Bilateral joy

I don't post here as much as I would like to.Mostly because I don't have much to report about the Girl's progress...or maybe there is too much to report that I don't know where to start.

I remember thinking before her second implant that it's gonna be hard to take care of two equipments,training the new ear and maybe dealing with her resistance towards the new implant.

It turned out,she loves her new implant and the new ear needs very little training and is now almost as good as the old one performance wise.Taking care of two equipments needs a bit adjusting but is nothing compared to the joy of having a bilateral child.
Every night when I take off her processors I have this sense of joy and contentment knowing that she has bilateral hearing.

I know she loves her two 'ears'.If you tell her that she can only wear one processor,she'll tell you that she wants BOTH of them!
Believe me, I tried. Last month at the beach I thought that it would be too troublesome/risky to let her wear two processors to the beach,take them off to swim and put them back again to play in the sand.So I told her we'd only take one and she grumbled the whole time there.

She now speaks with better articulation.She still occasionally struggles with some difficult sounds but she is mostly age appropriate articulation wise.She's learning to localise sound and her incidental language learning is phenomenal.
She sings all the time.It still takes her some time to learn a song but I like the the fact that she now asks me to explain every new song or rhyme phrase by phrase.It is now not enough for her to just memorise a song,she wants to understand it.

She's doing wonderfully at preschool.She counts to one hundred and she can write them too.She reads simple words,writes her own name and knows all the phonic sounds.She's learning to add and substract.She has many friends and she loves being there.

It never fail to amaze me that she's doing all this wonderful things at just under 2 years of being implanted and I thank god every night for his wonderful gift - this beautiful child of mine.

Singing

My child talks and sings all the time..seriously.Recently,she started sleeping with her processor on so that she can sing herself to sleep.Every night as soon as I switched off the light,she will start her medley of songs.She will sing all the nursery rhymes over and over again and she sometimes change the words to make the songs sound silly and funny...then she'd giggle over her clever words.I often have to tell her to close her eyes AND her mouth and go to sleep.I tried taking off her processor and yet she still sings with or without her 'ear'.Very funny.

I've noticed that she learns songs faster now and her tunes are much more accurate.This may be the result of her weekly music class or maybe she just listens better now.

Last weekend when I was cooking in the kitchen and she was also 'cooking' and feeding her mickey mouse, I heard her telling mickey to eat the vegetables.It was very funny listening to her telling mickey that vege taste good and it's not hot or spicy so mickey should at least try it.Later on when she refused her vege,I told her the same thing using her own words and she smiled sheepishly.

Just now when she was playing with my friend's daughter after dinner,the adults were laughing at the fact that the deaf child is talking more than the hearing child.

It has been an amazing journey to get here to this place we're at and I'm looking forward to share more amazing moments with my amazing girl.

Learning to read

This is Rhianna reading her favourite story book at 13 months hearing age.She had no prior access to sound before her left CI was switched on and used signs and gestures to communicate.She's currently emerging into 2-3 words level.
Though her speech and language is still delayed,she has progressed and continues progressing at an amazing speed.
She is currently attending speech therapy,occupational therapy,reading class and music class and enjoying every moment of it.


p/s: Sorry,I'll put the video caption as soon as I figure out how .

The Ice cream story

  

                                         Enjoying her ice cream..

                                           Do you want some?


This is the ice cream story..
Haunted by guilt for working so hard these few days,Mom decided to take Rhianna out for ice cream during lunch break.

Mom: Let's get some ice cream.
R      : Ice cream?
Mom :Yes.Do you want ice cream?
R       : (nodded excitedly)
Mom  : I love you
R        : I love you, mommy

After she got the ice cream..

R      : Thank you, mommy
Mom:  You're welcome. I love you
R      : I love you, ice cream
Mom : what??
R       : (squealed with laughter)
Mom : Do you love mommy or ice cream?
R       : Ice cream.Hmmm..ice cream sedap (delicious)


Oh well...mom is neither edible nor sedap like the ice cream.But the language,reasoning ability and sense of humor isn't too bad for 10 months hearing age.So mom is still glad.

9 months hearing and another ear coming her way

As the months passed by,I found myself more relaxed and more able to enjoy the time with my daughter.I'm no longer counting the hearing hours each day,or calling the nursery during my working hours to see whether my child is wearing her CI or not.
 Rhianna is hearing well with her CI and she knows it.Sure,from time to time she needs rest from the device but she likes it on most of the time.And her speech and language is blooming very well..she's consistently stringing words into phrases though some words are still approximation.

