the talk

I guess it's more like an ongoing conversation of sorts, than "the talk". And no, I'm not talking about the birds and the bees. I'm referring to his ear. With every passing day, Lucas enters further and further into toddlerhood and heightened awareness of his surroundings. It's the right time to begin talking to him, however simply, about his cochlear implant.

It's no longer that Lucas wakes up and I put it on his head, like when he was first implanted. I ask him if he wants it first, and usually he asks for it first anyway. He gets that he can't access his world without it. He understands the difference between when he is and isn't wearing his CI. Whether he understands that as "hearing" or not, I'm not sure.

I want him to develop language to talk about his CI, and a basic understanding of what it is. When I'm wearing my glasses, I will often say "Mommy needs her glasses to see, just like you need your CI to hear." He understands his CI receptively as his "ear". When we're at the playground, we ask for him to hand us "his ear" right before he goes down the slide. He always willingly obliges. Recently though, I've taught him to say "CI". He hasn't used it spontaneously yet, but it will come. I decided "cochlear implant" is too long and technical right now (and he won't be able to pronounce it well anyway). I also decided that "ear", while cute and appropriate within our family, is not the right expressive word for him either. "CI" it will be, until he chooses another way of describing it for himself.

Speaking of spontaneous, Nate and I heard Lucas say "thank you" today, UNPROMPTED. I realize this is just a natural toddler milestone, but we're always extra excited when he reaches them. It made me think of this blogpost over at Hopeful Parents (great website, by the way). Not that I have any common experiences with this mother, but more that she got me thinking about how we constantly prompt as parents, and then they finally get it on their own. Saying "thank you" hasn't been a point of frustration for us or anything, but it's exciting that he produced it on his own.

How do you talk to your young toddler about his/her cochlear implant/hearing loss? What kinds of words do you use to describe it? I dread the day when Lucas asks me why no one else around him has a CI, or starts a conversation like this. Those are the days that I'm thankful that we do know a few kids locally around Lucas's age who have cochlear implants. I hope that his friend, Jack, and he will grow up to be good buddies. The first time that Jack had his cochlear implant and saw that Lucas has one too, he got really excited and signed "same". It made me cry.

Until then... his "CI" it will be. And I will continue to affirm that he is my special little boy with a special ear to help him hear. Oh yeah, and I'm still meeting that 500-a-day kiss quota.

Do you know the colors of our rainbow?

Every time I talk to Lucas about his colors, this song comes to mind: Colors of the Rainbow from Signing Time. I love it. I think it has a nice tune, and I think it's fun to sign the colors. Rachel Coleman (of Signing Time) is an amazing inspiration, and she writes a really great blog here.

Anyway, back to Lucas. He knows most of his colors now (except some of the more obscure ones). He likes to name the colors of objects. Sometimes he'll even say "not green, not blue, not white, not pink, it's purple." But, recently he has taken to naming the colors for objects one step further. The other morning when I woke him up before school (7 AM) to take him to Nate's mom's house for the day, he started listing car colors for several people in our family: me, Nate, Oma, Opa, Nanny, Granddad. And I was really blown away. I just had no idea that he stored that kind of information! He would probably list more, but two of his aunts' cars are silver, so I think he just ignores them, haha.

So, here it is. I had to prompt him a little, but you can definitely see the wheels turning! "Haha", by the way, is "grandma." That's one word that he can not say yet, so that is his approximation for it. Please excuse the nudy boy. It was one of those exceptionally warm spring days, and I was letting him enjoy it!! (*turn off the music player first*)

Easter Egg fun

We celebrated a beautiful Easter weekend with family and great weather. Lucas was a good age this year to do Easter egg hunts. He has finally officially learned all of his colors, so it was an opportune time to work with colorful, plastic Easter eggs. We spent time with both sides of the family on Easter. Lucas had Easter egg hunts with my nephew, Ryan, and Nate's niece, Lydia. Lucas and Lydia matched too... how cute (thanks Aunt Sarah)! We also got to celebrate Oma's birthday!

He finally got to enjoy the candy after all that hunting!

The video is of Lucas on an Easter egg hunt with Ryan. Lucas had 12 yellow eggs to find and Ryan had 12 blue eggs to find. They were filled with M&M's, and Lucas liked them a little too much. :)

not quite as expected...

Lucas woke up Tuesday morning with pink eye. Yes, my healthy boy, who has been illness-free since before Christmas, woke up the day before his long-scheduled thumb surgery with pink eye. Bringing bacteria & infection into the OR is not a great idea. Surgery was canceled, and the perfect timing that I had planned for was thrown away with it. Had it been a few days beforehand, we would have been good to go. What crappy luck. Can you tell I'm a little upset? Understatement. I don't know yet when surgery will be rescheduled. His surgeon only operates on Wednesday afternoons, and that's terribly inconvenient with a full-time work schedule. We might just wait until June now.

Yesterday we headed to CHOP for Lucas's 1-year post-CI evaluation. Yes, 15 months after activation. Why you might ask? Because we had to cancel because of snowmageddon, and this is the first we could reschedule. Thank goodness we didn't have to reschedule again because of pink eye (the pediatrician cleared us). Everything went well, and we even ran into Mikaela and her family! It was a little stressful, because Lucas had his own agenda all day, but he performed decently well for his speech eval, and we were able to get some booth test results. His audi changed his map a tad, and reported that electrodes 11 & 13 still need to stay deactivated, although no more need to be turned off (knock on wood). We head back in 3 months (right before we leave for LA) for an audio check.

