She's 5!

Rhianna turned 5 on Mother's day..So mom didn't get to rest on that day.Rhianna was busy planning her party at least a month before the actual date.She browsed the internet with me and selected the cakes that she liked for her two parties- at home and at school.She invited her friends from day care, prepared the goodie bags and made thank you cards which we will send out to our guests.This was the first time that she actively participated in her parties preparation.

For home party,we decided to have it at our apartment's swimming pool and we invited the neighbours' children and our friends.Luckily we prepared plenty of food as the children were pretty hungry after swimming.A couple of friends brought cakes so we ended up with more cakes than we could eat.It was lovely to see how many good friends turned up.It reminded me of how much Rhianna is cherished by others as well.

Cake 1 - A princess crown cake,selected by Rhianna.It was pretty and tasted surprisingly very good 

Cake 2 - A jelly cake lovingly made by one of our friends.Cooling and refreshing.

Cake 3 - A chocolate cake brought by a good friend of ours.This one was adults' favourite!

Barbie cupcakes by another friend. Rhianna loved them!

The children enjoying their cakes after a good swim

Kids having fun in the pool

The birthday girl's goofy face

So many cakes to choose from.She ended up eating too much cakes for the next 2 days

Checking out the mountain of gifts from our wonderful friends later in the evening

Checking out her new bike before bedtime.See the "I'm tired but I don't want to go to bed" look?

This is from her party at school on Monday.Great effort from the teachers and all the children had fun!

In the end, Miss R had tremendous fun with her friends on her birthday.It is wonderful to see that she is making friends everywhere and she actually enjoys spending time with them.
It is bittersweet watching her grow and watching her develop her personality.She's growing more and more confident and she's coming up with new ideas everyday.I'm grateful for all that she's learned and for her amazing progress...I just wish that she would remain my baby a bit longer.

Recent trip and (not much) photos

So we went to Langkawi Island to spend some times with our family.Rhianna had a blast with all the activities but what she enjoyed most was spending time with her cousins,aunts and uncles and grandparents.
We stayed at Four Point by Sheraton hotel.We loved the hotel.The room was beautiful and enormous and the view was great.

Our balcony view

We went on a boat for mangrove tour and eagle feeding session.We were supposed to go island hopping to the small beautiful surrounding islands but the weather was not very cooperative so we decided to skip the trip.I was actually hoping that we could go fishing ( the last time we did it, we caught a big barracuda )
but we figured safety first since we had children and seniors on the boat (sorry dad!).

Enjoying the mangrove tour

The eagles coming down to feed.The locals said that we could see more eagles if we came in the morning.Since it was already in the afternoon,we just saw maybe 10-20 eagles.Pretty amazing sight.

We also visited the Underwater World where they have a lot of exotic fish (no pictures-you should have figured out that I'm not much of a photographer.These photos were taken with the blackberry only).We spent some times at the animal farm where we fed the deers and rabbits.

Rhianna and Lucy the Australian pony.

The animal lover and her bunny friends.The rabbits all had fat bellies when Rhianna had done feeding!

We all had fun in this beautiful island.Rhianna got to do a lot of swimming in the hotel's gigantic pool.The aloksak works great.Rhianna was singing the whole time she was in the pool.It was lovely to see.Her hearing in the pool also makes my work a lot easier.I had to do a lot of bribery and threat to get her out of the pool,remember?

See that look? Know what I mean?

We finally did it!

Well,we finally did it! We read stories,watched youtube about others who have done it but we never tried it.Now we finally did it! Well,Rhianna did it.She swam with her CI on...what a glorious day!

I've read about people who let their children bathe or swim or play with the sprinklers with the N5.We have seen people waterproofed their CIs in various method.Aloksak bag,food saver metbod,balloon method but we were too scared to try.We don't have back up processors here.We don't even have insurance for these equipments.We have to pay everything out of our own pocket,.. imagine the fear.

But I'm determined not to let these equipments restrict or compromise my child's lifestyle.I want her to be able to do what other children can do including hearing while swimming.So after some research and thinking,we decided to try the aloksak bag.We found the only supplier in Malaysia and they are in our neighbourhood!

After some trials and errors and lots of complaints from miss R (the headband is too tight,the bag is poking her neck,the magnet won't stick etc) we finally managed it.And she loves it!

We just use one processor for swimming purposes which is the N5.
It is just too hard to get both sides on and the old side is nucleus freedom which is not as waterproof as the N5.So we figure that we'll just use the N5 which is her new side. That way,she could also have more practice listening with just the new side.Smart eh?

So here you go..

With best friend Mr Turtle

The smile is precious..the ability to hear is priceless

A complaint or a compliment?

So,I don't post as often as I would like to mainly because we're always busy. Another reason is because there's not much to report.

