Ariba Aruba

I had C-Sections for both of my babies. Christian was an emergency, and Lily Grace's was scheduled. For both of them, I found that the 4 days I stayed in the hospital was like a mini-vacation. Sure, I was confined to a bed, exhausted, in pain, and totally overwhelmed, BUT the time in there was special. It was uninterupted Tina time. The hospital room was a cocoon for me. I healed. I bonded with my babies. I watched daytime TV, slept a whole heck of a lot, and rested. The only things that were missing were cocktails and suntan lotion. I mean, how sick is it that I actually think of birthing my kids via major surgery as a vacation? Really.

Chuck and I just returned from our first REAL vacation since our honeymoon in Tahiti 5 years ago last week. We spent a week in Aruba. We drank cocktails. We hiked. We snorkeled. We ate. We ate alot. We floated on the Carribean Sea. We held hands. We went to bed at 10. Did I mention we drank cocktails? It was amazing. The children stayed with their grandparents, and they were fine. And we came back more than fine. We needed the break. We needed to reconnect. Our life with 2 kids under 4 is crazy. I'm not one of those people who say "Oh, but it's a GOOD crazy". Crazy is never good. I miss having time to just cuddle with my husband without a kid waking up at night screaming/coughing/laughing/singing. I miss the long conversations we used to have that didn't revolve around potty training, cochlear implant batteries, art projects at school, and when soccer sign-ups are. Our children are our life, and I think we fell into the trap of overfocusing on them and underfocusing on our relationship. Aruba helped us figure eachother out again. We needed it.

Can you JUST BE QUIET?!

Those are 5 words that I never thought I would say to my profoundly deaf son. But, after a 7.5 hour long car ride down to North Carolina from our home I was just about fried.

In our family, language is always fostered and often rewarded. I know I'm the crazy Mom who has tracked his sentence progression (noting proper use of pronouns, prepositions, negations...the works...), but it's really helped me tackle certain language limitations. Christian is way past the cutesy little babbling. Now it's full on conversations. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love being able to sit down and just ask him "What was your favorite part of today?", and he'll start up a 5 minute long narration about how he particularly enjoyed going to camp at Miss Emily's, but didn't like when Lily decided to chew on his arm. I love watching his imagination at work, especially when he just decides to start making up songs about pirates, firetrucks, and donuts. However, after about 3 hours in the car with NONSTOP question asking, conversations, and songs, I needed some peace and quiet. When I asked him to be quiet and to give Mommy and Daddy a break so we could just listen to the radio, he proceeded to tell me "Mommy, you just need to calm down".

Just another Cochlear Implant Miracle...

Rock City

We've been at "Camp Nana" since last Friday. Chuck flew back home on Tuesday, and will be joining us again next week.

Our days our full of trips to local soft-serve ice cream shops (something that the DC Metro Area is SERIOUSLY lacking), playing in Nana and Papa's backyard, and of course, some trips to Target. We had a fun family BBQ on Sunday, and on Monday, Papa came with us to a sprinkler park. Once the kids are down, I've been able to catch up with some old friends in the evenings, and Aunt Sarah and I even went to the Dave Matthews Band concert on Tuesday. Christian has been having an absolute blast being the center of attention.

In addition to the usual language explosion that Christian always has when he's around my parents, we hit a MAJOR potty training milestone here. While at a little coffee shop, Christian turned to me and said "Mommy, I have to go pee pee. It's going to come, Mommy!". So, I asked him if he wanted to go sit on the potty. Sure enough, he followed me into the bathroom. I lined the top of the toilet with paper, plopped him on the bowl, and watched him go IN A PUBLIC BATHROOM. YEAH CHRISTIAN!

Christian also is now wearing his snazzy brown coil on his CI, which looks really nice with his light brown hair. We chose an all beige system, as he was our little bald man at 14 months when he was implanted. He's really proud of it, and has pointed to the coil several times and said "Mommy, my CI is brown! I'm a handsome boy". I am so happy that he likes it!

Recap!

I already posted about Christian's language explosion when we were on our beach trip last week with my family. I have to say, hearing my little guy tell me he wants to go to the beach, or asking where the moon is, was just amazing. It got me thinking back to our last family vacation, which was this time last year. At the time, we didn't know the status of Christian's hearing. We knew he couldn't hear some things, but we certainly didn't expect his loss to be so severe. He wasn't even aided.

It's mind-boggling how fast a year has gone. Last year, he wasn't even crawling. I was still nursing my sweet boy, and he was napping 3 times a day. This year, he was running across the beach, drinking juice boxes, and we were lucky if he napped for an hour in the afternoon. We quickly learned that a beach vacation with a toddler is not a "vacation". It's a zoo.

Our trip was absolutely fantastic. A week with my Mom, Dad, Brother, Sister-in-Law, and my hubby and kid was just what I needed. Christian was spoiled rotten by his Nana and Papa. His Aunt Sarah and Uncle Nick tickled, played, and sang with him. We built sand castles during the day, and hung out with each other at night. For those of you who don't know about Dewey, check out this Wikipedia article ve (yes, we are a Dewey couple...it does happen). Some of our greatest memories were made at that beach with our housemates from our group house, and we made some really beautiful ones this past week with our family.

