Public? Private? Who Knows...

I attended the 3rd Annual Conference on Faith, Deafness, and Disabilities for our Archdiocese this morning at one of my local parishes. While it is always nice to connect with other families in our area, my main focus of attending this morning was learning more about the possibility of a Catholic School education for Christian.

Both Chuck and I were educated in the Catholic Schools. We both had absolutely wonderful experiences, and I truly feel that my Catholic education (which went all the way through college) was the most amazing gift that my parents gave me. As parents, we are committed to absolutely sending the children to Catholic High School. We are also very serious about exploring the option of sending them both to Catholic Grade School. However, we're at a cross-roads right now when it comes to our plans for both of our children's education. Christian attends an independent secular school, and our game plan has always been to move him into one of our neighborhood schools for Kindergarten. The question that remains is which school will he go to?

We are incredibly lucky to live in a public school cluster that includes one of the best elementary schools in our county that feeds into one of the top 25 public high schools in the COUNTRY. Our county school system is top notch in regards to deaf education and support. The elementary school is within walking distance from our house, and has a bright and vibrant school community. Christian would receive any services he needed, whether it's speech therapy or note taking when he is older to back up the curriculum, no questions asked through the public school system. The other option is our parish elementary school that is also located in our neighborhood. It is a Blue Ribbon school and has an equally bright and vibrant school community. The tricky part is trying to figure out just what services we could get if we needed them and how our parish school could support Christian.

So what the heck are we going to do?

Wherever we send Christian for Kindergarten, Lily will follow and go there as well. I know it may sound trivial, but I have just about had it having 2 kids in 2 different schools with 2 different pick-up times, not to mention they are in 2 different states right now. As much as I know that I need to think about picking the school that fits Christian the best, I also know that we need to pick a school that fits our FAMILY the best as well. There's something to be said about going to the same school as your sibling, especially when the siblings are as close in age as Christian and Lily.

Again, what the heck are we going to do?

Our public school already has the systems in place and is ready to accept Christian and WHATEVER (if anything) he needs. Our parish school does not have systems in place, but I know will open its doors to Christian and our family and work with us. It's hard to believe but we're nearing the end of this academic year, with just 3 months left of school. Come this September, Christian will begin Pre-K, and I am sure I'll be stressing more.

A Little Snippet

When Christian received related services at his school he would be sent home with very detailed logs weekly showing his progress in relation to his IEP goals. In addition to tracking articulation and Ling 6 Sound Checks, little snippets of conversations would show up. I LOVED reading them. We're off of related services this year (I'm STILL in awe of how wonderful he is doing!), but his in class SLP sent me an email this week with little glimpse of what goes on in the classroom:

2010 School Picture!

I had such a sweet conversation with Christian this morning that I had to share with you!  A friend of Christian's said to me, "Why does Christian have a CI and a hearing aid, but I have two hearing aids?"  I explained that CIs and hearing aids both help kids to hear... and Christian said, "I can hear thunder, and my dad's voice, and when my mom talks to me, and when my dad reads me a story!"  Then his friend said to him, "and you can hear possums too!" (gotta love kids- apparently she recently read a book about possums)... then Christian and his friend went on to discuss their guesses of the types of noises possums can make- Christian said confidently that possums says, "squak!"... it was so cute and funny to overhear!

I hope that my sweet and smart boy will always be with educators who support and celebrate him. I hope that he will always have peers who understand him and who he can identify with. Most importantly, I hope that he will always be this confident and proud of his magic ears. 

One Month In!

Christian's been in his 5-day full day program at his school for just over a month now, and he is doing absolutely phenomenal. Our ONLY concern that we have is that he isn't napping there. I mean, I don't think I would nap if I had such a fun and engaging classroom and teaching staff either! He's having fun playing and learning with his friends, especially in his specials classes like drama, science and music.

I had to take a step back this past week and just take it all in. All we've ever wanted is for Christian to be able to play and learn just like his peers, and he is doing just that and more. I wish that I had a crystal ball 3.5 years ago when I cried myself to sleep every night so I could see just how great things would be. Yes, we have challenges, but our challenges are those of TYPICAL 3.5 year old boys. I'm thankful, forever thankful, for early intervention and our team at his school.

Back To School

First Day and Handsome as EVER!

Sending Brother Off in PJs!

