Watch Out Kindergarten!

Do you see the look on her face? That says it all, good luck to her future Kindergarten teacher! We want to wish my mother a happy birthday today. Brook has collected some random items and put them in a bag to give to her when we see her Saturday so Nanny, prepare yourself. I won't give it away but I'll just tell you, consider these items from the heart since she picked these up off of her bedroom floor (after I threatened to throw them away-they've been there for days now) so to save them from going to in the trash, she remembered that her dear grandmother may want these items for her birthday *smile*. They also left Nanny a message this morning and Brook mailed her a letter in the mail which she did receive today.

I emailed the kids' Teacher of the Deaf and asked her to deliver their FMs to the school during that first week so I can take Gage's with me to get it adjusted to his new processors so he can use them in class. He'll go without it that first week but the following Monday has an audio appt. so he'll be using it after that. I have signed on to substitute teach at three schools now...the special ed preschool (my favorite!), the elementary school, and THE HIGH SCHOOL! Am I insane, yes! But why not try? I had not even thought of it but when they called to ask yesterday I couldn't find an excuse to say 'no' so I gave them the thumbs up! I'm very excited and to all you teachers around here, give a girl a call! Otherwise, I'll be sitting here, by myself (which would be great one or two days a week, but not all week long!)...and I get to peek in on my kids if I'm at the elementary school. I've told the kids that since they are both bilateral, if they have equipment issues that they themselves can't fix, have the teacher call me. If I'm not available they'll have to remove the processor in question and wear the one til after school when I can fix it (if I'm in another location). I've ordered some extra cases from Cochlear to keep their tape/batteries in and should they have issues, they can put the processor inside the case which will stay in their book bag. Whew, I'm more nervous about me starting school than them! Wish me luck, we're down to just over a week now!

Oh, the excitement!

We no longer live on a dirt road ! We were so excited that rumors were true. Pavers were

spotted on these country roads and first thing this morning, they blessed us with some pavement!

Brook has a new baby (thank you Nanny!) and I think that's six or seven kids now?? Let's see there's ; Emma, Mary JanG, Tiki, Hunter, Killme (don't ask!), and Ally (I think that's it?) She was interrupting Gage's CMT (country music television) videos this morning (he goes from AC/DC to Rascal Flatts), he had no interest in country music prior to his bilaterals...I have only a couple of country songs I'll listen to (not a huge fan) but anyway, Brook wanted him to play babies...but he had no interest so he politely told her, "Brook, I can't play with you and your babies, I might scare them since I have a small mustache now." What? is he dreaming? Anyway, she took her babies elsewhere to work on their speech sounds, and I could hear them ah-ing and oo-ing all through the house. Keep up the good work B! And I'm super excited that we are down to exactly two weeks til school starts. She'll get out at 11:30 that first week, but after that, it's all day baby!

De-coiled

Today Brook got de-coiled (if that makes sense) in a grocery store parking lot, rough-housing with a friend of ours. The kids stayed in the car with their daddy while I ran in the store to pick up a couple of items. When I came out, Gage was being held in the air side-ways and I could see our friend Daniel who had pulled up near our car. He's moving to our small town soon and we just happen to run into him today. As I put my items in the trunk Brook, in a very shakey-almost crying voice, says "Mama, Daniel punched me." ( I refer to that as being dramatic, my princess doesn't lie!) She only said that 'cause he was just playing around with her and her cochlear implant fell off and the coil became detached (can be easily reattached) and she thought it was broken. Daniel, also afraid it was broken claims, "uh, I don't know how that happened" (it was definitely his fault, lol).
We were in town today to visit our good friends Kate, Jonathan, Walker (on the far left) and his new little sister Amelia. We were so glad to finally meet her. You see Brook couldn't keep her hands off of her! Me either! My mind was racing of ways to sneak her home with us....would she fit in purse? she was too big for my pocket...could we pretend she was one of Brook's dolls and maybe they'd never know? Uh no! Big brother Walker was keeping his eyes on her. And when the thought of her waking me up twice in the night for a bottle entered my brain, I decided we'd leave her for now. Actually I'm not the one they need to watch, it's Brook! Love those little "G"s! Can't wait to see them again.

For Your Entertainment

Just in case you're wondering, this is how you clean a bedroom...do a junk angel! Very similar to a snow angel only you do it in the bedroom on horribly stained carpet. Works wonders and saves you from punishment!