On the bright side, during our doctor visit this week, we were able to get some tests/paperwork completed for our trip to JTC this summer! Lucas got his TB test, and I got copies of his immunization records. Now, Nate just has to get his TB test (because I already I have mine), and we'll be ready to spend July in sunny southern California. So excited! We're looking forward to meeting Nolan & family too, in addition to the program!!

We're enjoying the beautiful spring weather this Easter weekend. Monday we are headed back to CHOP for cardiology. This is our 9-month follow-up visit. We had to switch providers, because Penn State Hershey no longer accepts our public insurance. So, we are now going to see a cardiologist at CHOP. I've been wanting to migrate all of his specialists there anyway, so it kind of worked out. It will make future surgeries much easier for getting cardiac anesthesia clearance too, since for each of his surgeries so far, we had to get Hershey to fax his info to the surgeon, who then sent it to cardiac anesthesia for clearance. Now, they can just make a phone call. Luckily, we only have to go to the King of Prussia office, which is about 2/3 of the way to the main hospital. It cuts out an hour of round-trip travel time. Please pray for continued status quo with his heart condition. Maybe they won't want to see him back for a year!

So, although the week turned out to be not quite as expected, we're making the best of it! We look forward to spending time with family tomorrow! Happy Easter!

big french fry

Although he was never really gone, I feel like I finally have my husband back. For the last 9 months, Nate has been working hard on his National Board Certification portfolio, an advanced teaching credential. As soon as he drops it off at the post office tomorrow after school, he will be DONE! Then he has to take a test in June to prove his proficiency in Spanish and wait until November to hear the results. It's not exactly over, but his weekends spent working on the portfolio are over, so we went out to celebrate!

We went to Chili's, because we knew it would be Lucas-friendly and pretty quick. Lucas did really well too, and even sat in his high chair the WHOLE TIME! That doesn't always happen. We ordered him a kid's meal with broccoli as his side, because we knew that he would have a couple of Nate's french fries. Sure enough, as soon as Nate's burger came out, he asked for a french fry. But he was not happy with the small french fry he was given. He wanted a "big french fry." We weren't sure we heard him right the first time, but sure enough, that's what he was saying, and he was not happy until he got a "big french fry". He's definitely 2.

I am thrilled that Lucas is age appropriate right now in both receptive and expressive language. But, I always fear that he won't maintain that level. Our ongoing challenge in the coming years will be to keep it that way. Well, tonight confirmed for me that Lucas continues to progress in his language acquisition and usage.

Lucas is quite the flirt when we're out in public. He waves to people as they arrive and says bye-bye as people leave. Older people especially enjoy his waves. As one couple was leaving the restaurant tonight, a gentleman waved back and told him that he liked his "flashing light". It was very nice of him, and at least he didn't mention contacting outer space...

On the way home from dinner, I caught a little video of what Lucas regularly sounds like when he's narrating his own play. There are a few intelligible words, but mostly jargon. He's usually more understandable than this, but he is definitely trying to tell a good story here about the sun. You should be able to understand "bye-bye & sun". I also hear him reference a snowman at the beginning. Enjoy!!!

*Don't forget to turn off the music player to the right. This video is not captioned, because I don't know how I would caption jargon..."

spring is in the air!

Today I was reminded why springtime is my favorite time of year. I love not having to wear a coat, I love the sunshine, I love hearing the birds, and I love not being couped up inside. I feel like springtime is a time for new beginnings and new life; it gives me a more positive outlook on life. I look forward to spending lots more time outside with Lucas and the wonderful new language opportunities it will bring!

Lucas enjoyed his first trip to the park in about 5 months. It was so much easier now that he can walk well! It was great PT too, walking on uneven surfaces. He could climb up himself and slide down by himself, both improvements from last summer. He even willingly gave me his ear before going down the slide when I asked for it.

He giggled with delight, like I haven't heard him giggle in some time. It's going to be a great spring.

mommy jacket off!

Oh blog, how I've missed you! It's been a while. That's not to say that nothing exciting is happening though! Here's an update on what's going on in the life of Lucas.

Lucas is starting to string together 2 & 3 word phrases, and his jargoning is starting to make sense to me! On Friday, when I took him to Nate's mom's house before work, he wanted me to stay, and he kept saying "mommy jacket off!" His 2 word combinations are much more spontaneous, and no longer consist of just "_____, please", etc. His vocabulary must be 300+ words now.

Did I mention that he's testing age appropriate in language? At the end of January, he was re-tested for his annual IFSP review, and the results were outstanding. I can't believe that he made up 2 years of language in 1 year! Now the trick will be keeping it that way! The language journey is far from over.

Lucas is definitely 2! And he's so much fun! It's really enjoyable to watch him engage in pretend play. He picks one of his animal "friends" and he'll read to them, cook for them, take them for a walk, etc. He even wanted to give his bear a bath the other day. He will also imitate situations, like conditioned play and being placed in time out. He'll take the peg puzzle I use with him to do conditioned ling responses, and hold up the pieces to his ear as he says the lings (unprompted). He'll also take his "time-out" chair, put it against the wall, sit in it, and yell "no, no, no"! It's definitely time to carefully watch what we say and do around him!

His music class must be paying off, because today I noticed that he was singing the isty, bitsy spider. I got it on video... so enjoy his *singing*! You will have to use your imagination a little bit, but you should be able to understand "itsy", "spider", "sun", "wash", "out". I think the spider gets washed out a little much in his version though, LOL!

On March 31, Lucas is finally having surgery at CHOP to repair his trigger thumb. We were waiting to see if we could combine it with another surgery he was going to have, but ended up not needing (yay!). I'm all about the two-for-one surgeries. Your prayers for an easy procedure and quick recovery are appreciated! (both are anticipated)