What amazes me most is how well she can listen in noise..just the other day she was standing about 2 meters behind me while I was doing dishes and she was able to answer my questions with all the kitchen noise.And best of all,she can now tell me when a sound is too loud for her.
Last couple of Sunday,we were at the Aquaria watching the fish feeding session and a man was talking on the mic.Rhianna came to me and said "tak nak (pointing to the CI),bising"..(dont want,noisy).So I switched it off for a while until the announcement was over...so no more struggle for both of us.

Though our principle is mainly AVT,we still teach her some signs and lip reading skill and she has gotten really good at these skills which she uses when not wearing her CI.One of my friend was very surprised to see her following instructions and answering questions via lip reading alone and suggested that we test her hearing again,in case she has regained her hearing somehow.How I wish that!..but nope.Last we checked,she's still not responding at any frequency even with her HA on..well she used to have 80dB for 250hz but even that is gone now.

So next week,we're going to empty our piggy bankS and make the RM 58K payment (yikes!) for her new ear and schedule the surgery.Hopefully,she'll get more benefit being a bilateral CI user..

Shopping!

Wednesday is Rhianna's reading class day.As I was picking her up today I overheard the teacher complimenting another child telling the parent how well he can read.Having no experience with any hearing impaired child,I don't think the teacher fully understand yet about what kind of adjustments that she needs to do or what kind of progress to expect even.So she didn't comment much about Rhianna.

As I was driving back with Rhianna,I kept thinking whether I made the right decision sending her there.Is it too soon?Can she cope?Will she progress there or will she be stressed up unnecessarily?Suddenly I noticed Rhianna was rummaging into her bag.She sorted out the books, picked one up, pointed and said "SHOPPING!" I can tell you I was grinning like an idiot the whole drive home.

The story didn't end there though.Once home, we showed daddy the book and again Rhianna read "shopping".Then she opened the pages and start saying "ice-cream,toothpaste,peas,eggs,apples" while pointing to the written words(reading or memorising,who cares!).Now daddy and mommy both were grinning like a couple of idiots and Rhianna gave us the "I know these words,so what??" look and left us to find her dolls.



Rhianna's work..how cute is that.Very funny!

Imagine that!

As Rhianna grows older (she'll be 3 very soon!)she's becoming cheekier,naughtier and brattier.Today she was asking me for sweets and I told her no.She kept on saying 'nak sweets,nak sweets' on and on (I think just to irritate me).Just when I turned away, I heard an evil laugh "hahahaha".She had quietly taken the sweets from my handbag and doing the evil laugh.What a brat!
Anyway,I let her have the sweets because she pronounced the /h/ sound properly.

It's funny to see how she's starting to use all the sounds that she heard other people use.It might not be a big deal for other children but for a deaf child to hear and comprehend the purpose of these sounds is really amazing.

Some of the sounds she uses to express her emotions are "yucks" when she sees vegetables (or anything green for that matter),"whoops" when she drops something (or accidentally wet her pants!),"eeee" when something's dirty and "shhhh!" when she's watching tv and mommy talks too much.Imagine that!

Go figure!

Rhianna is recovering from an episode of cough and cold.She's being very picky about her food and all she wants to eat is cake..so I decided to teach her all the words and phrases related to the cake."Cut the cake","bake the cake", "blow the candles"..she can even sing the 'happy birthday' song.So she can pretty much understand and say them all...all but the very word CAKE.
Everytime I ask her what she'd like to have,she'll say "happy birthday to you".Try as I might to get her to say the simple one syllable word "CAKE"...she still prefers the multi syllabic phrases "happy birthday to you"...Go figure!

simply amazing

One morning..

Rhianna : Kiki come! (calling the cat)
Kiki : meow..(stretching his body)
Rhianna : Kiki come,come (gesturing for the cat to come)
Kiki : meow..(moves lazily towards Rhianna)
Rhianna :Kiki mamam (pushing the food bowl to Kiki)
Kiki :(starts eating)
Rhianna :Sedap?Sedap?
Kiki :(ignoring Rhianna,continues eating)
Rhianna :Kiki air,air (pushing Kiki's head towards the water bowl)
At this point,mommy intervenes (to prevent Kiki from drowning)

It's wonderful to watch this girl talking.This girl that couldn't hear a thing just 7 months ago ( let alone talk ) is now becoming such a chatterbox.Chatting even to the cat who wont answer back.Simply amazing.