As usual, the Blakely adults were treated to a performance this afternoon from the Blakely juvies. We heard B-I-N-G-O and we also heard the original song "The Rat and Harry". Sorry, I ran out of batteries so I had to snap photos from my cell (I sooooo wanted video, lol).

Gage decided that Brook's homemade maracas were not good enough so

big brother wanted to build her a drum. Yes, we've owned a real drum before but here at the Blakely's everything is just better made by hand. When she tried it out, he knew it needed some modification, so he added some more "plates" or tums, whatever you want to call it. My kids have turned into quite the musicians, to be cochlear implant recipients.

I asked Gage "Have you ever talked about making your own instruments before in school?" Because he did this on his own, no advice, not one bit of help! I was curious because he knew to elevate the sound boards so that it would make a sound rather than just banging on objects (I would have just taken some sheets of paper and pretended they made sound probably). So I had to ask...he looks up very confused at such an inquiry and says "Which school, medical school?"

Oh, and on a side note, not only do we charge baby Emma's ci batteries, we also have to put them in the dry n store (all out of various objects of similar size and shape)...talk about some imaginations...but we're NEVER bored.

This day in July

If you look closely, you'll see that "baby Emma" has chosen her bilateral Cochlear processors today. Sometimes she wears ci's from other companies such as Lego (surely you knew Legos had a hearing aid line out now! lol) or even Sharpie has been known to lend their ink to some pretty amazing designs as well.

What to do on a rainy day....how about you throw on a swim suit and some rubber boots and push trucks thru the field, or just throw on a coat in 90 degree heat and ride bikes.....

I will give you this piece of advice....don't let you kids watch COPS the tv show....EVER! Whew, talk about a language opportunity. If you want to add some colorful vocabulary then go right ahead...luckily we escaped all the explanations for today, but I did find the kids doing this......Gage said she stole something.

Today we went to AEI's (Alabama Ear Institute) Summer Institute. Which is when they do therapy and borrow the kids for the sessions so that up and coming AVTs can get some real therapy time in before their certification. We had a good day and will do a full report on the Bama Ears blog in August on that.

And just to throw this in, Gage found a solution yesterday to his hat/coil issue he was having. He just put the coil on the outside of the hat.
And also got Gage's approval for his skin lesion surgery for his right cheeck to have that place removed off of his face. Yea! Don't have a date yet for that but hopefully will soon.

OUCH!!!!

First, Gage was being mean to her the other day after she didn't obey her orders he'd given her and I heard him say "you sound weird without your implants, you say Gay instead of Gage, you talk louder, and your voice is just different." Ugh!

Siblings!! So she attempted today to get him back by faking her deafness. Yeah, you heard me, faking. She walked into his room, after carefully pulling her hair all around her ears, and began to over exaggerate her facials, talk a little different, but she didn't fool him for a second! He says "I know you can hear me." Anyway, tomorrow, so excited to visit the AEI Summer Institute AVT therapy session. You'll get the full report on Bama Ears later on.

Tonight, I wanted to demonstrate to my husband that Brook could still hear very faintly out of one ear, yet not the other...post ci surgeries. I lean down and yell in her ear, "Brook" and she laughs and says "Boo". I do the other ear and nothing. Gage had to have his turn and I started to tell him "you don't even have ear canals" but when I saw the look on his face, I did the same for him. He had no clue. **smile** Anyway, this was happening as Brook was getting ready for bed, she says to me, "I want you Mama," which is her usual, last verbals for the night. I pick the beautiful, and HEAVY child up, to get my good night kisses and carry her to her bed (no matter how frail and broken my back may be in a few years) and she leans in.....(I'm gleaming with the love I'm about to receive) and it happens.....

she creams in my ear "Boo" right down into the canal, and I'm fighting my tears back...(oh yea, it was painful) and I loving place her in the bed. After all, I deserve it, and she has no idea that it's harmful to those who can actually still hear. I got what I deserved. OUCH!

Magazine Cover Stars....

We got the copies of Drum from Cochlear Europe. They are on the cover and on the inside as well. I think it's so cool! Cochlear Europe (for those of you in the UK) have a community connections section on their website where you can join their Cochlear Club, the magazine goes out to those who join. I have to say, I'm jealous. It's actually a really nice magazine that's all about cochlear implant stuff, wish we had that here! The photos used were from last year's beach trip.

