New Larissa Photos

Katya building a tower

Katya was balancing blocks today. The first time I have seen her do this. She was pretty pleased with herself.

iPhone woes - the result

Vodafone gave me a new iPhone.

Final???... building work

I got bounced by the WCC for my building consent over the height of the ceiling in my stairs. This weekend my father and I made the alterations.

We had agreement we needed to achieve 1940mm height. We have achieved 1980mm as a minimum.

Fun today

We had a fun day today, even with visiting the doctors.

I bought Katya a giant ball which she just went nuts about. And Mainly Music was great.

Weekend and CYFS

We had a great weekend up north with Larissa. Forgot my camera so no pics.

Larissa is bubbling along. She loves her jolly jumper and will give a great big grin and then bounce like mad. If you are lucky she will do a little squeal for joy as well.

Katya was excellent. She wore her glasses and processors practically constantly. She is playing with her cousins better and better each time she goes up. AND her flying is just legendary. She was pretty tied on the late flight we got back but sat in her seat and pulled her seat belt together like a pro.

Today we had a good morning and then Katya has a huge 3 hour sleep. She has a little cold/cough which I think she was trying to sleep off. Either that or she was really enjoying her own bed.

We also had a visit from CYFS. I have to say I feel the same feeling I had dealing with Maternal Mental Health (that sense of dealing with people who think they can help but actually can't). They can provide absolutely no useful support to us but want us to dance through hops (regular meetings, Risk Management Plans, Reports, Letters from Doctors...). This of course is not exceptionally helpful with the stresses and strains we are currently facing.

The most outstanding part of our meeting was their desire to have a Risk Management Plan for when Claire re-enters the family. I was happy to do this (I have already thought it all through anyway) and asked for them to provide their standard template so I could fill it out. Hmmm... they don't have one!!! Can you believe it? They say that they need to be happy with the RMP but don't have a standard one so you know what issues you need to address. They eventually agreed to develop one and send it to me.

The lack of systemisation in these softer areas of social work and mental health has been excused for far too long. The rigour of structured processes with the ability to slide outside these disciplines from time to time is so needed and would be the biggest revolution in their respective areas on a few decades.

So what started as a pretty good day crashed and burned in the afternoon with the CYFS visit. It is so frustrating dealing with people who think they are being helpful but are actually a hinderance. Fortunately the evening was pretty good. I bought Katya a bathing doll as she has not been happy having a bath. This worked. I put the doll and her little bath in the bath and Katya got keen to follow!!! And her bump around her processor has gone down as well.

So hopefully back on the upwards track again tomorrow.

Lots of photos

Katya's Mainly Music 10 year part outfit. She refused to actually wear it at the event.
One of Katya's first photos... as in she took it.
The MM party
More party
William VR!!!
Snack time afterwards.
Sharon under-cover
Yum! Cheese.
Chaos.
More chaos.

How to learn to blow bubbles. Drink the liquid and blow!!! I hope it is not toxic!!!
Hudson's blue lollie pop!!!
More bubbles.
A very light weight and balanced VR!!!

iPhone woes

My iPhone is dead. It has been playing up for the last few weeks. Today I did a complete restore. It seemed to be fine but now it is stone cold dead.

Katya's Ears

Katya has completely climbed back into using her ears. There is still a bump but it is not affecting her.

Tonight she insisted on going to sleep with her right processor on. I will sneak in later and retrieve and dry it.

AppleCare

If you want to know how much warrantee you have left on your Apple product... go here

https://selfsolve.apple.com/GetWarranty.do

Two new phrases!

Tonight was awesome!

Katya was playing with her play kitchen and put something in the play microwave. She then pressed the buttons, turned to me and with the "around-around" gesture, said "around-around". YES SHE SAID "AROUND AROUND"!!!

But there is more.

Less than 20 seconds later she raised her finger... which means WAIT... and said "one moment".

Two phrases in 20 seconds!!!

These are phrases I have been using with these gestures for ages. And now she can not only understand them but also tell me them back.

I have to admit, after all the emotion of the last few months, this just made me cry! But this time with happiness.

She has also started to understanding the word "leave". And foot/feet is firmly established as well.

This is pretty exciting stuff.

Tomorrow we are off to the ENT person to see what is causing the bump near her right hand implant site. It doesn't appear to be going down even with anti-biotics.

Oh... and I have cracked how to feed her antibiotics. I feed her it with lumps of canned fruit. She downed a whole can of fruit salad tonight!!!

Sand art performance - BestofYouTube.com

Sand art performance - BestofYouTube.com

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This is awesome!

A bad run...

We have had a bad run the last week or so with Katya. It started with a cold. This went to asthma. Then she got an ear infection and she has ended up on anti-biotics.
HOWEVER... because of the ear infection she has gone right off her right CI. In fact the infection seem to impact her CI site so the magnet would not stick.
SO... after a really really good run, I now have a lot of work to do to get her back using her right 'ear'. Even getting her left ear on is pretty hard work at the moment.
STILL... I just have to remember that I have 34 years on her and I can be more patient (or is that more stubborn) than her and eventually she will forget they are on.
One of my tricks is to put the processor on her with it powered off. Then when she is busy with something quiet, switch it on. This is quite a change because I could pop the processors on two weeks ago on full volume powered on and she was fine.

3 News > Video > Campbell Live > Deaf baby can now share his parents' love of music

3 News > Video > Campbell Live > Deaf baby can now share his parents' love of music


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An interesting news article on Cochlear Implants