Miss R is doing very well.The only complaints that we get from pre school is she talks too much. That is not really a complaint,more like a compliment to me.I grinned when I heard that. Seriously,my deaf child likes to talk.I love it (most of the times anyway).

We have stopped worrying about her speech and language development.We just continue trying to give her more language experience to further expand her vocabulary.So we have a couple of trips planned.In March we're flying to the beautiful Langkawi island for a lot of fun family activities and in May we're taking a one week road trip to our national park.
It will be fun,fun,fun!

A princess bike and an angry bird cake

It's been a long time since we last posted anything so Happy New Year to everybody!
My (not so little ) girl is doing tremendously well in term of speech and hearing.I can say she is bilingual now even though her Malay is a bit better than her English.

During the long semester break we worked on her reading skills and I'm proud to say that she is now reading very well for a not yet 5 year old.She is reading for both languages and her Malay is better than her English of course as it is very easy to learn to read in Malay.She mastered the CVCV  form in just 2 weeks.I'm so proud of her and she is proud of herself too.She is now fully mainstreamed in normal kindergarten with no special assistance whatsoever and doing very well too.

She speaks in long sentences and has acquired the higher language skills like reasoning,predicting,bargaining and other creative things.She can keep quiet for 3 seconds at one time.Really!We once played  "who can stay quiet"  game in the car during a long drive because everybody need some break from her continuous chatter.She lasted 3 seconds max!
So before this I complained that she doesn't talk,now I complain that she doesn't stop.People say that she is making up for the silent years.I say that she is born to talk and so she talks.I also think that her enjoyment of talking is one of the reasons why she talks so well and catched up very fast with 2 languages.

Another skill that she acquired during the long semester break is riding a bike.She can now pedal and handle her bicycle nicely though still with training wheels.She couldn't pedal before because of her vestibular and proprioception issues but she can now.Guess what happened next?
She requested for a new bike of course!
Her current bike is still so new because she didn't ride before.But being a talker,she talked us into buying her a pink and purple Barbie princess bike with glitter.I don't even know if such thing exists.

So far we are having a good year and looking forward to many new and wonderful things ahead.The only thing is I can't really accept the fact that she'll be 5 years old this May.
How time flies...
Happy New Year !

p/s : and for her birthday she wanted an angry bird birthday cake.The bird must be a pink coloured girl bird with a ribbon on her head.Any ideas?

Two years of hearing (and nonstop talking )

So, Miss R celebrated her 2nd hearing birthday on September 15th.She was switched on at 2 years 4 month of age and has moved at lightning speed since.She learned to detect,discriminate,identify and imitate all Lings 6 sounds within 2 weeks of switch on and produced her first words at 3 weeks post switched on.She started combining words about 2 months post switch on and she achieved all these milestones with us struggling to keep the CI on her.She hated her CI initially.I really didn't understand it since she was learning so much and enjoying the sounds that she could now hear.I guess she must have enjoyed giving us a hard time then.

Now she enjoys both of her CIs and is a true chatterbox who never stops talking.The only times that I could enjoy some peace and quiet is when she is asleep (late) and napping (rarely). We still haven't tested her recent language skill though we suspect that she is already on par with her peers.It's a tricky thing since we don't have any form of formal testing and no norm in Malaysia where most children are multilingual.Miss R is bilingual with Malay as her first language and English her second.She is learning some mandarin in preschool but we are opting for extra English class in replacement of Mandarin class for next year.We'll just keep her bilingual at the moment.

She enjoys listening to music (something that I couldn't imagine before) and going to participate in talent time contest in December organised by Opus academy of music.All the preparation is being done by the dedicated teachers so I can't write much about this.We'll start her on an instrument (most likely piano) next year when she is more ready.

So,now she looks like other kids and does things that other 4 year olds do except that she has extra gadgets on her ears.Maybe soon I will teach her how to explain her CI to other people.

Now,the only area that needs a bit more adjusting is her social skills.She's fine in preschool and daycare with familiar people but she tends to be very shy with strangers or new people.She will need at least 20 minutes of warm up time before she starts talking.
It's really ok, but it's not fun for me especially when I want to show off my talking child and the miracle of CI to some new people and my chatterbox child decided to keep quite and ignore the person who is talking to her.I have no idea what motivates her to do this, probably only the sheer happiness of exasperating her mother.God knows.

Before, I couldn't stop thinking about her deafness.Now,it has become a non issue.She could hear and talk like other children.Putting on the CIs has become second nature like putting on shoes or socks.Something that  I couldn't imagine possible but is IS possible with a little bit of work and perseverance.