A Controlled Fire

What a treat! To continue with yesterday's language lesson on fire safety...the kids got to witness a rare "controlled fire" the local fire dept. was doing near my parents' house this morning. Gage had his customized rescue truck with us, and we sat in the neighbor's drive way while we watched and learned. They were burning an old house down the street and all the firemen gathered on the lawn to learn as they purposely set the place on fire. Too bad we couldn't hear, but this is about as close to another house fire as we want to get anyway.

The 1 1/2 hr conversation

We just got home from a quick trip (we were gone for 5 hrs but mapped Gage's processors and gave B an aided hearing test) to the audiologist's office. We could have been back a little sooner but we stopped by my dad's to wish him a happy birthday and let him buy us lunch (kinda reverse I know but that's just how it works with him!). I just ran thru McDonald's drive thru because that's what everyone wanted while Gage stayed with PawPaw. As I finished my order, Brook had been very quiet (unusally) as she patiently waited for them to repeat the order back. As I listened to the three happy meals and dad's combo repeated back, I opened my mouth to say "correct" but before I could get the word out Brook shouted, "WE WANT NAPKINS TOO!!!"Sorry McDonald's lady! Anyway, Happy Birthday to PawPaw Kenneth!!

And the picture above is from the audiologist's office, when we realized Gage had worn two different shoes. But nothing really surprises our audiologist anymore, she's just glad he had on shoes I'm sure and that I brought both kids since they both had appointments. Two out of two kids behaved the whole time. Gage sort of lost it (ADHD kicked in)when she got to the volume part. He wasn't focused, couldn't give her clear answers and mostly said "It's okay, it's okay!" but when she turned them on....he clearly got upset. He cried, he quickly flicked his coils off, and buried his head in his hands and sobbed for a minute. He was embarrassed he got upset, but she turned it waaaay down, until it was not painful, and he was happy!

Very easy trip for the hour and a half drive there. Gage asked one question which sparked the single conversation that lasted an hour and a half. I use to dream of three sentence conversations with my kids and now I'm lucky (but glad for the most part) if we get any story completed in under three minutes let alone three sentences. There will come a day as they continue to age that I dream of those three sentences again but may have to settle for one word answers I know.

The one question was, "Hey Mama, how did our house catch on fire?" I realized that though she may have heard the story before, she likely didn't know fire safety like Gage does since he remembers it. She was only six months old and he was three. I had this on my mind the night before actually when their daddy had to work the graveyard shift and Brook slept with me. As she lied on the pillow, her eyes were shut but her freckles glared loudly at me. I traced my finger across her lids, across her little nose, loving that she could find peace in all the noise outside our house. I knew the coyotes were back, my dogs angrily growled but I heard fear in their barks, knowing they were out-numbered by the wild animals. They found safety on my front porch, outside my bedroom window. I thought to myself something Gage had told me earlier in the day as he had watched his little sister swim..."I wish I could hear with my ears, like in the pool and in the shower." I told him that in certain situations, it was a blessing he can't hear at night. I told him how many nights I get little sleep due to all the noises and wild animals that keep me from peaceful slumber. I watched him settle for the answer and it now bothered me as I watched Brook sleep. I told myself as I was both envious of her doze, and fearful at the same time, that as long as her dad and I were around to take care of them, I wouldn't have to worry so much about them not hearing at all times. (I know there are products for the deaf that can warn them of danger and such, but I was a tired mom, just loving her babies in the present and right now we don't have such products, they're on my to-do list.) Just the day before our dishwasher plug got too hot and had to be replaced after it completely melted. Any little thing can spark a memory from that day five years ago when our house caught fire. So as I gave Gage a positive response, I can't imagine not hearing at all. I tried to tell my heart and brain to stop tormenting me, stop this nonsense and go to sleep. At this point, the coyotes are no longer keeping me awake, my own thoughts were. I found it a little ironic that Gage ask such a question when it had been on mind for most of the night.

I began by asking what would he do if he smelled smoke and his door and/or door knob was hot...he answered very animated and detailed of how he would grab all of his toys and put them in the wheelbarrow (that just happen to be there?) and I let him tell his story...as I had no choice, I couldn't get a word in edge-wise. I first got all my information in as far our family meeting area (after they made it out) and how to get out, crawling down low, stop drop and roll...you name it, I wanted to be sure, they got it....and they did. As for the story of how our house caught fire, every time I tell it, I realize how miraculous it really was.

