The Nine Hour Trip

Yesterday was a long day, but mostly fun! We went to our nine a.m. appointment at the audiologist's office for Gage's mapping but it takes an hour and a half to get there. We knew the day would start off great, just the two of us, rockin' out to Kid Rock, ACDC, whatever he wanted to hear. Now I will say this, he recognizes these songs by their music much quicker than I do and I'm hearing (he has one ci), I usually need the lyrics. After the mapping which took almost an hour due to having to stop...chitchatting w/him...remind him to LISTEN..."I am, I hear them all" he says...he just forgot to TELL us! Okay, back to the story, I fell my "cool points" going up as our day progressed, our music got louder, we were rockin'. We moms know how we can lose cool points in a matter of mintues with these guys especially as they age, but this day was going good so far. We took a break from our cute little pregnant audiologist who either dreads or looks forward to our visits (who knows)? They can be draining sometimes, but we usually get some funny story that comes out of Gage's mouth that can be retold over and over again...sure to make someone else laugh, so usually it's all worth it. He was starving so we meandered to another city nearby ( a shopper's dream ) and had lunch. We had almost three hours to kill before we were expected back at the audio's office. Gage unfortunately chose Micky D's (as always) so that's where we ate, and he anticipated the adventures that waited behind him.

Now we moms to these ci kiddos sometimes make them take their processors off due to static concerns. Well, the downside to this is they never look at us when they go into these contraptions, and they can't hear us calling their name or flapping our arms around like an owl about to take flight. Very convenient I might add. I usually find a kid whose willing to climb up and ask Gage to follow them down. This time, I decided I was going to have Gage be more responsible. The other day we went to a water park as you may have read from the previous entry. I saw one little boy talking to Gage but Gage wasn't looking at the boy so it ended w/this eight year old kid thinking Gage was being rude or not friendly because he wanted Gage to be on his "team" as he put it, however Gage walked away. I decided that while we were eating, I'd prep him a bit. I told him about what had happened at the water park, and that he might could prevent some of that if he told people upfront that he can't hear when he's not wearing his processor, they would most likely understand and would realize that you're not rude or that you're not wanting to play. He agreed and went off to play after he crammed the last eleven fries into his mouth at once.
The play area had maybe five other kids there. After he'd been in there maybe two minutes I hear a little boy saying in an elevated voice "he can't hear w/out his hearing aid....mom!...Mom! he can't hear without this hearing aid" and I just grinned, knowing Gage had decided to handle the situation. The little boy ran back inside and twenty minutes later, I had to pry Gage away from there. I had to grab hold of him since he likes to avoid facial contact in times of "I'm happy NOT hearing you!!" I won him over with the fact we needed to go buy new school shoes. He jumped in the car and off we went. We stopped at one store, but he didn't see any Nike's he liked or anything that really appealed to him. So I offered to take him to another store where he found the coolest shoes ever! Perfect for him, since he's kinda close to the police now. They say S.W.A.T. and Police and they light up like police cars. They are Sketchers by the way.


After that we, went back to the audio's office for an integrity test. This was his final one and they still find nothing wrong w/his internal piece. It's quick painless and easy...but glad we don't have to do those anymore. We only opted for that since he's a special case anyway, having all the malformations, and having his device inserted a different way. He had like two electrodes shut down at once like a year ago and as precaution we called in the experts for integrety testing. We finally made it home at 4:30 after leaving at 7:00 am that morning, ugh..I was tired, hungry, and ready for bed (which I so lovingly crawled into at 8:00-don't laugh, I'm an early bird in the mornings)
I have more to blog really, but will have to wait, I sometimes get carried away w/my posting and they get too lenghty so I'll do a seperate post later.