Christian had a great first week back to school. I think I've had a harder time adjusting to the new full-day schedule than he has. While he's come home a bit tired (8:30am to 3pm is a long day even for a Mommy!), he's honestly been all smiles about school. I've heard lots about his old friends, especially how they have now moved on from playing Spiderman on their "new big kid playground" to Star Wars Guys. I've also learned that Christian has a new friend. He reports that "Her name is Chloe and she wears ballerina shoes. She is the Girl (prounouced Guh-rl, and I won't correct him because I LOVE IT!) Storm Trooper, and Lacy and I are the Boy Storm Troopers". 

It is so nice to be back at "home" in our school community. I just get the warm fuzzies walking in there, knowing that every single person there truly cares about Christian. He loves his friends, both old and a new. He adores his new teachers, especially Mrs. Elliott, who he tells me "Has a really pretty smile and curly hair". I have a feeling this is going to be a wonderful year.

SCHOOL'S OUT FOR SUMMER!

What an absolutely amazing year full of fun friends and wonderful teachers. As I was setting up the Frog Class party while the kids were down in the gym getting ready for the Community Meeting, I just stepped back and took it all in. In this beautiful classroom with so many things to explore and learn about, Christian's life changed. There in that classroom he learned how to master the /f/ sound. He also learned how to negotiate over toys with friends. He learned about the solar system. He played Spiderman everyday. He laughed, and sometimes cried. He read books, played pirates, planted gardens, and built towers. He told stories, was line leader, and also on garbage patrol. He played the trumpet, french horn, and even the banjo in that classroom. He danced and sang with his friends. Countless raisins and Goldfish were snacked on. 

I know I've bragged before about just how AWESOME his teachers were this year, but I have to say it again...THEY WERE AWESOME. We were beyond lucky to have such a committed, passionate, bright, energetic and FUN teachers for our little boy. On top of it all, they all were experts in educating a child with a Cochlear Implant. They advocated and cheered him on every step of the way and supported our family in our never-ending fights with insurance companies, as well as being fabulous liasions with our school system. I honestly am going to miss seeing them everyday. 

From Top to Bottom: Christian's in-class SLP, his in-class Educator, and his Audiologist. WHAT AN AMAZING TEAM!!!!!

I know that Christian had a blast this year with all his friends. He has developed into a silly, social, and energetic little boy who can't get enough of his friends. I hope he remembers his year as a Frog with just as much happiness as I do. I know  I will always remember his year as a Frog as the year that gave him his foundation and his confidence. 

Last Week of School

Christian this Spring Semester enjoying the Pirate theme in his class!

I can't believe it's Christian's last week of school! How has this year gone so fast? He has had such a  a fun week with his teachers and classmates. On Monday they had water day, which he loved. He told me that his teacher Miss Walsh "Sprayed and sprayed and sprayed and then we jumped and got WET".

We had his Spring/Summer teacher conference on Friday and there were no surprises. In the 7 page work sampling summary that we received, we continued to learn about our social, silly and bright little boy. While I'm always interested in his Mathematical Thinking (he's doing great with his rote counting, counting with one-to-one correspondence and ABAB and ABBABB patterns), Scientific Thinking (he particularly liked the science class experiments using air displacement with balloons and learning about the solar system),  and Language and Literacy (it was reinforced to us once again that his expressive and receptive language skills are out of this world, that he loves books and book time, and that he is doing fantastic in phonological awareness activities), I am always interested in his personal and social development. In fact, I'm more than interested, I'm borderline obsessed. I always worry about him missing social cues and all the other things that "deaf" kids are at risk for. His teachers reminded me that I didn't have ANYTHING to worry about. Christian is a class leader, starting games, using appropriate conversational prompts and vocabulary, expressing himself appropriately, and an all around friendly and active member of his class. Isn't that what this is all about anyway? Of course I want him to know his letters and numbers, but I also want him to be confidant and secure. It's good to know that he is!

The Dreaded G-U-N word

Snips and snails and puppy dog tails. That is what I thought I was getting into 3 years ago when I had my precious baby boy. I dreamt of walking hand and hand with him to the corner store getting ice cream, with his hat slightly turned. Scraped knees. Kool-Aid mustaches. Baseball gloves. Worms in pockets. Loving his Momma with a sweet smirk, giggling while running after a soccer ball. Isn't that what boys are about?