I'm gonna give the condensed version quickly. The kids and I were getting ready for church one Sunday (husband was at work as a restaurant manager). It was a terrible storm and I actually heard lightening strike inside the house. I checked everything and it all seemed fine. An hour later, the storms passed and we went to our Sunday services. We were gone for hours, and stopped by to grab some food from the restaurant my husband worked at and went home for the much anticipated nap time. Brook never made it, being only six months old she fell asleep in her car seat so I brought her in, seat and all, letting her nap while we ate our lunch. We filled our bellies and Gage needed his nap so I got him ready, got him in the bed, and as I shut his bedroom door, I smelled smoke....like really bad, but I saw nothing. We live in a very old house so I thought of electrical wiring, running to every plug (there's not many) and feeling for warmth and sniffing for smoke, I came up with nothing. As I approached my origin, Gage's bedroom door, I saw smoke rising at an alarming rate from the partial basement (with a dirt floor) coming up thru the floor A/C vent. I opened Gage's door, grabbed him and Brook, thru them into the car and with a look of horror, I said "Don't move!" Gage read my lips with his three year old eyes and he didn't move. He held onto Brook's car seat that was not buckled in, as I ran back inside the door (just right inside the door) to grab our hearing aid center (this was pre-ci times) and the telephone to call my in-laws who lived behind us. I phoned them and backed the car out at the same time, I pulled it around towards the barn, knowing our house has gas lines hooked up to it. First they called 911. My sister in law came down and ran inside grabbing Gage's yellow hair(his beloved blanket)...after I begged her not to. My father in law ran around and cut the gas off at the tank (yes, we're in the country and have tanks). Christie came out choking on smoke as it was now unbearable inside, you could see smoke from all directions pouring from windows, the roof. I actually stood out there and laughed, noting...it can all burn, I don't care, I have my kids. Luckily these country firefighters are not only quick but good. They put it out by cutting a huge hole in my kitchen floor removing the problem before it spread farther. So what happened next? We moved out for a few weeks, repaired damage and moved back in. So what caused the fire? The lightening had struck the gas line BEFORE church. It smoldered getting hotter and hotter, and three hours later, ignited when I shut his bedroom door. There was just enough draft underneath to start the fire. You can imagine what could have happened when gas/electricity/fire all come together. This was during the time Gage could hear nothing below 70 dbs with his hearing aids. I only thought to grab them 'cause they were right by the phone which was what I went in after. He put his little hearing aids in, just in time to hear those firetrucks pull up, one after the other after the other. And so began his obsession with firetrucks. When it was safe for us to go inside that afternoon, I walked in the back door and on our shelf was a toy firetruck. I gave it to Gage and he smiled the biggest smile I've ever seen. After that he would lie in the floor all day long "listening" with his hearing aid right against the toy firetrucks (he was mostly feeling the vibrations). And now that it's likely taken you an hour and a half to read this post, I must close with the word of caution to all you parents out there. Even three year olds can learn some of the fire safety! Make your plan, know it, review it when you can, practice it so they'll know it! Hearing or not hearing. I'm gonna look into the fire alarms with strobe lights for my kids. A good fire alarm does nothing if you don't have a plan.

I finally drifted to sleep at some point last night because the alarm woke me in the four o'clock hour this morning. I eased up out of bed, careful not to shake the mattress so my sleeping princess would not wake. I turned my music up loud, I did my morning routine. An hour later, I returned to wake her. Her side of the bed was soaked. She wets the bed like once a year! We left just as my husband was on his way home...from work....to go to bed. He found a sheetless bed with a note that said "Sleep on my side"......**smile**

What a day, it's only noon!