Cookies fun

Miss R is doing very well  with her hearing,speech and language development.So I'm constantly looking for new activities to do to give her rich language experiences.It helps that she loves story books so we could use the books to further enhance her vocabulary.It doesn't help that she normally have loads of homework every day so we have to spend a good portion of the night to finish them.When you're dealing with Miss R,you'll hear a thousand excuses of why she simply can't do the homework - My favourite would be the cat is watching her.I have no idea how a cat can disturb her by just watching from afar.


Anyway,with the Aidil Fitri holiday coming,we decided to make some cookies for her teachers.Here I must confess,I'm not actually a baking person.I cook ,but I just don't bake.I baked cakes before using pre mixed stuffs that come in a box ( hey,don't judge me!)
Anyhow, we made some following a recipe a found in a magazine. Rhianna loved playing with the dough ,decorating her cookies and of course learned many more new words.The cookies turned out a bit hard but Rhianna ate them saying they were nice ( probably because she made them).

No,of course those cookies didn't reach the teachers.We have plan B - store bought cookies (again,don't judge).At least this time I know the cookies taste nice and Rhianna still participated by making the cards to stick on the boxes.

So these are the cookies that made it to the teachers.We had fun and all is well.

They are family too!

We love our pets.They are troublesome for sure but they are entertaining.I grew up with cats,rabbits,hamsters,turtles and fish and now I think my daughter is following in my foosteps.

Meet rhianna's pets :

This is Sam.He was actually my cat but Rhianna claimed him as her own.He was a fat,grumpy cat with attitude but was always so gentle with her.I thought that he hated her for stealing all the attention ( he was the 'baby' before the real baby came) but I found them sleeping like this one day.So I guess he loved her in his own way or maybe he was trying to reclaim his position as the 'baby' in the family.One could only guess.Sadly,he passed away at the age of 10 of rich cat's disease (diabetes).We still miss him.

Meet Benben.He's the sweetest (though not the brightest) cat ever.After Sam's passing,he became the object of torture for Rhianna.He would let her do anything to him.What I love about Benben is that he is a willing model.Here, he was posing for a book that I made for Rhianna to teach her about preposition.All I need to do is put him somewhere and he'll pose.He's such a good sport (or maybe not very bright).

Agent Scully aka 'the wheel of blades'

She's called Scully because she's smart and nosy.She investigates every moving things and every sound that she hears.She's also good at being invisible (a smart cat will acquire this skill to survive living with an active child)The photo is blurred because she hates people getting too close to her.If you try to cuddle her,she'll turn into 'the wheel of blades' and you might get hurt.She's the only pet that escapes Rhianna's torture.She's smart remember?

This is Spots - the baby eaters.She got the guppies from her playgroup with other CI kids.They were working on pets theme so everybody got to bring back the fish.She has 4 guppies- all named Spots (go figure).I love to watch them but I get stuck with the cleaning as the rightful owner is too young to do so.They are baby eaters seriously.One of the females was super pregnant and one day she was flat but no baby fish was seen anywhere.It disturbed me for days.I have 5 baby guppies from previous breeding though.

Nemo - the demonic fish

She's orange so she's Nemo according to Miss R.Another fish acquired through pets theme,this time from her preschool.And again,I get stuck with cleaning the tank.If you wonder why Nemo is alone,it is because she is super territorial or perhaps demonic.I tried giving her a partner twice but both times she bit the males to death.So alone she is as she prefers to be.

So these are our pets which enrich our lives in so many ways.They provide my daughter with so many language learning directly and indirectly.They teach her to care for animals and the responsibilities of a pet owner.Ok,she is still learning in the second area.

p/s : there was also Kiki the stray cat who adopted us as his family.He was a free spirited cat who later became a victim of hit and run.We still remember him with love.

She's four! (How did that happen??)

So, she turned four on May 13th and we decided to party,party,party! She browsed the net with me and selected the cake that she wanted to bring to preschool.


Well, it's pink with a picture of the princesses (What more can a girl ask for?)



With her preschool friends (yes,they only have that many children in the school and maybe 5 more not in the photo)

 They played games,sang songs,ate the cake and had a lot of fun.When I picked her up,she was very chatty and telling me all about her party not knowing that we had another one waiting for her at the daycare.



Another party after naptime with her daycare friends



With a cupcake of her own choosing


And later in the evening another party with friends and family (I said party,party,party - so we actually had 3 parties)




Cake ordered and sponsored by a friend of mine- totally amazing!



The trio - The only children in our close circle of friends


And finally the unveiling of the mysterious gift that was kept hidden for the past one month.We saw her drooled over this thing in the store and decided to get it for her birthday and also to celebrate the 'birth' of her new 'ear'.She knew this thing is (damn) expensive and didn't even (dare) ask for it.



Behold the Rosebud dollhouse or the Pink House as Rhianna calls it.