I have to say, one of the most memorable moments was running into our CI audiologist from Hopkins while we were down there. We were able to buy her a drink to thank her for all of her hard work with our sweet boy, and toast to his success. Here I was worried what we would do if something went wrong with his CI, and our audi was down there. How cool?!

Chuck and I were beyond nervous about having Christian wear his CI on the beach. After a couple of days, we loosened up a bit, and just hoped that his hat protected the processor from the sand, and we clipped his controller of his Babyworn to the inside of his shirt. He never went in the ocean with it on...we're just not quite ready to waterproof our CI using a baggie or a Foodsaver bag yet. I don't think if we ever will be!

Check out this little video montage I put together, and be sure to watch for the scene of Christian dancing to the reggae band....I never thought I would see the day my profoundly deaf son would dance to music. What a miracle!
(Stop the music on the right before you start the video)

Make video montages at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Why is it that vacations always go by so fast?

Hang in there, this is going to be a long one...

Christian and I just returned from our little vacation in Michigan. We had SUCH a wonderful time visiting my family and friends, and Christian LOVED hanging out with his Nana and Papa for a week straight! Before I get to the recap of the visit, Christian had yet another LANGUAGE EXPLOSION in Detroit. Check out his new words:

-Thank you (which he very nicely accompanies with the sign)
-Poo Poo (How convenient)
-Meow (Thanks to Nana)
-Cookie (Thanks to Papa)

He also wowed everyone with his rendition of "If You're Happy and You Know It". He has become quite the dancing machine, bopping around to whatever music he hears, and pointing to his CI when he hears it. Again, can I just say how AMAZED I am of this technology and my little boy? It's nice to see the long hours of hard work and therapy that I've been putting in pay off so well.

Just before we left, I was really concerned about the trip out to Detroit. I'm happy to report that both legs of our trip went fine. Traveling by yourself with a toddler is a challenge to begin with. I thought for sure that the CI and gear that accompanies it would make it even harder. In all honesty, it was fine. I did chose to have Christian hand-wanded through security, which actually was easier for us than going through the metal detectors. When your hand wanded, you have a TSA officer who gets all of your stuff off the belt and even sets up your stroller, locks it, and helps you get your kid in it. I am all for having all the help I can get! I packed our extra processor in my carry-on in a FoodSaver bag inside of a sunglass case (because the cases Cochlear gave us are SO SKINNY!). I had them hand-wand that as well. It was a no biggie.

Once on the plane, I set up our CARES harness, and it worked like a charm. Christian did fine in it, and I was so relieved to not have to take the carseat on the plane. On our return trip, Christian EVEN FELL ASLEEP in it, with his CI on...while holding the barf bag. Nice.


Soon after Christian was born, my parents converted my old room into Christian's room. They bought him a crib, bedding, and even decorated it with firetrucks and puppy dogs. Their basement bistro bar was turned into Christian's playroom for the week, and their gorgeous backyard was COVERED in toys. It was so nice to go away and not have to worry about my little one being comfortable. I loved being able to take him on walks in the neighborhood that I grew up in. It seemed everywhere we went, we ran into someone that we knew. I miss my hometown.

In addition to playing with his grandparents, his Aunt Sarah and Uncle Nick seemed to be over everyday spoiling him with little treats. Uncle Nick taught him how to completely destroy a tower of blocks (thanks, bro). And Aunt Sarah introduced him to the smallest animal he's ever seen, their kitten Hannah. I won't go into what he tried to do with that cat, but let's just say I had the "WE HAVE TO BE NICE TO ALL OF GOD'S CREATURES" talk with him. Oy.

I was blessed to be able to be in town for the arrival of my dear friend's little boy-talk about great timing. It was such a joy to see them as new parents and to be able to hold and cuddle their little miracle. And, there's something about seeing one of your closest guy friend's get all teary eyed about their kid.


Through everything that we've been through with Christian, my best friend from home, Kate has been my rock. She always was there on the other end of the phone listening to me cry. She'd laugh with me, cry with me, and help me keep my mind off of the sad stuff by always indulging me in our joint obsession with celebrity gossip and lip gloss. Kate and her husband are awaiting the birth of their first child, and her shower was this past weekend, so I was able to be there for that as well. While my Dad, Uncle Nick, and Aunt Sarah watched Christian, my Mom and I were able to celebrate with Kate.


I know I'll have more pics to post from the week once my Dad uploads his camera. He was like the paparazzi with Christian, and I know we have a couple of fun shots from our lunch at The RainForest Cafe (a wonderful language opportunity), Christian's 1st Carousel Ride, and our visit with his Great-Grandparents. We miss everyone already, but we're also glad to be home with Chuck and Sammy the Cat.