I guess I selectively left out a very important part of a little boy's life, and today I'm freaking out about it.

On our way home from school yesterday Christian described what he did at school. This was his response, WORD FOR WORD:

"Russell and I played guns on the playground. We went SHOOT SHOOT and I pointed and shot him with my gun."

Um, don't get me wrong, it's not like I expect him to NOT play war or guns, or whatever they were doing. He IS a boy and it IS engrained in his brain. He already has started making the sticks at the park swords, so I knew it was only a matter of time before the developed in guns. But at 3? Doesn't it start a little later? I figured it wouldn't start until at least 4. Can't he be my sweet little boy who sleeps with a stuffed Tigger and laughs at Sesame Street still? Why is he growing up SO fast? 

I chatted with him, told him that he shouldn't play guns on the playground, and that we never, EVER pretend to shoot someone. He then told me "Ok, but what if they shoot me first. Then I can shoot them, right?"

I think I'm going to lay down my arms and surrender to this battle. I don't think I am going to be able to win.

Winter Report Card

Christian's school doesn't use a traditional report card method, rather a work sampling system. It looks at over 7 different areas of the child's development and tracks their progress within each area. Parents receive a Narrative Summary that gives us a great picture of what our child is doing in the classroom.

We had Christian's Winter Teacher Conference this morning, and we were SO pleased with his progress. He is meeting and exceeding his IEP goals (which we will be meeting at the end of this month for an IEP review). His teachers are incredibly and so committed to his progress. I'll share some of the comments that were given to us in a 6 page Narrative Summary Report (hello, I LOVE LOVE LOVE this school!).

1. Personal and Social Development
"Christian demonstrates quite a personality in the classroom. He is bright, funny, friendly and displays a love for learning and playing with peers. As Christian continues to develop as a member of the class, he has shown ability to share toys with peers using appropriate social phrases with some teacher support. He understands and uses the "two minutes" sharing policy. He will ask friends "Can I have a turn?" with some modeling needed"

"Christian enjoys engaging peers in play. He will often start a "Fireman" battle cry and march around with a long wooden block for a fire house. One morning Christina told his friend, "(Peer) you want to play with me?" Christian gets along well with his friends and is generally in the thick of an activity or dramatic play with his classmates. During dance parties, he and his friends often hold hands to dance. On the playground, Christian laughs with peers as they ride the double seated bike together or play chase".

2. Language and Literacy

Christian has shown improvements in his listening capabilities. During morning listening checks he usually has no problems taking his cochlear implant magnet on and off. For his listening check, Christian listens at a six-foot distance from Ms. Wilson in a quiet room. He generally only requires a repetition of the /s/ sound when he is listening with only his hearing aid. Occasional prompts and re-directions to the listening tasks are given and Christian appears to benefit from any pre-teaching that is given regarding vocabulary or academic skills related to his developmental level and classroom theme. For example, the first morning of the post office theme, Christian and Ms. Wilson talked about the mail truck, what its purpose was, who drove it, and a few other concepts. When he returned to the classroom, he was comfortable in playing in the truck with peers and was overheard telling a friend, “I’m the mailman! I put my mail in the truck!” Christian does well listening to identify words that minimal pairs similarities (e.g., can/cat), and then pointing to the word he has heard. He is generally able to follow one-step directions, and is showing emerging skills at following two-step multi-element directions that include more complex vocabulary and concept use. During a Mouth time activity, Christian was able to follow the direction, “find the /k/ sound and put it in envelope ‘C’.“ Christian demonstrates an age-appropriate ability to attend in group settings. He sometimes needs redirections after seeing a peer do something they are not supposed to or if he begins to fidget and turn away from the group. He does participate in group turn-taking with occasional reminders to wait for his turn.