Inside view of the Pink house.It has three floors including the attic

 We only got her the bedroom,living room and kitchen furniture so the house is still quite empty.We plan to do some reward system to get her to work more on her new ear and 'earn' more furnitures for her pink house.Hope it will work out and motivate her to do more therapy.See,we never spend money unecessarily.All her toys were carefully selected and geared towards therapy.

So,that's her birthday story.Yes, she was thoroughly spoiled for the day after all you only turned four once!

Rapunzel's hair cut

Rhianna has always had long hair.After she watched the movie Tangled,she insisted that she be called Rapunzel.Recently however,her language developed more.With more language,come more ideas.With more ideas come reasoning ability.All these combined with a stubborn child resulted in a hair cut.

I love her long silky hair.She needs the long hair.Really.She's very active and a bit tomboyish so she needs the long hair to keep some girlish element.Also,I used to braid her hair tightly over the magnet piece to keep them from falling off everytime she went for her OT sessions or to the playground.

For the last few weeks however she started asking me for a hair cut.Reasons being:

1.All her classmates have short hair (except one girl but she didn't mention that,little stinker).
2.Short hair is cute (?)
3.Her name is actually Rhianna not Rapunzel (really?)
4.Everybody she knows has short hair (I'm not so sure about that)

Anybody who knows this child knows that there is no point in arguing with her.
So here are the pictures.

Setting up the length.She wanted short short!Mommy said not too short please!So we compromised on shoulder length

She wanted short bangs too

Posing with her 'cute' short hair

Again at home with her 'cute' short hair.Notice the fake butterfly tattoo on her arms? She's a future diva I told ya!

School's over!

School holiday program is over.I'm sure Rhianna will miss her teachers and friends.I know I will miss sending her in the morning,singing in the car and seeing her grinning face in the afternoon.
She always came back with many new words and songs and of course with many interesting art and craft to show off.

Fruit platter from "the wonder of fruits" week.We made a real fruit platter and she is more willing now to try out new fruits no matter how weird they look like.

Her banana tree - notice the monkey? She was saying a rhyme about monkey and banana tree that she learned in a different class.I'm glad to see that she is generalizing more things that she has learned into daily activities

Silly looking penguin from "the antartica" week.She doesn't even know where Malaysia is but she can point to the antartica on the map.

 

The children made all the ornaments on the tree.It looks beautiful and they enjoyed the activity.

She told me that Teacher 'Posh' painted her face.The teacher's name is NOT Posh so I have no idea why she nicknamed her Posh.Maybe the teacher looks posh in Rhianna's eyes?




So we're now officially on school holidays until next year when the new semester starts.I can't wait to see what the new year will bring for her...until then,I have to find ways to keep her busy and entertained for two loooong weeks.

The ecosystem and the endangered species..

Rhianna has finished one week of holiday camp where the 3 -4 year old got to learn about the ecosystem and the endangered species..When I heard about the theme I wasn't quite sure..can a 3 year old understand this?...many of the adults still don't get it.How else do you explain animal poaching and illegal logging and other stuffs.

But the school made it easy and fun for them.Rhianna came back every day with tons of new words and many pretty crafts to show off.

Learning about the food chain..who eat who...Obviously human eat fish like Rhianna demonstrated here..I wonder if she'll take more fish in her meals now?

They also learn about farm animals and their purposes and also domestic animals.Let's hope that she wont start holding our already tortured and extremely patient cat like that.

Here,she's showing off her new knowledge about panda bear habitat,food and other stuff.She was telling me that panda bear eat bamboo..(with " I cant believe you dont know this" look)

Here is the life cycle of a butterfly (or something like that).They got to see the real catterpilar,coccon and butterfly and scrutinize them under a magnifying glass.I really hope that those creatures survived under the 3 year old hands..yikes.

So it was a really good language experience.She managed to get more new words (much more than I dared hope),learn a couple of new songs,make new friends...most importantly,she absolutely
 enjoyed herself!

Next week's theme : The wonder of fruits

A fun experience !

Rhianna participated in a colouring contest during the official launching of WQ Park Rehab Center today (the place where she receives her many therapies - http://www.wqpark.com.my ).She didn't belong in any age category since she is only 3 so they put her in the 4-6 years old group.Seriously,I was just expecting a few random scribbles here and there but I just let her joined in the fun.

She needed some prompting from the art therapist but she basically chose her colours and managed everything quite independantly.

This is what she produced..woohoo! Notice parts of the picture is unfinished..well she's only 3 years old so her attention span only allow her that much.

She received a consolation prize for her effort (believe me, it took a lot of effort to finish that much..she yawned multiple times but still persevered)

It was a fun experience for her plus she got a cute mickey mouse pencil case and many other goodies to bring back home!


P/S : the boy in red cap is her current best friend