"This Is My Story, This Is My Song" - 5 new articles
A Proud Momma Moment!A little background: Foster plays for his school's third grade football team. The girls formed cheer squads for each grade's football team, so the third grade girls cheer for the third grade boys. But if you have a male sibling playing football, they will let the girls from other grades cheer for their brother's team (Thank the Lord!) so that means my 5 YO kindergartener is cheering on a team with girls serveral years older and a few in between. There are three high school and middle school cheerleaders that help coach the girls and they are fantastic with the young ones! I love them to pieces but they are teenagers and don't always understand Faith's hearing loss and how it affects her (not their fault at all), but they do make an effort and I appreciate all they do. So that sets up my proud-momma-moment.
 El shaddai - God is SufficientOur God is so good! I am amazed by the care He takes to comfort me in times of despair. Mark was laid off from his job last week and quite frankly, I am scared to death! Then on Sunday, I was driving out to my mother's house and a small miracle happened. The drive itself was unusual in that I was driving the Mustang and didn't have kids with me. Since I was in the Mustang, the radio was on (the on/off button is broken and if I managed to turn it off, Mark would shoot me!). Because of my hearing loss, I very rarely listen to the radio since it is just meaningless noise most of the time. The only songs I can really enjoy are old songs, ones that I learned and remember from before the onset of my hearing loss. The radio station Mark usually listens to is a contemporary Christian station and I honestly wasn't paying any attention to the songs - they were all recent releases I didn't know and couldn't understand. Then a familiar melody began to play. A simple song carrying a very strong message delivered just as I was wrestling with the fear of how my family was going to survive.
El Shaddai by Amy Grant From Hebrews 4 Christians: The All-Sufficient God (click on the link to read more)
He is sufficient! He will provide! He will bless us if we are faithful to trust in Him! What an awesome God we serve! I hope you take a moment to watch the video and be blessed! 
A Request to Blog!I have to say, TulipGirl made my day (maybe even my weeek!) I had a comment this morning that someone actually checks my blog! Whoohoo! LOL!! I am such a bad blogger! I think about it often and then I get busy on something else. I realized that my last post was the beginning of the school year and now here we are winding down. So much has happened this year!
Chelsea did go to private school, had a rough start because of the higher academic expectations, overcame and made some huge strides, got a part in the school play, had some awesome teachers, made some friends, and now she has decided to go back to public school for her senior year. It's not what I would choose for her, but we promised her the choice if she would try private school for a year. I am proud of her for trying it and how far she has come!
Foster has had a great year. He and his best friend, G. have survived the year with friendship intact. They get regular playdates after school and he sees G. on Wednesdays when the homeschoolers come to campus for their programs.
Faith has not let the hearing loss slow her down at all! Neither has Ella! Both girls recently scored above age level on all of their language tests. I am still worried about Faith's pre-reading skills, but all I have to compare her to is Foster (not the norm! His reading scores came back at 9.o recently, yes that's a 9th grade reading level - he's only in second grade). Everyone tells me she is just fine and right on track so I am trying not to worry! Ella is communicating up a storm. Just in the past month of so it seems she made the shift from repeating things that she hear to expressing her own ideas. Now she isn't completely talking in understandable sentences, but she definitely gets her point across! There other day Faith was at Granny's and Ella and I were at our house. Ella comes up to me with the phone. "Bai(t)... Bai(t)...!" (That's Ella's way of saying "Faith", the (t) is very soft.)
Me: Faith is at Granny's, Honey! What are you doing with the phone? Oh, do you want to call Faith?"
Ella nods furiously and hands me the phone. I call explain to my mom that Ella wants to talk to Faith and Faith gets on the phone. I hand the phone to Ella.
Ella: Bai(t)? Bai(t)? Where you?
Faith: I am at Granny's.
Ella: Wha' doin'?
Faith: Playing outside.
Ella: Dogs?
Faith: Yes, I am playing with the dogs.
Ella: Dogs! (I think this meant something like "Pet the dogs for me!" It was a statement where as the previous "dogs" was definitely a question.)
Faith: Okay!
Ella: Bye-bye! Ha' guhh da! (Have a good day! We always say this in the morning when dropping the kids off for school and Ella has picked it up. In her vocabulary, it goes with "bye-bye". LOL!)
Faith: Bye!
 So there you have it! A complete telephone conversation from my hard-of-hearing 20 month old! I was so proud and a little amazed! Even all the therapy and testing and assurances from professionals didn't ease my fears as much as that innocent exchange between sisters on the phone. She's doing fine!
Here's a fairly recent photo of Ella. You can see her sparkly ear molds if you look closely.  Back to Schol!The first day of school and with it come some major stress in our household! Our oldest daughter, Chelsea, made a huge decision to change school her junior year. I have to tell you that I am so proud of her in that decision. Foster has been attending a private school since Pre-K but Chelsea would never consider 'wearing those goofy uniforms everyday' (her words, not mine). Well, toward the end of the year last year, she approached us and said she thought she wanted to give it a try! What an answer to prayer! I have long felt like it would be a much better environment for her but only if it was what she wanted. Trying to force her into it would have been a huge disaster. It was a rough year for her, loosing Shelbie, seeing her other friends making poor choices, and another less than stellar experience with a poorly qualified math teacher. I think she knew she would be better off doing something different. That all being said, it doesn't make change any easier! The first day of a new school is scary! She was nervous but I am sure by now, she has already settled in and is making tons of new friends, because that is the way Chelsea is, but that is also what the kids at the private school are like, too!
 Ella's Big Day!June 12, the day Ella got her hearing aids! Now since Ella is only 9 months old it was not the huge hearing breakthrough that happened with Faith, but I do think she can tell the difference in how she hears. The first photo is of her sitting in Granny's lap is just after the first aid was put into her left ear for the first time. Her eyes got big and she looked around; it seems by the look on her face that something is different as Granny is talking to her. She quickly decided, however that putting in the earmolds was no fun at all, and having stuff in her ears was less than pleasant. Ella may hold the record for figuring out how to remove new ear molds faster than any other 9 month old! After a while, she began bothering them less and less. Maybe she will eventually get used to them (I hope!!). She has also already figured out that they make handy teethers.   That brings me to her other big news this week; Ella has teeth! Her first two bottom teeth came through on Saturday. She is all of a sudden much more interested in 'real food'; I guess since she now has teeth she thinks that she ought to be using them! Last night she sucked/gummed/teethed all the inside mushy part out of a french fry and enjoyed it very much! LOL!  Faith also got her new hearing aids yesterday! Now, all three of us have matching pink Epoq XW's (the girls didn't get a Streamer though, that's Mom's toy!). We all have sparkles in our earmolds too, but they are all different collors: Faiths are pink with pink sparkles, Ella's are light pink and clear swirled with silver sparkles, and mine are clear with pink sparkles! Faith said she could tell a difference in how she hears between the Safran and the Epoqs. I think it was a good decision to go ahead and move her up (now just praying insurance pays the difference, I could fill a whole nother blog on my adventures with the insurance company! LOL!). Faith is really looking forward to her camp at the Hearing School next week; I think it will be good for her, even if it is just that she gets to be around other kids with hearing loss (but I know it will be a whole lot more!). More Recent Articles |