Got an unexpected call this morning from our friend Samantha-yes THE Sam from my book. She was in town and we went to the park to meet up with her. It has been a year since our last visit with her. The kids had a ball and as you can see there were plenty of people for Gage to converse with. I have to really watch him, here these ladies are complimenting him on his nice truck. He tells them it's for sale...$50.00, (at the time I had no idea what he was telling them, I was too far to hear). They came by to tell me "Wow, he's amazing! and to be only 8!" and I informed them, "Yea, he's completely deaf too, he's always talking people's ears off!" They were very surprised to say the least and I told them that all three of the kids there (Gage, Brook and Sam) were all deaf kids who hear with cochlear implants. I knew they could see his decorated ci's so I wanted them to know what they were for, and not think they were just ear decorations or something. One lady had some type of delay, she didn't say what but did note herself as having been special ed all her life. I told her he gets more "special" services because of his ADHD rather than deafness. Okay, on to Sam, she is amazing. Once again, I saw great improvement this time around and from what I hear, she's going to a mainstream school this year. She didn't even sign one bit this time, usually she teaches me a sign or two but she's even more accurate with her articulation this year than before. She's been working hard I can tell. She only has one ci and she noticed right away that Gage had two now. She's ten and going into the fourth grade but lives out of state, we rarely get to see her. While at the park, I get another unexpected call from our audiologist's office reminding me of our appt. in the morning. I had down Aug 7, but we are going to get to go in the morning instead since they accidentally had us down both days. So we'll get on the road by 6 am in the morning and get Gage MAPped (he needs it!!) and get B's audiogram. So that'll get that out of the way. As we were getting ready to leave the park, the thunder began to roll in as did the rain clouds. Brook had removed her ci's to go down the plastic slides and the tape was loosing its stick. She brought me back one that just wouldn't stick anymore, only......the battery was missing! That's the 200.00 rechargeable battery. All I could think of was Landry's mom who had posted on cicircle about losing a battery at the park, she took a picture and left a sign w/a reward for anyone who found it. Guess what? It was found by someone's grandson, so I had hope. So as my heart raced, my mind prayed the rain would hold off long enough for us to search the area and my eyes scanning in desperation, hoping I'd find the white battery in the white sand underneath those swings. After I decided that I may go to the police station (which was next door) to make a sign or ask for their help, I hear "Found it!" I broke into an high school cheerleader and clapped and jumped and cheered for Samantha who saved the day. She knew how I felt having lost a battery herself, that she never did find. Thank you. And we also had an additional treat at the park. The kids' PE teacher was there walking with her baby in stroller. We chatted for a while and I did inform her I should be on the sub list this year, and she asked if I would ever do PE. Would I do P.E.? I actually would love P.E. and prefer it since we stay outside all the time anyway. She said she's not out much but her little girl does wake with ear infections sometimes and I totally understand that so I told her, give me a call girl! I'd be happy to sub anytime. Whew, quite a day already and now it's storming.....and it's just noon. What could be in store for the remainder of the day? hmmmmmmm................?

What Language!

...and sometimes that is good and sometimes that's not so good. Yesterday after we walked up to the cabin to just hang out for a while, change of scenery, I was sitting on the patio enjoying the morning rays when Brook took an old piece of charcoal out of the grill. She wanted to write something on the concrete and I said "one word and then put it up, that's too messy!" So what does she choose? Her head tilted toward the sky and her lips were mouthing a word, carefully sounding out each syllable in her head and when she felt confident about her word, she put charcoal to the ground and wrote....M....O....R....O....N. I wanted to first scold her for choosing a word I don't like but inside I was really pleased that at age 5 (not even in K yet) she's sounding out words and spelling them correctly! Here are some pics from our walk yesterday...Brook has Emma w/her and Gage has a truck/trailer he designed and painted himself (all custom made, swapping parts from old broken toys and modifying the store bought ones, notice the camo trailer).

Now for the good language...Today the kids decided to play vet. As you can see Brook had on a "surgical mask" and she oversaw the whole operation. Not surprising the kids were using words like anesthesia, stitches, swell, swollen, IVs, operating, etc. I guess our last few months with Gage has increased their hospital language.

I have to say, I'm a little proud of Brook. She's very clever! She loves that stuffed animal which doesn't belong to her. The older brother in Gage wants to just give it to her but the little boy still inside him, wants to keep it. She begs him all the time to let her sleep with it and occasionally he'll give in but she received a "no" today. So she tells him, "I'm the rule!" (she meant boss, we did learn the word boss!) "This cat is very sick, he needs to sleep here at the vet's office for a few days so I can watch him." And Gage then agreed, so looks like she earned an opportunity to sleep with the kitty. Gotta run, I just heard Brook tell Gage "stick it in your nose" so I need to go make sure we aren't headed to the ER for a foreign object removal...haha.