Christian’s spoken language skills continue to develop appropriately. Christian speaks in phrases and sentences and is able to engage in multi-turn conversations with teachers and peers with variable support. When asked about his upcoming birthday one morning, Christian answered his teacher saying, “My birthday is at the fire station.” When his teacher asked, “Who is coming to your party?” he replied, “My friends and Mommy, Daddy, and Lilliana Grace.” He and his teacher continued the conversation with some support by his teacher to go into what he thinks he will see, eat, and do at the fire station during his party. Christian’s use of grammar is age-appropriate, but errors are noted with correct models/examples given by his teachers. Christian uses the following grammatical elements in his everyday speech: personal pronouns (e.g., “I’m playing basketball”), possessive pronouns (e.g., “I’m done. You’re turn”), contractible copulas (e.g., “Where’s the farmer going?”), present progressive verbs (e.g., “I’m make a bridge and someone can go over it”), past tense verbs (e.g., “I’m finished Ms. Wilson“), prepositional phrases (“There’s shark in the water”), negatives (e.g., “Don’t play it in a major key”), possessives (e.g., “I’m on the bear’s bed”), and plural /s/ (e.g., “You’re standing on your shoes”). Occasional prompts for using irregular past tense verbs (drive/drove), including an article (a/an/the), and models for general grammatical sentence structure are given. Christian makes comments (e.g., “I had a fire truck at [peers’] birthday party“), protests (e.g., “No, you can’t“), requests (e.g., “I want French Fries“), and asks and answers questions (e.g., “What are those in that basket?”). One morning when he was talking about calling his mother on the phone, Christian appropriately asked, “Why did you call my mom?” In terms of Christian’s articulation of speech sounds, some substitutions of the /f/ sound (“bire” for fire), as well as /b/ for /v/ (“bibrate” for vibrate) impact his level of intelligibility.

After snack time, Christian is usually one of the first Frog’s to get a book for quiet time when friends are finishing up their snack. Christian generally attends well to books. He sometimes gets distracted by others but generally can be re-directed. Christian labels pictures, asks questions, and answers questions his teachers ask regarding content. During the “Three Snow Bears” theme, Christian answered several questions regarding the sequence and objects in the Three Snow Bears book (e.g., “Who had the fancy boots?”, “Who lived in the igloo?”). Christian attempts to sing along to the ABC song and does well with some assistance. He was able to recognize his name in print while doing a mailbox activity and glued cotton balls on the letter “C” for the first letter of his name.

3. Mathematical Thinking

Christian is exposed to numbers and counting with different materials and in several activities each day. He is developing his ability to count with a one-to-one correspondence and rote counts to 11 with minimal assistance. During the “Let It Snow” theme, Christian participated in several counting experiences. These included counting ‘how many’ penguins tall he was, counting bells he put on a string, as well as other concrete objects, including number peg boards during choice time. During the grocery store theme, Christian was asked to sort items in their respective areas (e.g., fruits, vegetables, meat and bakery). He was able to do this with only a few prompts.

Christian continues to develop his understanding and functional use of quantitative concepts (e.g., big/small, heavy/light). During the “Friendship Post Office” theme, he accurately identified which package was heavy and also labeled what number package it was (number 1). He accurately used the size concept of “big,” when he told his teacher, “No, you’re too big,” when she asked if she could ride on the sled.

The daily schedule and weekly color calendar have been integrated into the Frogs routine as it introduces the concepts of what will be “next,” what will happen “after,” and a general sense of time (days/week). Christian demonstrates understanding of the color calendar as it relates to what day is “today”. Prompts are needed to consistently answer questions involving “tomorrow” and “yesterday.” When asked, he is able to answer what color day it is. When looking at the daily schedule, Christian also answers questions such as, “Where are going after Science?”

4. Scientific Thinking

An important aspect of scientific thinking is combining one’s senses to gather information about an object’s texture, smell, sounds, and more. Making observations is important to learning what concepts (e.g., size, texture) apply to different objects. During the post office theme, Christian was exposed to painting on bumpy bubble wrap and pushing paper on it to stamp on different colors. He put ice on his lips during Mouth Time to help feel and identify how cold, wet, slippery and smooth an ice cube is. The Frogs gathered snow outside on the playground one morning and brought it inside to make predictions about what would happen to it. After making observations as the day went on, he was able to answer the question, “What did the snow do?”, “Melt!” Observing similarities and differences between objects is an important skill in making scientific comparisons. During a cooking activity, Christian was asked to hypothesize what would happen to chocolate chips after they were put in the microwave. He learned how the heat from the microwave would make the chocolate chips melt. With some teacher prompting he was able to identify when it was a “solid” and when it had melted into more of a “liquid.” During an apple taste test, Christian sampled different consistencies of apple (e.g., slices, sauce, juice) and observed the differences in consistency that all come from the same fruit. In Science class, the Frogs went on a rock hunt and found different rock types around the school. With some prompting Christian used his rock to match his to Mrs. Tiller’s rock selection by matching it by colors, shine, and texture. In the classroom, he has begun exploring other materials, such as magnets. During Choice Time, he has played with magnetic toys and participated in a group exercise labeling what materials in a magnet board were “magnetic” and “not magnetic.”

