Back to the Grind

I hope you all had a safe and Happy New Year. We didn't do much this year. Tom's Mom and Cal (Grandma and Pap Pap) came down to visit. Tom made a wonderful dinner with fresh and local ingredients. I will have to tell you more about it later.

Today is the first day back to school for the kids. And we don't have a nurse today, so I'm on duty. The house was a little crazy this morning but it feels good to be getting back into a routine.

Lately I have been giving Harlie a choice between wearing her PMV or cap. With her PMV she inhales through the trach, but exhales through her mouth/nose. With the cap she inhales AND exhales through her mouth/nose (EXCITING!). And she chooses the cap every time!!

She also said she wanted to wear her BAHA in class. We are really making progress in terms of devices.

Although I forgot to tell you that the FM wire system we worked for weeks/months to get was lost after the very first week. On The last day of school prior to the Christmas break, her hearing impaired teacher went to put it on her and the connection piece wasn't on her aid. I didn't realize that it could even come off! So, at some point between Thursday after school and Friday at 8am, it fell off. I can't remember if it was on there Friday morning when I put her aid on. Which kind of tells me it WAS there, otherwise I would have seen it looked different. I went back and retraced our steps, but couldn't find it. It is beige and very small. So now we have to get a new one. Ugh. Until then she goes without the system.

So, over the break Cooper really surprised us. I've been meaning to tell you that they have started to have their own conversations.

One day they wanted to play with the same toy. Harlie said "mine" and then Cooper said "mine" and they went back and forth until they both busted out laughing. I realized that it was their very first verbal conversation and I wonder if they realized it too since they laughed.

Since then they've had several similar conversations with words like my turn, and lights on/lights off.

One day Harlie signed that she wanted to watch A Bug's Life. We walked into the playroom, where Cooper was playing, and started to put the movie in the player. Cooper had his back to us and said "Mommy, I want to watch Scooby Doo" and then Harlie said, "No, uhuhuhuh." she was saying bug, but didn't have her PMV or cap on, so you couldn't tell that's what she was saying. But then Cooper said, "okay, I'll watch A Bug's Life." What?! I couldn't believe it!

Then, the kicker... Harlie was in the dining room, and Cooper was in the kitchen, two separate rooms, and Harlie was sitting in front of the computer telling me something she wanted. But I couldn't understand her. So I said (after many attempts to understand),"Harlie, I don't know what you want, you're going to have to get your talker." and then Cooper yelled from the other room, "Mommy, she wants to watch Pocoyo!" WHAT?!?! So I asked her if that's what she wanted and she said yeah.

Isn't that crazy?

I'm still floored. I mean, I know siblings help translate for siblings, but this is incredible! If you could have heard her grunts, you would NEVER have gotten Pocoyo out of it. And he was so confident. It wasn't like he was saying she might want Pocoyo. Crazy!

Okay, that's it for now. We're in her hearing impaired class now, so I want to watch. I will write more later.

Thanks!
~Christy