbled one up.

(without captioning)

(with captioning - works on my Mac, but not my PC?)

I bought tons of stickers to decorate cut out pumpkins or just stick on plain old white paper and played "ghost" and read tons of Halloween books and sang songs and looked through every.single Halloween aisle at every.single.store we walked into.

The boy definitely knows Halloween.

Next up ... leaves, apples, and Thanksgiving.

The SPIRAL

Since Aiden's hearing loss, the spiral look of the cochlea has become very meaningful for our family. Not only does it represent the cochlea, it represents the miracles Aiden receives through the use of his cochlear implants. It represents him being able to hear all the beautiful sounds our world has to offer, our voices as we speak to him, the cats meows, the tick-tocks of a clock. It represents his voice, and being able to hear him speak those three words I one time thought I'd never hear him say, "I wuv ew".

With this said, I was excited to see that Cochlear Implant Online is hosting its first contest giveaway and wanted to share the chance to enter. The lucky winner will receive a beautiful spiral pendant, from Lisa's Pieces, a shop at Etsy.com, like the one shown below (with a chance to choose from a list of phrases).

What a great way to represent the gift of hearing AND to spread cochlear implant awareness. Go here for instructions on how to enter for your chance to win.

and to share a couple other cool "spiral" items we've received as gifts:

A very dear friend and former college roommate also creates jewelry. When I saw some of her work, I commented on how I loved the spiral effect and why it meant so much to me. We got together awhile back and she had some ready and waiting for me to pick one from, all depicting the spiral. I chose this one, not only for what the spirals represent, but also for the beautiful blue color, which reminds me of Aiden's blue eyes. Her work is beautiful, no two alike. If you're interested, let me know.

My mom bought Aiden his own patio set this past summer. She thought it was cute and well made and didn't think twice about the design on the table top. Aiden loves it. Check it out.

Even if I don't win this contest, I will be ordering one of Lisa's Pieces pendants (oh, and check out the earrings she has too) not only for myself, but they will also make great gifts for others! Plus, it's never a bad thing to add a new jewelry shop to my list!

TWO Milestones Today!

Every Friday we attend a class, Muscles and Messes, that is put on through a private Occupational Therapist paid for through the county as an Early Intervention service. The ten week class is for kids who have sensory integration challenges and is run by an OT who specializes in SI and a speech therapist. Each session focuses on a different sensory input. The parents are provided information on the specific input along with ways to help the kids overcome different challenges. During the hour session, the kids run and play and swirl and twirl and crash and swing and slide and push weighted down shopping carts and smear paint or shaving cream all over the windows and ride the zip line and play in the ball pit and crash some more. It's an hour of nonstop fun,

and by the time we walk out of there, Aiden has had his sensory fill and will actually SIT in a shopping cart. The class is PHENOMENAL!

At the end of each class, we sing the "clean up" song then head to circle time to sing our good-bye song, to which each kid is prompted to say their own name.

Milestone #1 - After the clean up song, Aiden actually went and SAT DOWN on his own, and was the first one there and prompted the other kids to "sit own". He typically needs to be guided each step and repetitively told but through his own listening, he knew the song was over and the next step he needed to take! Even more shocking, he actually sat through the whole good-bye song. I'm usually the only mom sitting in the circle without a kid since he's the one who is still up and running trying to get in every ounce of play he can.

Milestone #2 - During the good-bye song, AIDEN prompted everyone else to say their name. I had to look to make sure I had the right child, because in any type of therapy/class setting, Aiden does.not.talk. At each child's turn, he would point to them and say, "name?" and then try and get them to say, "Aiden." He wanted everyone to be Aiden. Of course, when it was his turn to say his name, he said nothing, but by golly, everyone else was "Aiden".

These are huge for us. H-U-G-E, HUGE! I hate that we only have four classes left and that this OT has a waiting list a mile long, because as comfortable as Aiden is there and as awesome as this OT is with sensory related challenges, he could make some huge strides.

Preschool Tours ... Already?!?

Just months after Aiden's cochlear implants were activated, he discovered the sound of an airplane as we sat watching his brother's baseball game. I was lucky enough to hear the plane ahead of him and had camera in hand, ready to capture the moment, praying he heard it too. Sure enough, he was astonished, staring into the sky, HEARING it, as he watched it fly over. I marked another simply amazing moment on my never ending list as tears rolled down my face.

Fast forward to today and I just cannot believe we are at the point that Aiden's daddy and I will be touring, at the least, three different preschools to send Aiden to AND are beginning the process of transitioning him from an IFSP to an IEP, which will happen once Aiden turns three. Where has the time gone?

All my life I've been one to cram. I was the college student who wrote every paper at the very last minute; the one who studied zero all week until the night before the test and then pulled all nighters with my two liter of Mountain Dew by my side. This is not the time to cram, although I'm getting close to that mark. Now that we're only five months out from Aiden's third birthday, the time is NOW to understand all I can about the laws, the terminologies, our RIGHTS, the procedures, what we want written into his IEP, etc, to a "TEE" in order to be able to stand up and speak intelligibly for what we know is best for our little listener.

I saved this Preschool Placement Checklist for Deaf/Hard of Hearing Kids from Drew's mom quite awhile back, knowing I would use it one day. I plan to fill it out during each visit to help us in choosing the right preschool fit for Aiden and our family. We did consider touring some mainstream preschools in our area, and we still may. We feel pretty strong though that what Aiden needs at this time is a deaf oral preschool program. We feel a placement in this type of program will definitely benefit him and help reach our goal to have him mainstreamed by kindergarten. I'm excited about all the tours and love the fact that we have different deaf oral preschool options. Options are always a good thing.

Aside from choosing the correct preschool program, we know there is MUCH, MUCH more to this whole transition process. I would love any additional tips, advice, websites, suggestions, etc that you can share that helped make the transition to an IEP easier for you and your family. I'm getting too old to cram it all in last minute ... and Mountain Dew just isn't my thing anymore.