5. Social Studies

Christian has been exposed to different cultures (e.g., China) and occupational roles (e.g., postal worker). With some prompting, he participated in singing songs related to different holiday celebrations (e.g., Kwanzaa, Hanukkah, and Christmas). In Library he read books about spinning the dreidel and would imitate dancing and spinning around like a dreidel. In Mouth Time he practiced blending sounds by putting candles on the Menorah. In learning about different groups and cultures, Christian and the Frogs were able to join the preschool classes in the school and celebrate the Olympics. Not only did the Frogs have the sense of group in their class, but participating with the other classes gave them a larger sense of the school group. They portrayed a country (China) along with other countries (classes) in different Olympic activities (e.g., opening / closing ceremonies). In addition to learning about the different activities and events when participating in the preschool “Olympics,” Christian also learned about Chinese culture and traditions as they celebrated the Chinese New Year and ate authentic Chinese food. Christian has had the opportunity to take on a variety of roles in the classroom. He enjoyed filling a grocery cart and purchasing food as a grocery shopper/customer, being a novice cashier who gave and collected money to put in the register, “beeping” when simulating the grocery store scanner, and stamping and delivering mail as a postal worker. As Christian and the Frogs take on a variety of roles, he continues to learn what duties are required for each of these positions.
Christian understands the rules and routines of the classroom and what is expected of him in different weekly job and classroom duties (e.g., helping daily during clean-up time). At clean-up time, some teacher prompts are needed to stop what he is playing and help clean up. Every red day (Monday), Christian checks what “job” he is assigned. Christian has taken pride in accomplishing his jobs as table setter, schedule helper, and light helper.

6. The Arts

in his art projects, Christian uses a variety of different textures and materials. He has glued on paper to decorate a mailbox, strung beads to make friendship bracelets, sprinkled glitter and glued sequins on paper to make “fancy” boots, and stamped with sponges and letter stamps. The Frogs are encouraged to participate in new and creative experiences outside of the classroom in the specials classes of Art, Library, Music and Drama. Christian enjoys going to specials classes and participates in the different activities, including: pushing the valve keys of the tuba while Mr. Oakley is blowing, ice-skating on paper plates and dancing with peers during drama, as well as acting out the baby part in a and a story read during Library. While learning about brass instruments in Music, Christian would remind Mr. Oakley to “vibrate your lips!” He is starting to identify how you play the different instruments in different families (e.g., [Do you play the percussion/drums with your lips?], “No!”). In his specials classes, Christian is exposed to new vocabulary. Some of the words he is beginning to generalize include: “vibrate,” “furious,” and “tutti.” When playing the bells along to the Jingle Bells song, Christian knows when it’s time to shake the bells when Mr. Oakley says “tutti” (meaning everyone plays together). In drama class, Mr. Boza discusses different feelings and emotions by giving the Frogs “clues” about how a person feels (e.g., frown) and uses different pictures of eyes and mouths as the feelings change. Christian continues to develop his understanding of emotions and is starting to speculate as to why someone could feel the way they do by associating it with an event. For example, one day in drama he commented on the “mad” eyes Mr. Boza put on the face. When asked, “what you do when you’re angry?” Christian appropriately answered, “Cross your arms and say, “Stop that now!”

