The forgotten birthday

It's been three years since activation day. We had our ups and downs in this hearing journey. But it's been very interesting. Rhianna never fails to amaze me with her verbal abilities and her never ending chatter.Her listening skills are pretty awesome too.

We actually forgot her hearing birthday until the day arrived. Luckily, we had planned to take her to watch the Hi5 show the next day.Yes, the Hi5 people were here for three days live show. Rhianna saw the advertisements and went crazy.She loooves Hi5 and she'd spend hours watching their dvd if I'd let her. So we thought why not...let's get those tickets and dance with Hi5.

So she was on her best behaviour the whole week,doing her homework , reading her books and ticking off the calender in anticipation of the big day. It was very funny.

The show was fun and interactive and the children loved it. Rhianna enjoyed the dance and the songs immensely and didn't have any problem with the sound system whatsoever which amazed me. I guess in the end, watching the show was a pretty good way of celebrating her hearing birthday.
The avid fan got to watch her favourite group performing on stage. Mom and dad got to giggle at the amazed look on her face and got to marvel over and over again at the life changing technology called cochlear implant.

Five in the air..let's do it together 

Before the show 

She loves the shirt 

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.

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.

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!

thank you all!

Rhianna received mountains of wonderful presents for her birthday.All carefully selected by these wonderful people, friends and family.Most of them asked beforehand about what would be suitable to give a 3 year old girl with CI.So, as much fun as these toys seem to be,they are super functional for therapy (and mum can stop cracking her head looking for new therapy ideas!)

 Just received this one - Strawberry shortcake's berry cafe.Oh, and she got to choose it herself too(approved by mum of course).Thank you Shera!

  She got a magnetic writing board where she tirelessly practices writing the alphabets,numbers and finally drawing a face! The things sticking out on the sides are ears (well, that's what she told me!)

Of course we had to make many  many  thank you cards.Thank you all! We love the presents!!

Entering the preschool years-another party!

Rhianna turned 3 on may 13th and we had a cupcake party in her music class.Then,last Sunday (16th may) we had another party with friends and family.She got heaps of beautiful presents and a cute teddy bear cake.

When she was getting ready earlier she got very excited to know that it was her bday party,she couldn't sit still.And then she was very happy to see the mountains of presents for her but was quite shy from all the attention.

We all ate and the kids played games.
We sang the birthday song 3 times to make up for the years that she couldn't hear..but she got impatient with all the singing and no actions (c'mon,let's cut the cake already!)

Later she opened her presents (more photos to post)and ate more cakes.Yes,she had trouble sleeping that night from all the excitement (and sugar she consumed!)..but we were happy.


Singing 'happy birthday' 3 times to make up for the silent years


A teddy bear in pink tutu..how's that for a birthday cake!Rhianna said "bear!..no,cake..no,bear!"


playing games with friends.She didn't win any but enjoyed herself and got many stickers!


What?Another picture?She was quite shy from all the attention.Rhianna with Aisha (mama gee's sister who's always ready to babysit)

 Playing with her best friend Mia (5 years old)

  Mama Gee,the designated camerawoman who's always hiding behind her viewcam

The superdads hiding away watching sports while keeping an eye on their kids

Happy birthday big girl !

May 13th 2010 is Rhianna's 3rd birthday!We decided to give her a big party since this is the first time she's gonna hear people singing happy birthday to her.The last 2 years she didn't have access to sound..(so sad..when I think about it now).And now that she's 3 and entering preschool years, she can understand and appreciate things better so it's gonna be fun for her.

We had one party with cupcakes for 10 of her little friends in the music class today.She was sooo happy but a bit shy from all the attention that she got from her friends and their mummies.She received some presents from her friends (already opened and enjoyed!).
she was still singing the birthday song until her bedtime..

What she didn't really know is that, there'll be another party on Sunday at Mc Donald's with her school friends and many of her favourite aunties and uncles.There'll be more wonderful presents for her to enjoy (and for mom to utilize for therapy purposes!)..I can't wait! I'm probably more excited than she is.


We started the night before by 'bling'ing up her ear!


Cupcakes for friends and teachers!


Rhianna's friends -bless their little hearts (and their mummies')for accepting Rhianna and looking beyond her CI



birthday greetings from a friend