Thursday, May 10, 2012

Hello!

I'm supervising breakfast at home right now and taking a break from writing papers for school. I should keep doing schoolwork, but I miss it here. So I'm popping in to say hi.

McCall1


This past month or so has been been big for us...Seth's ears turned three, and he received a software update with new sound processing strategies that dramatically improve his hearing in noise. Usually when I vacuum, Seth pulls his magnets off until I'm done because it's all too loud and he can't hear anything else. But the other day when I started sweeping, I noticed he still had his ears on.

"Hey Seth, is the vacuum too loud?" I asked.

"Nope! Quiet!" He answered.

How cool is that? ClearVoice, this sound processing software, takes away the sounds that don't matter so that speech is easier to hear. In fact, I quickly learned as Seth continued to talk to me in a conversational tone as I swept, he was actually hearing better than I could with the background noise of the television and vacuum. He ended up super annoyed at me because I kept asking him to repeat what he said. It's a pretty good problem to have!

McCall7

A couple of weeks ago we volunteered at a 5K run called the Talk Walk Run. It was a fundraiser for HEAR Indiana and although the weather was freezing cold and wet, we were able to reconnect with some old friends and meet some new ones. Since we moved here, we have yet to see another kid with cochlear implants, so we've been feeling a little isolated. In Indianapolis, where the run took place, there are more CI Kids, and I was really excited to see what Seth though. Now that he's nearly four, he's noticing things a lot more. As we ate breakfast at our hotel before the race, Seth noticed another little boy coming into the room who had CIs. He literally gasped. "Hey!" He shouted. "Mom! MOM! He has EARS!" He then turned around backwards in his chair so that he could see the boy better and ate the rest of his breakfast that way. He was too shy to talk to him, but boy, did seeing another kid with "ears" like him make his day. Later, at the race, he was running around like a chicken with his head cut off pointing out all the people with CIs. "Ears! Ears!" It was really cool to see how excited he was to see other kids and adults who were just like him. Hopefully everyone realized that the kid running around pointing them out was doing it in a positive way!

McCall14


All in all we're just in a really great stage right now. Coen is ten months old, and although he is a horrific, terrible, very bad sleeper, he is great during the day. He's quite charming and can hold his own with the bigger kids, and he has a pretty impressive sense of humor already. But the nights? Oh my. A few weeks ago I had to go take a PRAXIS test a few hours away and John suggested that I go the night before so that I would make sure to make it to the test on time (Yes, I am always late). I wasn't sure about it, since I'd never spent a night away from Coen, but he insisted that everything would be fine, so I went.

McCall16


It was heaven. I never even opened my laptop. I got there, ate dinner, put my pajamas on, watched some of "A Cinderella Story", and fell asleep by nine o'clock. I woke up once around four A.M. searching frantically for Coen and worried because he hadn't woken me, but then I realized I was in Toledo and passed back out until seven. That night is easily on my top ten list of best nights ever, although I was thrilled to see all the kids when I got home after my test! And in a nice bit of validation for me, John said "I have no idea how you do this" when I got home.

McCall18


The weather here is beautiful right now...it's one of the best times of year to live in Indiana, and we are doing a lot of playing outside. Ava and Jace seem to have acquired a little gang of friends in the neighborhood and our doorbell is ringing constantly. Evany and Seth have teamed up to create chaos whenever possible, and I can honestly say that I'm enjoying the ages of all of my kids right now. It's so fun to watch them build relationships with one another. As an only child, I really want my kids to have strong bonds within their family, and it's really nice seeing the foundations of those bonds being built.
McCall17


I am turning thirty in less than a month and getting remarried in less than two. According to my children, thirty is quite old. Ancient, basically. So that's nice.

And that's what we're up to, pretty much. It's pretty great, in fact.


McCall6


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