7. Physical Development

Christian demonstrates age-appropriate gross motor skills. During the “Three Snow Bears” theme, he participated in an arctic obstacle course set up in the classroom. He jumped off an eight to ten inch “sled” and needed prompts to lift both feet when hopping from glacier to glacier. With some support, he balanced on an iceberg on one leg for a few short seconds, tip-toed several feet to not wake up the snow monster, galloped through the snow, and crawled like a polar bear through a snow tunnel. Another time when pretending to be polar bears, Christian was able to execute a twenty-one-inch jump from a standing position. In the gym, Christian enjoys riding bikes and scooters, he twists his arms to make a roller racer move, plays air hockey, and throws balls and bean bags overhand into the openings of a stand up tent and onto Velcro targets. On the playground, he also rides bikes and maneuvers around obstacles. Christian enjoys acting out play scenarios with peers on the playground. Some of these scenarios include: “firemen” and “Super Hero.”
Christian uses his fine motor skills frequently in different activities around the classroom. He uses a pincer grasp to: pick up pieces of snack, pick up and transfer small marshmallows with tongs into different cups, pop bubble wrap bubbles, stack blocks, push stamps on letters, and string beads. Some assistance is needed to lace mitten patterns. Christian’s digit manipulation skills are improving. He points to objects and is starting to reference a number with the corresponding number of fingers (e.g., putting up two fingers to represent how many snowflakes there are). During the post office theme, Christian “wrote” letters to family. He demonstrates a fist grasp when drawing pictures or “writing” notes to then stuff in an envelope. He also favors his left hand when drawing. Christian’s use of scissors to accurately cut on a straight line has improved. With occasional reminders to keep his “thumb up to the sky” and some re-positioning on the line, he was able to cut paper to make art projects (e.g., strips of blue paper to decorate a mailbox and a Chinese lantern).

If You're Thankful And You Know It

Had to post these videos from our Community Meeting at Christian's school yesterday. About 90% of Christian's school are typically hearing kids, and 10% are kids with hearing loss, many with Cochlear Implants. As I looked around the gym and saw all our CI kids sprinkled around the room, I couldn't help but tear up. They were singing, laughing, and dancing. My heart was so full of joy as I listened to one of the older boys in the school who uses a CI recite a poem with his class of hearing peers perfectly. I am so glad that Christian has been able to attend such a wonderful school.

*Be sure to disable the music on the right before playing
**You'll notice that there is an ASL interpreter during the assembly. While Christian's school is an oral program, there are several culturally Deaf families that attend the school who use ASL as their first language.

Schools Out For Summer!

Well, it is until he starts his camp at Gallaudet next week!

Today was Christian's last day of school. I have to admit, I got a bit teary eyed as I walked out of the classroom for the last time this year. His school, and especially his teachers, have become such an important part of our family. He has made leaps and bounds since he started last year.

Here he is on his first day of school this past August:



And here he is, my big boy, on his last day today enjoying the Caterpillar cupcakes I made for the class:



Christian started school just 3 months post activation, and entered the classroom speaking one and two words together. He is now speaking in 5-7 word sentences and testing above his hearing peers. Not only has his language skills taken off, but Christian's social skills just bloomed. He's also been my social butterfly, but he really has picked up on important social cues (something that we parents of Deaf kids worry about). While it's been such a tremendous financial and emotional sacrifice for our family to send him to his school, Christian's progress shows us just how important it has been in his rehab. I am so excited for him to attend 5 days next year!


Christian and his in-classroom SLP. He absolutely adores her, and she is really one of the best!


Christian and his teacher, who he loves. We are going to miss all of her fun songs!


A little gift from the class for being a room parent. I love it!

It's Official

Kerplunk.

Do you hear that? Yes, that is the sound of my stomach dropping as I dropped off the re-enrollment contract for Christian's school next year. He'll be going 5 DAYS A WEEK.

We know he's going to succeed. And we know he will thrive. It's like having 20 hours a week of speech therapy by the best SLPs in the area. I know I've written before about how important it is to educate him integrated with his hearing peers. We don't know the class breakdown yet, but the class will probably have about 7 or 8 hearing children, and maybe one more Cochlear Implant kid. Christian is going LOVE being there everyday, and despite the drive (it's only 8 miles away, but with traffic often takes close to 45 minutes in the morning) and the financial sacrifice (let's just say tuition costs more than what one year of college cost me), we are confident that we made the right choice for him.

Mmmm COOKIES!

We had Christian's school holiday party yesterday. I'm one of the Room Mom's, and organized a cookie decorating party. The kids loved the sprinkles and frosting. And I loved watching all of them (especially my little man) actually dig in and enjoy the fun! And of course, it was a great language opportunity...we talked all about shaking the sprinkles, the colors, and of course, how yummy the cookies were.

I feel so fortunate to be able to be there to volunteer and be a part of Christian's school. Even though I feel like my days as a stay-at-home Mom lately have been more than difficult, yesterday was a reminder of just how lucky I am to be able to be there for my little guy always.

First IEP Meeting Tomorrow...

I know I should be stressed out about this, but my friend Michelle (who is my guru at Christian's school) told me to not sweat it. She's been around the block a couple of times, and I totally trust her judgement.