Randomness

A lot of randomnessThis is "the cabin" behind our house. This is one of life's little luxuries. My husband built it and all his friends like to gather from time to time and sit out by the camp fire and just enjoy nature.

Gage and I decided to ride four wheelers today since it had rained last night, there was lots of mud! He doesn't wear ci's when riding. He likely wouldn't hear much w/the processors enclosed in the helmet anyway.

We've been also working on the barn which lost one of its sides in the last set of storms a couple of weeks ago.

Our little helper

More randomness:

I hope to get the kids' FM systems the week before school starts (I emailed the teacher of the deaf with my request) because we go to audiology the Friday before school starts and I can get everything ready. I'm anxious to see how my two bilateral children do this year (especially w/Brook starting big school).

We also WILL be able to attend the AVT summer camp they do every year. We were going to have surgery that week getting Gage's skin pit/tag removed but insurance will likely not approve the request (if they even do!) in time so we are postponing that until we hear from them. My kids usually participate in the AVT summer camp and it's a mentoring program that Alabama's Ear Institute does. They have aspiring AVTs from all over come to this program and learn from our state's AVTs. We have many AVTs here and they get to earn their hours toward officially becoming an Auditory Verbal Therapist. I volunteer my kids every year to be the students who come for therapy so they can practice.

Not much else going on here, Bama Ears will have another story up by the end of the day so check that out.

Letting go........

Cousin Kendall and Brook playing at the water park

the water slides that both my kids went down by themselves
(I was waiting at the bottom for Brook though!)

Gage and his friend Brayden waiting for the buckets to dump water on their heads

Fun fun fun! This water park is about 45 minutes from my house and my sister and I took the kids to play yesterday. Guess what? Gage found a long lost buddy that used to go to his school and had moved away. Once they found each other, they were inseparable. Brayden communicated very well with Gage and they went up and down those big slides all day. I had to swallow my fears and I realized that I've given Gage what he needs to survive with or without his cochlear implants. He has his needed survival skills (great with visuals, speech reading, body language) and he sure don't mind telling people that he can't hear if there is ever any communication issues. So I let him go in the adjoining pool (for only a few minutes at a time) without me being right there in the water with him. I did overly obsess and keep my eyes on him as much as possible but he was doing fine. I had to realize that my biggest fear wasn't anything more than his ADHD. I was afraid that he may get the whistle blown at him from the lifeguards and he would be dismissed as a wild child who doesn't follow rules. So I had to refrain from making those non existent predictions and know that his friend Brayden can hear and if he needed to relay messages he could. I also had to realize they were just boys and the pool was full of other 8-10 year old boys who were much wilder than they are! I think it did him some good to walk around there and have that freedom.

Now, I also realize that Brook does not have those skills. She's good, but not good enough yet. She's not good at speech reading and in fact I had to help out when little kids would say their names, she can read my speech best. If you say more than a couple of words though she doesn't get it. We will work on that while we have a chance so I'll speak to her more when ci's are off to give her that practice. Also, at one point we had to go get her processors so that Gage could explain "who that boy is playing with her brother!" she needed answers. Brook did not care for the big slides (that are really slow) and she wanted to stay with Kendall and play in the short water....we learned the word shallow! I did tell the lifeguard when Gage first went up that he couldn't hear so she needed to give him a thumbs up when she wanted him to slide down, and she did just that. I didn't get to tell her about Brook since she didn't see me down there but when it was B's turn to slide and she wouldn't go down, she (the lifeguard) did look down and found me gesturing that Brook couldn't hear and she totally understood, tapped Brooklyn and had her look down to see me waiting at the bottom. Brook slid down, she went under at the bottom and said "get me out of here, I want to go back over there!" So I took her back to Aunt "Sissy" and Kendall. I've learned more than one lesson from yesterday's adventure and one being I have to trust my aging son a little more, and two that I have work to do with Brook or she'll be a lost little puppy. Family communicates just fine with her but when you speak that well, no one ever suspects you might be deaf, they suspect that you're either rude(ignoring) or that you just don't listen. I need for her to be confident enough to say "I can't hear you". But some of that is just an age thing, this is what she said on the way home.

Brook: "Why does Kendall not know when I can't hear?"

Me: "She's only four, she forgets, you have to just remind her."

Brook: "But why does everybody not hear me in the pool."

Me: "Because it's really loud at that pool and you weren't speaking loud enough."

Brook: "Can we hear my song now?" wanting to listen to her favorite cd.

Too Tired

I'm way too exhausted to blog any of the stories from today. I do have some though. I'm getting much better at letting the kids play freely (with my eyes still glued to them but not hovering like a hawk watching it's pray). I allowed them to move around and play w/out butting in too much (they can hold their own now). We all had a blast. Check out Gage just minutes after leaving...coils off!!

Pool Play

Today, cousin Kendall came over to play with us. This four year is a hoot let me tell ya. She's the one that could say her ABCs by 18 mos old (not kidding) and boy does she have a big vocabulary. She was the "mama" and Brook was the baby that Kendall named "Boohoo" and Gage was the cat. They were so funny. Kendall's biggest concerns were, when is nap time at our house (I only wish!) and what was I gonna fix her to eat...lol. She did get a little angry in the pool a couple of times because I wasn't really listening to them, my mind was on this photo program Leah's helping me with (I'm sure if you click on her site you'll see her showing off her skills!). But if I had been actually listening to the "mama" and the "baby" and the "cat" I would have reminded the "mama" that the cat and "BooHoo" couldn't hear her. It was only til she got to the point of screaming at them when I snapped out of my photography daydream that I said "oh remember they can't hear you". She replied, "oh yea, I'll just go get them" and she'd swim off to tap a shoulder, very cute. She's coming back Friday I think, daycare's closed this week so she gets to play out in the country some.

And on a side note, her mama has OCD really bad (cleaning, counting,etc.) anyway, she looked down and saw a spot (I can't remove) in my carpet and said "You need to clean your floors sometime." I laughed.

Bilateral Buddies

I took the two bilateral buddies to the park today. We went over with Brook that school has a plastic slide and we don't want her using those. The park had both metal and plastic so she made a good choice and went for the metal one (even though it was wet). I can't believe she's about to start school and going to be on her own for the whole day learning new things, making more friends, coming home with homework! The school just has a plastic slide but lots of other things for her to choose from so I'm hoping she makes the right choice and don't pursue the plastic. She said "Well I can just take my processors off" but I cringed at the thought of 14,000 bucks lying around somewhere getting stepped on or even lost. I told her the teacher knows she's not supposed to go down the plastic one and I need her to keep those processors on during P.E. That's her social time and I sure don't want her to miss out on that. She can run, play on the metal equipment, race around the track, play ball, whatever the other options are (if there were no other options I'd make them get a metal slide but there's lots of activities!).

I just looked at the calendar and realize it's only two weeks til Gage gets his pit/skin tag removed from his face. And who will do it? None other than his ci surgeon...click here to read the last entry on him at Bama Ears.

I'm sure he'll be happy with the results, it might go in deep but shouldn't be a huge scar or anything. He'll be healed up just in time for school which starts in one month on Aug. 10!! I hope I get to start substituting soon or I'll go nuts here by myself. Plus I'm nosey and want to have an excuse to peek in on my babies! I sure hope Gage has better luck this year than he did last (health wise) and I know he'll hear easier being bilateral now.

Independence Day

We were all ears yesterday! We had corn from my father in law's garden, squash and other veggies from ours and we grilled yummy steaks too. Gage was quite festive with his designer stickers from Cochlear. They played around with sparklers and smoke bombs, but we didn't see or hear any fireworks in our area (but then again, we're in the middle of nowhere). Gage brought me his processors when he rode his four wheeler. He can wear them with his helmet but he doesn't like to, he prefers them off.

And as for Brook's new bike...she just needed one since her's was broken so Gage and I went to Wal Mart to get her one...well, I had other things to buy as well so I had to push the buggy and guess who had to push this pretty pink bike thru the very crowded store....you guessed it. It was just his size too so people were doing a double take as we paraded thru the store. Gage kept repeating, "Okay Mama, I don't mind pushing MY SISTER'S bike....I'll help YOU with HER bike..." He was really applying that inflection so he was sure to get his point across! I couldn't help but laugh, but he knew his sister would love it and he really didn't mind.

And now everyone is bored because it's a rainy day here in Alabama, but we need the rain! However, we are very glad we have the independence that allows us to play, laugh, love, be bored...and all that we are. Hope you all had a great weekend and for those here in the US, hope you had a safe holiday.