I'm not really too nervous about the process. In addition to the fact that Christian goes to a school that is one of the best oral/deaf programs in the nation, it's also equipped to handle any and all of the modifications that we ever could need (one of the reasons we pay the big bucks to go there). The teachers are all Master level and above educated, they have an entire audiology suite for the D/HOH kids, and they have a very close relationship with our implant center. It's safe to say that they are the leading resource on educating CI kids.

I received the school's proposed goals last week, and they are exactly on point with all of the research that I did. I guess I should look at this meeting as a dry-run to dealing with public school in a few short years, where I know I'll have some challenges. I'm just thanking my lucky stars that we're able to swing going to this fabulous school. And of course, my husband for working more hours than it's known to man so we can sorta afford the tuition.

Progress

One fantastic little benefit we have at Christian's new school is we receive detailed reports every week of his progress (we are actually developing his IEP over these next two weeks). We knew that this report would list his targets and activities, and perhaps include some notes on his progress. Well, I am BEYOND impressed with the amount of detail that is included in his reports. Everyday we we have extensive notes on his pragmatic behaviors, auditory skills, language comprehension and use, speech production, cognitive and play skills, motor and sensory skills, and phonological awareness and literacy skills.

HOW COOL?!

Both his SLP and his educator compile the information which has so many rich details. Obviously I love the language comprehension and use section, but I also really am happy that his speech production is being tracked so closely. It was noted that he put the final /m/ on "Boom" and is very close to being consistent using the final /p/ on "Pop". GOTTA LOVE THAT FINAL CONSONANT PRODUCTION!

Needless to say, just another reason why I am thrilled that Christian is at this school

Reason # 1,064,030

why I love Christian's new school:

We're having a bit of an issue with one of Christian's processors. It gives us a weird H6 message (which makes no sense b/c that is a bilateral message, and we only have 1) every so often. I spoke with our school's audi (who is a Hopkins trained audi), and she is going to go ahead a reset it for us at SCHOOL to hopefully solve the problem. If that doesn't work, we'll send it back to Cochlear under our warranty.

So, instead of having to find an appointment time and schedule in a drive up to Hopkins, we can just take care of this AT SCHOOL.

LOVE IT!

First Day Recap

My little boy isn't a baby anymore!

Today was our first day of school. Christian did fantastic, running right into his classroom for his Ling 6 sound check before the other kids. We stocked his cubby (SO CUTE). He didn't even look back at his Dad and I. I was already crying walking into the classroom, and my little guy was all smiles.

His teachers reported that used more language than his HEARING peers did, and followed simple instructions today. He also imitated a mouth puppet today (using AHHHH). I knew he would be amazing there! This place is MADE for my kid! I love our teachers, who have been in constant communication with us. They even sent us some pictures of him in the classroom.

Today we also were issued our first incident report. Evidently just before pick-up, Christian fell off of a little climber on the playground and bonked his head. A little ice, lollipop and a popsicle helped him get through it. I guess it's the first of many little bumps and bruises he'll get at school.

Once we got home, he completely passed out without eating lunch. The drive there went well. It's only 8 miles away, but takes us 45 minutes with traffic. And I need to work on my parallel parking skills, since I'm not that great at parking on city streets!

Check out our pictures from today! I'm so proud of our little boy!

Night Before Jitters

I can't believe my little guy's first day of school is tomorrow. I feel like it was just yesterday that we brought him home from the hospital, swaddled in his little blanket. Now he is full-fledged toddler, Climbing up slides, running down the street, and talking up a storm. I know he is going to have a blast. His teachers are wonderful, and this school was made for him. He'll be one of two deaf kids in this hearing classroom. He'll have access to an SLP who will be in the classroom ALL day with him. The school has a full audiology suite. It's the best of the best. I'm SO excited for him.

With all this excitement, I have a bit of sadness. Our days of carefree schedules (well, how carefree could we get with 4-6 doctor/specialist appointments a week) are gone. I've joined the ranks of preschool Moms, trying to juggle pick-up and drop-off. Sure, he's only going 2 days a week, but this will be the first time that he will be consistently away from me during the day. I know I should take advantage of the time away by completing work or doing something for myself, and I know I will. I'm not going to lie though, I'm going to miss him and our little routine like crazy.

Wish us luck...I'll post pictures!